'Mr. No Bailout' getting noticed

By Halimah Abdullah
HABDULLAH@HERALD-LEADER.COM

WASHINGTON -- It's no secret that Sen. Jim Bunning is deeply critical of how the Federal Reserve is run. The Kentucky Republican isn't exactly mum during his weekly teleconferences with reporters on how underwhelmed he is by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's job performance.

But the nation's mortgage meltdown, Senate passage of a recent housing bill laden with tax breaks for home builders, and the rescue of Bear Stearns by the Federal Reserve have Bunning practically fuming.

"How big do you have to be to be too big to fail?" Bunning asked during a recent Senate Banking Committee hearing on the Bear Stearns buyout. "Who let our entire financial system become so fragile that one failure jeopardizes the health of the entire system?"

Last week, national and international news media keyed in on the Hall of Fame pitcher-turned-lawmaker from the Bluegrass State.

Take for example this snippet from a Los Angeles Times blog, which dubbed Bunning "Mr. No Bailout" for his harsh criticism and vote against the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, a measure that industry analysts say does more to help home builders than homeowners.

One blogger, Firesale, wrote: "I guess that solves it. BUNNING FOR PRESIDENT!"

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Comments

[Jim Anderson Stivers]

Correct me if I am wrong . . . but . . .
isn't Bunning a member of the Senate Banking Committee?

Where was this ALOOF Senator for the past five or so years when predictors stalked the underfunded and approved the value of a home loan to be 125% of its value, without even looking at the property the brokers were funding?

If Bunning and members of the Senate Banking Committee did not have their head up their you know what, then they could have done something, a time back . . .to address this meltdown in the Mortgage business.

It is the same old same old, the lobby has much more power than a politicain answering the public . . . for making bad public policy and looking the other say while middle America was raped . . .by big business.