How AEI Kneecapped the Financial Crisis Commission

[marmar]

from Mother Jones:



When it came time for the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to unveil its final report on the causes of the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression, the commission's 11 members were bitterly divided. In the end, the FCIC's Republicans refused to put their names on the commission's final report. Instead, they released their own questionable narrative of what caused the crisis. Then there was Republican commissioner Peter Wallison, who broke with both Democrats and Republicans and published a solo report that, despite bundles of evidence to the contrary, pointed to government housing policy and fallen housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as the major causes of the financial crisis.

On the front page of his dissent Wallison listed his employer: the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an influential conservative think tank in Washington, DC, where he's a fellow in financial policy.

By claiming Fannie and Freddie triggered the crisis, Wallison had deployed a talking point straight out of the AEI playbook. Now, in a damning new report, the House oversight committee reveals that the ties between the FCIC's Republicans and AEI run much deeper than suspected—and that the influence of AEI-affiliated commissioners may have undermined the commission's work.

The House report, written by the committee's Democratic staff, resulted, ironically, from a prior investigation by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), then the committee's ranking member. That probe turned up more than 400,000 records related to the work of the commission's Democratic and Republican commissioners and staffs. (Issa is now the chairman of the oversight committee.) Issa alleged that the FCIC's Democrats and their staffs had mismanaged the commission's $8 million appropriation (it received an additional $1.8 million in July 2010) and had "extensive ties" to "partisan Democrat politics" that would skew the FCIC's final report on the causes of the crisis. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/07/republican-financial-crisis-wallison-commission