Enabler in Chief

If there is one politician who, above all else, shares the largest responsibility for the financial crisis, it is Representative Barney Frank. He aggressively pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to expand subprime lending, and he has continued to demonstrate his reckless disregard for sound financial policies by pushing for more aggressive lending to lower- quality borrowers since the financial crisis has begun.

So what is Barney Frank's latest gambit? He and fellow Democrat Walt Minnick wrote a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and FDIC Chairman Sheila Blair urging them to "show some temperance in their regulation of traditional banks.". Specifically, Barney Frank is worried that regulators are being too tough on smaller banks, many of whom have failed this year and many more which may fail due to poor loans quality.

Given the premises of our public-private financial system, this is exactly what regulators should be doing to protect taxpayers from shouldering an ever-higher cost to bail out these banks. Instead, Barney Frank wants these banks to get a break, at the risk of even greater taxpayer losses.

If Barney Frank were ever voted out of office, the stock market should rise 5% on the news - that's how harmful he has been and continues to be to America.