Republi-Con Myth Busters

On the the last show, a caller made a comment that American corporations pay the second highest tax rate in the world. The another caller, Julia I think, countered that the claim was false and referred me to a study by the Government Accountability Office regarding the tax burden of of U.S. corporations, which I posted as a show link.

Touché Julia.

She then wanted to respond to another Republi-con myth but time was short. So Julia left a comment and said:

Here's another myth to bust, the one claiming that basically the government caused the sub-prime melt down by Forcing good old American financial institutions to lend money in poor neighborhoods. I really love this myth because it serves to put the blame simultaneously on the boogy man GOVernment AND POOR PEOPLE AT THE SAME TIME!! How often does that opportunity present itself??

What a shame that neither of these is true.

Here is a link to the full article along with a thumbnail sketch of it:

Hannity baselessly blamed Democrats, CRA for financial crisis

Summary: Sean Hannity baselessly asserted that "[t]he federal government and the Democrats ... forced these banks, through the Community Reinvestment Act, to make these risky loans," adding, "The risky loans started the subprime mortgage crisis, which impacted all these financial institutions, which needed government bailouts." In fact, according to housing experts, the vast majority of subprime loans were made by independent lenders not covered by the CRA.

Julia's post gave me the idea to start the Republi-Con Myth Buster. So here is the first in an occasional posting titled as such.

The false Republi-con premise: Democrats and the Community Reinvestment Act are responsible for the current financial crisis.

The truth:

Democrats are not responsible for the current financial crisis (beginning about the sixth paragraph).

The Community Reinvestment Act is not responsible for the current financial crisis, it was the Republi-con worship of excessive deregulation and Bush.

Two myths slain.

Remember, how can you tell if a Republi-con is lying? His/her lips are moving.