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Tag: borrowing

Bachmann Hypocrisy Rampant On Home Loans

Just weeks before she called for “breaking up” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “so that the encumbered taxpayer no longer backs them,” Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann received a $417,000 loan to purchase a 5200 square-foot golf-course home that experts say was definitely backed by one of the two lenders:

Seeing problems with the programs — especially the high costs to taxpayers — hasn’t stopped a concerned public or other members of Congress from taking advantage of the lower interest rates that come due to government backing.

Bachmann’s mortgage was part of a package of debt that she and her husband, Marcus, assumed to buy their home, public records show. They also have other loans, including a home equity line of credit, a business mortgage and another business loan for their Christian counseling clinics, bringing their liabilities to more than $1 million, according to the most recently available public records.

The Bachmanns’ assets, according to her latest financial disclosure statement, range between $862,018 and $2 million.

Bachmann’s campaign is predicated on her having a pristine reputation on the issues (especially among social conservatives) so she can build her policy credibility and tack to the center, at least rhetorically; botches like this — and the recently reported acceptance of Medicaid (welfare!) by her husband’s clinics — threaten her reputation of ideological purity.

Debt Ceiling Questions, Answered

A helpful primer for those who haven’t been following too closely:

Q. This sounds like an odd system. Do you mean that Congress can pass a budget that requires borrowing, and then argue later about whether to approve that borrowing?

A. That’s right. The system goes back to World War I, when Congress first put a limit on federal debt. The limit was part of a law that allowed the Treasury to issue Liberty Bonds to help pay for the war. The law was intended to give the Treasury greater discretion over borrowing by eliminating the need for Congress to approve each new issuance of debt. Over the years the limit has been raised repeatedly, to $14.3 trillion today from roughly $43 billion in 1940. But outside observers have noted that the failure to make increases in the debt limit part of the regular budget process can be risky.