One of the knocks against U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney is that he’s kind of an asshole (or is an asshole). And maybe that’s an accurate criticism.
But he’s our kind of asshole. And if you care about the billions being pissed away daily by government on incompetence, corruption, market manipulation and other anti-competitive behavior (money that’s coming out of your wallet and the wallets of your kids and grandkids) … he should be your kind of asshole too.
Take this week’s meeting of the U.S. House Financial Services committee – which heard testimony from leaders of the U.S. Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in the wake of the agency’s request for a $1.7 billion bailout. Originally, U.S. President Barack Obama had sought $943 million to cover the agency’s losses – but apparently that wasn’t enough to make up for all the losers it picked in the mortgage market.
Anyway, Democrats (and some “Republicans”) in Washington have spouted a bunch of tired old rhetoric in their effort to defend this bailout.
“We must strive to have a healthy, viable FHA that can continue to facilitate homeownership for first-time and low-income homebuyers, while standing ready in the unfortunate event of another housing downturn,” U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters said in endorsing the bailout.
Really? Isn’t that view exactly what landed us in this recession in the first place?
Anyway, Mulvaney – a member of the committee – had planned on grilling FHA administrator Carol J. Galante about her agency’s policy of insuring of homes seized by government through eminent domain.
But then the bureaucrat (who makes $150,000 a year, not counting benefits) made a comment about how she didn’t “make much money” and “still got paid” whether her agency performed well or performed poorly. That’s when Mulvaney flipped (literally) … launching into one of the most effortless eviscerations of an incompetent government official we’ve ever seen.
Take a look …
(Click to play)
“What does it take to get you fired?” Mulvaney asked Galante.
“I serve at the pleasure of the president,” she responded.
But that pointed exchange wasn’t the kicker … not even close. Mulvaney was just getting warmed up.
Filled with what we can only describe as the political equivalent of the Holy Spirit, Mulvaney unloaded on Galante with a rant that would have made Howard Beale (or Al Pacino) proud.
“I’ve been here three years. In the last year I’ve seen four people get killed in an embassy in Libya – and nobody got fired,” Mulvaney said. “I’ve seen (the) IRS turn on its own people and target people based on their political beliefs – and nobody has been fired. I’ve seen us spend half a billion dollars on a computer program that doesn’t work and nobody has been fired.”
Mulvaney went on to contrast these egregious failures of accountability with the Obama administration’s decision to terminate a single mother who had the “audacity” to tell the truth about Obamacare’s disastrous launch.
She “immediately gets fired,” Mulvaney said.
“I just wanna know where the outrage is? I want to know where the even treatment is?” he continued. “I wanna know why somebody can come into this meeting and say ‘you know, I make the same if I do a good job or a lousy job and I don’t make that much it’s only $150,000 a year’ but we sit here and we have no outrage when ordinary Americans get treated poorly by their own government whether or not they’re being mistreated by an agency or whether or not they get fired!”
The lather was building …
“People are afraid of their government – they are afraid of exactly what Ms. Galante has said today – which is that we have a faceless bureaucrat who doesn’t really care if she does a good job or a bad job – she’s just here to pick up a check,” he said. “I wanna know where the outrage is!”
Exactly …
We are sure there are those on the left who will say Mulvaney treated Galante rudely. We would humbly submit that this “faceless bureaucrat” – who is asking for $1.7 billion of your money to cover losses on loans made without your permission – got treated far better than she deserves.
Props to Mulvaney. This is precisely the sort of ass-cutting we need much, much more of in our nation’s capital. Unfortunately, most “Republicans” are far too interested in “going along to get along.”
51 comments
A Bib Ass Cockroach munching on a Smaller Ass Cockroach is something to get excited about.
Don’t think so
Mulvaney is a know-nothing jerk.
And No, Will, that is not exactly what landed us in this recession.
“I serve at the pleasure of the president,” she responded.
And that’s when Bill Clinton popped in and shouted, “That’s what she said!”
It almost had an air of superiority to it. Maybe I’m just reading into it though.
My perception was, “The President is my boss, so tough shit Mick.”
Kudos to you for the funny comment regardless.
Sound and fury signifying absolutely nothing except grandstanding by little Mulvaney.
Would it be wrong or improper to simply say….. “Listen you self important asshole, you asked me a question by assuming a bunch of bullshit so I first have to get that shit straight so my answer will make some sense. And if you just want to cut me off when I am answering and listen to your own gums flap in the wind, I’ll just go back to my office and actually try to do something (even if I fail) while you grandstand and make yourself look good to the inbred idiots that voted for you in the first place.”
works for me
Your prose speaks highly of your ability to argue with yourself. LoL
“But then the bureaucrat (who makes $150,000 a year, not counting benefits)” Really?
Mulvaney makes $172,000 a year, plus government health care, plus government retirement. For what? He doesn’t do anything except sit around and figure out how to line his pockets. Mulvaney is worthless. Maybe he was looking in a mirror, and thinking, what would it take for those fools to fire me?
At least with that bureaucrat we are getting something for our money.
The US House is scheduled to work 8 days this month.
When Mick gets this agitated and harangues Eric Cantor to schedule HIS bunch to work at least 15 workdays out of 20 a month, I might take this twerp seriously.
I remember how excited mick was when his bull shit realestate investments got bailed out by county tax payers to the tune of about $30 million – now that he just loved.
P.S. Fits, less then 5% of the loans that failed during the recession were commnunity reinvestment act loans. If you really think the recession was created by a housing bubble to $80,000.00 home owners the banks were “forced” to make – read some history and get a clue.
I have my doubts on your 5% number but I’m not compelled to research it further at this time.
That being said, it wasn’t the “default” of the CRA that was the primary issue right after the bust, it was the bubble creation itself with the argument being that the CRA artificially drove prices in general up because of the increased number of buyers on the market.
Regardless though, your point about Mulvaney getting a bailout is duly noted.
Carry on.
?, page xxvii of the soft back addition of the financial crisis commission report noted that only 6 percent of the subprime loans, by 2008, were comprised of CRA loans and that CRA loans were 50 percent less likely to have defaulted in the same neighborhood as those by other lenders or programs, eg non-government incntivised loans to the poor. Isn’t the exact same statement as the above by fitsy, but does lend some credence.
Question, what other “program” would there be that wouldn’t be “non govt incentivised” to the poor outside of a private lender?
I find that language interesting. Usually “program” means something other than a private lender.
The collapse can be tied to one event. The repeal of the Glass -Steagall Act. What happen was predicted by those opposed to repeal, and their predictions came true almost to the letter. The failure to reinstate Glass-Steagall is why the economy remains at risk for another such collapse.
“The collapse can be tied to one event. The repeal of the Glass -Steagall Act.”
Complete bullshit.
All you have to do is look at what happened. Wall Street came out of the collapse smelling like a rose while everyone else suffered. If Glass Steagall had not been repealed, there would have been no bail out. Mortgage backed securities would have been contained within the investment banking sector where they belonged. Those firms could have been allowed to go under without taking Main Street America down with them. I.E. there would have been no such thing as “to big to fail”.
Reinstate Glass-Steagall!
” If Glass Steagall had not been repealed, there would have been no bail
out. Mortgage backed securities would have been contained within the
investment banking sector where they belonged.”
Total BS, the bailout happens anyway(and your statement and mine are opinion on this point, not fact), but, more importantly(and is FACT) you never address the actual real estate bubble…which is amazing!
It was the asset bubble that drove the problems(on sheer scale).
Further, you also don’t address the bailouts on AIG & GM which had nothing to do with investment banking(shooting down your theory that bailouts wouldn’t have happened) aside from the fact that “Main Street” doesn’t sink without bailouts as you have the $100K FDIC(later raised) in conjunction with 7000 other banks!
You’ve bought into “systemic risk” hook, line and s(t)inker with no real proof.
The purposes of Glass Steagall was to insulate the savings of the average American from the risks of wall street. If Glass Steagall had remained in place I don’t really think the bubble would have occurred. But even if it had, the bursting of the bubble would have had a much, much smaller impact. The bulk of the loss would have fallen on people with significant assets in the Stock Market (i.e. the risk takers). That would only be a small fraction of Americans. It would not impact the assets people considered secure, like CDs and Checking accounts.
It is far more difficult to justify significant intervention to save investment bankers, than it is to save every mom and pop business in America, and every family from bankruptcy, because their bank went under and they lost their life savings, and their month to month operating cash.. i.e. no money to buy food, clothing and utilities. Remember the food lines and Hoover towns of the Great Depression?
The auto bailouts were different. Those were designed to save an industry and thousands of middle class jobs. They were insignificant in the grand scheme of the crisis, and the taxpayers actually made a profit on those bailouts. While we can debate all day whether that should have happened, it is not a major part of the economic collapse.
“The purposes of Glass Steagall was to insulate the savings of the average American from the risks of wall street. If Glass Steagall had remained in place I don’t really think the bubble would have occurred. But even if it had, the bursting of the bubble would have had a much, much smaller impact.”
See what you just did there? You answered your own question and also admitted that there was a bubble.
Glass-Steagall had nothing to do with bubble. It’s a MSM talking point. No one can explain how the separation would have made the bubble smaller. (becuase it wouldn’t have)
Glass-Steagall was the justification for bailing out the TBTF’s, nothing more.
My argument is that there are 7000 banks and that 50% of them were fiscally sound and the FDIC was there already to protect Main St. for those that weren’t. (which is why the upped the amount to $250k)
You can’t argue against that. It is the WHOLE REASON BACK ACCOUNTS ARE GUARANTEED.
You’ve been successfully duped, which is “ok” if you actually learn latter how/why. If you close your eyes to it you only have yourself to blame when the 2nd round of bailouts come(and they will).
Btw, I should add that to the “2nd round of bailouts” comment the fact that the TBTF’s are still being bailed out to the tune of 40 something billion/month (for quite some time now) buy the support of MBS’s via QE….so when I refer to a “2nd round” it’s quite amazing that they will still need more and a separate amount in the future.
For further clarification, maybe we should expand the scope of discussion to all government subsidized programs to help explain the housing market bubble, for example that would include FHA, sub-prime via Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, HUD, etc.
In other words, government involvement and distortion/subsidy in the real estate market in general caused an artificial and unsustainable asset bubble(IMO) in a variety of areas beyond just the CRA.
That’s aside from money printing and the ongoing MBS purchases by our gov’t via the Fed/QE.
That’s great – does it tell you in there that those other sub prime loans were forced on the lenders by the actions of our “Community Orgnaizer in Chief” and others?
No, because that would be just another Fox (Fake) News story. In other words a lie.
If your revisionist take regarding how the CRA did not cause the 2008 recession is that disordered, likely your accusation against Mick is equally disjointed.
Gee Bill, I suppose we should see elections as a bureaucracy according to your incoherent rant? We have better kool-aid drinkers on this site who are just as brain dead as you. The sad reality is once you are hired by a federal agency, you will not be fired for not even rising up to the basic standards of their job description. Less than one half of one percent of all federal workers in 2011 were fired, five times less than the private sector for example. It gets better if you dare to compare Pelosi to Mulvaney.
As with many topics, you are completely ignorant concerning dismissal of federal government employees. Figures lie and they can also mislead. It is infinitely easier to get a federal employee to see the writing on the wall and resign rather than to be subjected to a dismissal procedure. Which would you rather have on your employment record, resignation or dismissal? But that may be hard for you to answer based on what is on your public record.
Hey Mick,
Can I have the $24 Billion you cost us on the shutdown.
Only in Washington D.C. can you have a shutdown and it cost $24 Billion.
I’d love to know how that number was calculated…
Heck, I am amazed it did not cost more. The Government did not save anything. All the government employees who were laid off were paid. So they just received a paid vacation.
The people who were seriously hurt are government contractors, their employees, their suppliers, and the employees of their suppliers. The economic impact of shutting down those businesses, delayed buying, and the effect on their employees along with pulling government spending out of the general economy would easily affect GDP enough to reduce Government revenues by billions.
Then there is the revenue lost by the travel and hospitality industry as thousands of vacations were cancelled because national parks, national beaches, and national monuments were closed.
Then there is the impact from the IRS. Refunds were delayed, collections were delayed, house closings were delayed and undoubtedly some closing fell through.
I could go on, but 24 billion is certainly not unlikely.
You obviously do not own and have not owned a business, if you believe a shutdown cost nothing.
I guess Obama got what he wanted, right along with the rest of the Democrats and Republicans.
Sure, take it out of the SNAP program on November first when the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 cuts their provisions. Oh, that’s right, you already are.
What does it take to get fired by Obama?
Ans: Telling the truth
How right you are. Just on the Obamacare failure alone, his leadership through his appointed administrators shows that they keep their jobs even while failing to perform their basic job descriptions and whistle blowers will be fired the “next day” for snitching, contrary to his “Insider Threat Program”, as evident by that poor call center worker getting fired for speaking the truth.
Sebelius tomorrow in front of Energy & Commerce committee, should be interesting, how I wish Rowdy Gowdy was on that committee.
John Lewis made a fool of himself today.
Oh, everyone knows what Gowdy would say:
“Fast and Furious blah, blah, blah. Bengazy blah, blah, blah.”
Pinhead Gowdy makes a fool of himself anytime he shows up.
I’ll take Mulvaney over all of Georgia’s, North Carolina’s and Tennessee’s delegations.
Given his past alliances with Barney Frank to cut the military?
Mulvaney was on CNBC bragging about that last week.
Well you need to understand how things operated when little Mulvaney was in the military…OH!, wait!
When, exactly did Mick do this? He wasn’t even a Congressman until 2011 and Frank was gone by then.
Barney didn’t leave until Jan 2013.
CNBC – Mick on Barney -http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000057629
MSNBC – Barney on Mitt – http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rachel-maddow/48454281#48454281
Neither of your references played. But I remember what Mick said and he was misquoted by Frank. He WAS moved off the Chairmanship of the House Financial committee in 2011.
They just played for me again. So, try again.
Mick sure seemed to be taking credit for working with Barney last week.
Just because someone is no longer chairman of a committee does not mean they leave the committee, which is what you strongly imply by your use of the word ‘gone’.
I know people are afraid that those on and around Shaw AFB will realize what they have done by electing Mulvaney.
Mick has a record now. And, the Sumter Democrats are already talking to the press about how he cannot be depended on to protect Shaw.
You obviously don’t care for him, and that’s fine. I just don’t see him that way, and every time I’ve interviewed him, he has been spot on and up front – to throw around some tired cliches.
In other words, he said what he knew you wanted to hear.
He was? I knew it would be a waste of time to follow your links compelling you to conclude Rep Mulvaney worked with Frank to cut the military…and it was a waste of my time. Nothing in those links support your convoluted and disjointed accusation.
But can be be my Butthole Buddy??