Maxine is going after the banks
Waters has it in for banks. She blames them for the 2 million loans to low-income borrowers that went sour more than a decade ago, causing widespread foreclosures and the 2008 financial meltdown.
“I have not forgotten,” she warned bankers as she prepared for her powerful new role, that “you foreclosed on our houses . . . had us sign on the line for junk and for mess that we could not afford.” She added: “I’m going to do to you what you did to us.”
That’s Waters’ distorted interpretation of what happened. In fact, throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Congress used the Community Reinvestment Act and anti-discrimination laws to coerce banks into making mortgage loans to low-income borrowers with lousy credit ratings and, in some cases, no down payment.
The idea was to promote minority home ownership. But when the borrowers couldn’t pay, lawmakers turned on the banks, accusing them of predatory lending. Waters is poised to repeat that failed experiment.
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