Deadpan, Frank tells the crowd that Obama “downplayed” the extent of the economic crisis he inherited out of a desire to be “conciliatory” toward Republicans. He downplays the role the GSE policies he engineered played in the financial crisis, even as he admits that he never foresaw Fannie and Freddie’s impending doom. He volunteers that he has been a “consistent opponent” of free-trade agreements and advocates getting “much tougher” with China. He touches on his desire to cut defense spending by as much as $100 billion a year, saying that America’s military presence around the world “does more harm than good” and that “the era of the U.S. being military protector of the entire world . . . is over.” He touts the dubious “Cash for Clunkers” and first-time homebuyer subsidy programs he supported as “tax cuts,” and tells them he believes more “short-term stimulus” is necessary.
And perhaps most remarkable in a political season that is as hostile to pork as any in recent memory, Frank tells these businessmen he is “proud” of his earmarks — rattling off a series of local bridges and interchanges he secured congressional funding for and highlighting the more than half a million dollars he lined up for cranberry research.
Only on taxes does he take what might be construed as a nominally pro-market slant, guaranteeing that an onerous 1099 expensing requirement in Obamacare will be repealed in the lame-duck session — though leaving open the question of “how you offset it” — and suggesting that he would support an “accommodation” on capital-gains rates set to spike at the end of the year.
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