Limbaugh, Again Confused

I enjoy periodically tuning in to Rush Limbaugh's program with the intent of leaving it on until he says something ridiculous. Today, July 22, 2008, I listened longer than normal, almost two minutes.

Limbaugh was complaining about sponsorship by the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and Citizenship Education Fund Annual Conference. The event, described here as "Jesse Jackson's main fundraising event of the year," took place June 28 through July 2 in Chicago.

I don't know why Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sponsored the annual conference of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. But I do know that Limbaugh, after referring to the two corporations as "federal government private sector (which is impossible) mortgage loan institutions," claimed "they're giving men (sic) to the Reverend Jackson. Yet people want more of this! They want more government; I don't get it."

More government? Although founded as a government agency in 1938, Fannie May was converted into a private corporation in 1968. And its own website describes Freddie Mac as "owned by its shareholders and, like other corporations, is accountable to its shareholders and a board of directors." Like it or not, the federal government is socializing risk by bailing out these two corporations. This is not a failure of government, but of two corporations now coming to the taxpayers for handouts- i.e., welfare. True, the federal government has not covered itself with glory in its handling of the mortgage crisis, but then, the Executive Branch has been in singularly incapable hands for almost eight years due in part to Limbaugh, Scalia, and others who thwarted the popular will in 2000.