in 2009 the Barney Frank's Financial Services Committee put forth a bill, later passed by the House, which would restrict compensation for executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Darrell Issa voted against it. Now Issa blames Barney Frank and the Democrats for the multi-million dollar bonuses.
On April 1, 2009, H.R. 1664 came to the House floor for a vote. The bill would, "amend the executive compensation provisions of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 to prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards." This bill would have limited, among other things, excessive bonuses awarded to executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
As expected, 237 Democrats voted in favor of the bill, and 163 Republicans, including Darrell Issa, voted against it. Only 18 members voted against their party's wishes.
Now, as part of his ongoing campaign to rewrite history, Darrell Issa tries to bamboozle the press, most notably Politico, into believing that the Democrats applied one standard to wall street and a different standard to the GSEs.
“While the Obama administration wants to pay senior officials at Fannie and Freddie like bank executives, the federal government has plenty of employees at the Department of Housing, Treasury, and other agencies who work to advance the president’s policies for far less,” Issa said before Wednesday hearings about the bonuses. “The administration’s case for these exorbitant payments is based on highly dubious assumptions.”
It's a small footnote in the broader disinformation campaign about the financial crisis, which Barry Ritholtz accurately labeled as, "The Big Lie."