ACORN responds to McCain:"The Real Story of the Financial Crisis 1999-2008"

ACORN and John McCain: The Real Story of the Financial Crisis 1999-2008

October 17, 2008 – ACORN President Maude Hurd released the following statement in announcing ACORN's new report, "ACORN and John McCain: The Real Story of the Financial Crisis 1999-2008:"

On the heels of recent attempts by the McCain-Palin campaign to shamelessly shift blame for the current financial crisis, ACORN has released a report that examines the facts by looking at the roles of ACORN and Senator McCain in the decade leading up to the current crisis.

Senator John McCain's recent campaign ad, released October 10, 2008, bizarrely claimed, "ACORN forced banks to issue risky home loans, the same types of loans that caused the financial crisis we're in today." Nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth is, ACORN has worked successfully to help tens of thousands of working class families get good home loans on fair terms from legitimate banks. Over a ten-year period, ACORN helped families build an estimated $6 billion of wealth through home ownership, and helped save another $6.2 billion in fees and interest. At the same time, ACORN has led the fight against predatory lenders. For more than a decade, ACORN members have advocated for regulations to protect homeowners, and ACORN organizers and volunteers have been working day and night to help victims of the economic meltdown to save their homes from foreclosure.

ACORN has a real record on the economy. ACORN organized major class action lawsuits against predatory lenders (such as Household Finance Corporation and Wells Financial Corporation), winning millions back for victims. ACORN campaigned nationwide against predatory lenders like New Century and Ameriquest. ACORN community leaders met directly with the head of the Federal Reserve and federal regulators and testified before Congress to warn about subprime lending and urge regulation.

In comparison, John McCain's record on this is so limited that it is an embarrassment. There is not a single mention of predatory lending on documents from his senate website which date back to 1988. There is only 1 mention of foreclosure, coming recently from a speech he made in March of this year – a speech about earmarks. This is an extremely deficient record from the Senator whose state has the third highest rate of foreclosure in the country. As a point of contrast, a search on www.acorn.org yields 479 hits about foreclosure, and 737 hits about predatory lending.

In looking at our report, and the totality of their records, it is clear that ACORN has fought on the front lines for over a decade to prevent this crisis, while Senator McCain sat on the sidelines and cheered on the deregulation of the financial services industry.

The report is available at http://0.acorn.org/fileadmin/Reports/McCain_Report.pdf


17-10-08 13:43