Government Failure Fighter

Here's the story of a member of Congress, CONGRESSMAN RYAN, who fought against the government failure at the bottom of this financial crisis:

"Mr. Ryan is among the former. As early as 2000 he was warning in House hearings that Fan and Fred were rushing into subprime loans and mortgage-backed securities, growing and concentrating their risk, and putting taxpayers on the hook. He's so vociferously called for more supervision that he was once stalked by a Fannie Mae lobbyist.

In 2002 he co-sponsored legislation that would have put these beasts under SEC accounting standards. Fan and Fred, and their congressional enablers, killed it in committee. In 2005 he signed on to a bill that would have subjected the giants to modest reform. The Fan-Fred alliance speared it in the Senate.

In 2007, Mr. Ryan opposed a proposal by Texas Republican Randy Neugebauer to gut systemic risk protections for the duo. It passed 383 to 36, with 162 Republicans voting for the companies. Many were the same members who this week thought it too politically risky to stabilize a market rocked by the very Fan-Fred privileges they granted."

Note the "as early as 2000," as well as the fact that this member of Congress tried to get legislation as early as 2002. I think Mr. Ryan's story trumps Senator Obama's story (paraphrasing): "I wrote letters each of the past two years."