Senator: Fire 'Socialist' Paulson

Ky.'s Bunning appears to have problem with Fannie/Freddie move

By Wesley Oliver, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 9, 2008 5:45 PM CDT

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Senator: Fire 'Socialist' Paulson — Senator Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky) blamed the nation's economic crisis on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, whom he says poorly managed the mortgage market. (AP Photo)

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson saved Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but now he may have to worry about saving his own job: One Republican senator called his policies socialist and recommended that he and Fed chief Ben Bernanke resign, Bloomberg reports. “They have taken the free market out of the free market,” said Jim Bunning of Kentucky.

Bunning, who accused Paulson—a former Goldman Sachs CEO—of “acting like the minister of finance in China,” also blasted him in July for trying to keep the mortgage lenders afloat with government funds: “When I picked up my newspaper yesterday, I thought I woke up in France. But no, it turned out it was socialism here in the United States.” (More Henry Paulson stories.)

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