Frank-ly
During a second day of hearings about a possible $34 billion bailout for the Big Three U.S. automakers late last week, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., reminisced to the auto execs about the American cars that dominated her youth and the nicknames she gave them – a memory apparently not shared by openly gay House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., who presided over the hearing.
” We had Leroy and Big Blue and Crasher and Goldie, and then the one my dad drove, which was an old Chrysler wagon, and we called that Chick Magnet,” Capito said. “So everybody has a name or an attachment to — sorry, Mr. Chairman — for their automobiles.”
To which Frank responded: “Well, it’s just not something I’d ever want to drive.”
Frank was back at it on Monday, as he addressed the Office of Thrift Supervision’s National Housing Forum. Discussing what further action the government might take to jump-start the economy, he contrasted the semantic differences between “recovery” and “stimulus.”
“People say, ‘Would you rather recover or be stimulated?’ I think I’d rather be stimulated,” Frank said.
He also told the housing experts in the room how good they had it compared to carmakers, suggesting that they could “contemplate” the auto industry “to feel better about yourselves.”
