Editor, In reading various articles in the newspapers or magazines over the years about the foreclosure of many citizens’ homes, none of the articles mention that President Obama helped to perpetuate these sub prime loan as far back as 1992.
The seeds of today’s finanicial meltdown lie in the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a law which passed in 1997. While over the years with government backing of Fannie and Freddie which are Government Sponsored Entities (GSE), there have also been a number of elected officials who have taken advantage of this law, including Obama. He is as guilty as any of them for our financial crisis (outside what he has done since elected) and it galls me to see him criticize the banks as he has.
Obama was hired as ACORN’s lawyer  by 1993.At that time, he sued the state of Illinois to make voter registration laxer for minorities and was also asked to train ACORN’s community organizers and staff how to stage “in your face” protests in bank lobbies, drive-thru lanes and even at bank managers’ homes to get them to issue risky loans in the inner city or face claim of racism.
In 1994, as ACORN’s lawyer, Obama, along with other lawyers, sued Citibank allegedly stating the bank was redlining in the Chicago metropolitan area. Citibank settled, the details not known except for the settlement of the attorneys’ fees of $950,000. In fact, intimidation tactics, public charges of racism and threates to use CRA to block business expansion have enabled ACORN to exract hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and contributions from America’s finanicial institutions.
As I see it, Obama has caused a financial burden on those people who bought a home, but lost it because they really did not have the means to purchase the house and the cost to financial institutions surely raised the rates to the customers of each banks.

— Liz Bartlett, Richmond Hill