Corporate sycophants

The Washington Post looks at the opposition to proposals from the Obama administration to reduce the federal government's role in the nation's housing market:

Real estate agents and home builders oppose policies that would shrink the federal subsidy for housing. Small banks don't want to see the government overly reduce its role in the housing market, for fear that the largest banks could then dominate the arena. 

But the most vocal concerns Friday were raised by some of the same groups that had cheered Obama last year for overhauling the nation's financial regulations and establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 

"The administration today has laid out a series of options that could lead to the abandonment of a nearly 70-year commitment to affordable homeownership by working American families," said Barry Zigas, director of housing policy for the Consumer Federation of America. 

...A coalition of progressive groups, including the National Council of La Raza and the NAACP, released a statement Friday expressing concern about all three proposals, saying the first two "would entirely fail" to meet the goal of ensuring that families have access to credit and "will instead marginalize communities of color." 

This dismay was echoed by liberal members of Congress on Friday. 

"My underlying concern is that they may radically increase the cost of homeownership, and housing in general, over the coming years," said Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House panel overseeing housing finance.

For all the ranting and raving one frequently hears from the left about corporations, it never ceases to amaze both how frequently their agenda serves to further the interest of various business concerns and how this fact goes absolutely over their heads. This is yet further proof that what many businesses truly fear is not government, but free market competition.