Loan Guarantees Quotes
The practice became extensively used and the phrase along with it during the William Howard Taft administration where the media popularized it.
Chrysler had gotten into cash flow difficulty and could not borrow enough money to keep open until they could pay their bills. Their credit was not good enough for most lenders. Iacocca approached the Federal Government and asked for a Federal loan guarantee of about $1 billion. Some members of Congress and public critics were outraged that a private company might get a Government bail out in the form of a loan guarantee. Extremists of both parties did not want to set such a precedent of using Federal money to assist private corporations. Iacocca was quite defensive about asking for what seemed to be a precedent setting request. However, he then found out that it would set no precedent at all. Chrysler got the loan, paid all its creditors, paid back the loan with interest, and the company did not go under, but did well for a while.
“FHA” was the Federal Housing Administration. This federal agency de facto controlled the vast majority of the mortgage loans in America. The agency, under the control of racists, redlined black neighborhoods from obtaining mortgages and even worse discouraged mortgage loans even in affluent white areas if it was an affluent Negro family that wanted to buy a house there. {637259} and {637260} are quotations which are examples of FHA racist policies.
