McCain's co-sponsoring of S.190 in 2006

McCain, and some journalists, claim that the S.190 bill - shot down in 2006 - would have averted the current financial crisis. This tiny bit of info has been spun in all directions to the point where I didn't know what to believe. These claims make one small but powerful assumption: that it would have averted the financial crisis. Would it really have done all that? What was the bill really about and why did so many vote against it?

I see Obama saying that McCain has always supported deregulation of Fannie and Freddie but then I read this article which basically states that McCain foresaw this whole thing and tried to stop it but Obama, Clinton and Dodd - fellow Senators - stopped him (as though they were the only 4 people involved). So he always supported deregulation but in 2006 he spoke out for reform and regulation! WTF MATE??

Doing a bit more reading I found different descriptions of what the bill was really going to do. For example, I read that the bill would have privatized regulatory agencies which isn't necessarily a good thing since that means they would have been corruptible just like Fannie and Freddie. It even said right in the bill, "Excludes the Federal Home Loan Banks from certain securities reporting requirements." Aren't the Federal Home Loan Banks Fannie and Freddie - and this bill would have excluded them from having to report certain securities (another name for the packages the home loans are put into and sold to investors). Forget trying to read the bill - it's massive and it's full of political mumbo jumbo that I can't understand.

Finally I found a link to an article that seemed to explain more of the history of all of this and explain the bill better and clearer than anything else. It also explains McCain's involvement with the S.190 bill. If you too are confused about the mystery and stories surrounding these claims McCain makes about attempting to stop the crisis before it happened then you should read this.

PolitiFact | McCain's 'warning' on Fannie & Freddie