Day: April 6, 2009

The Repubs New Budget

It was unveiled on 1 April, that should tell the reader all they need to know about the document.  The lead talker was Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and he summarized the Obama budget as:

“Rather than getting spending under control, it sends spending out of control. Rather than keeping taxes low to create jobs, it chases ever higher spending with ever higher taxes and results in ever higher debt; not just a modest increase in our national debt, but an unprecedented, unsustainable increase in red ink,” he said. “The president’s budget is little more than a thinly veiled attempt by Washington to spend its way into prosperity, tax its way into tax relief, and borrow its way into debt reduction. This simply cannot work.”

A lot of words that could have been boiled down to their talking points of…..”spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much.”  This alternative budget is NOTHING new!  Tax cuts….spending freezes….yada..yada….etc…..  I would like to ask, what took them so long to come up with the same mantras that they have been dragging around for decades?

The GOP is NOT helping…they are hindering any recovery we may have in the short run .  They know they do NOT have the votes to do anything they want so their basic plan is to just say…NO!

Now there is a plan that small minded conservs can get behind…you know people like Glen Beck and other such wannabes……We need concrete plans that will help this economy and in the long run bring the middle class back from the abyss…nothing the Repubs have done or said offers that help.

What Could It Hurt?

Recently while I was researching a piece for my blog I found a bunch of info on the crisis we now have and its beginnings.  Since I began the research I have been amazed at the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (GLBA) and the Financial Services Modernization Act of 2000 (FSMA).

This from an article in the NT Times on 15 Nov 1999:

The Times: “The decision to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 provoked dire warnings from a handful of dissenters that the deregulation of Wall Street would someday wreak havoc on the nation’s financial system. The original idea behind Glass-Steagall was that separation between bankers and brokers would reduce the potential conflicts of interest that were thought to have contributed to the speculative stock frenzy before the Depression.”

“The opponents of the measure gloomily predicted that by unshackling banks and enabling them to move more freely into new kinds of financial activities, the new law could lead to an economic crisis down the road when the marketplace is no longer growing briskly.”

Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, now Obama’s Chief Economic Advisor, was a champion of the plan; ”Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century,” Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers said. ”This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.”

The Act they are speaking of is the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act or the Financial Services Modernization Act of 2000.

Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota was an outspoken opponent of the act.

“I think we will look back in 10 years’ time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930’s is true in 2010. I wasn’t around during the 1930’s or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980’s when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.”

When Dorgan made this assessment he was a minor player in the Senate, but IMO, he was smart enough to see this coming and if hindsight is 20/20, what is foresight?

The GOP has been hitting Obama hard on his solutions to the economic problems but they all seem to have amnesia.  Those outraged at the economic situation like Dodd, McCain, McConnell and Bayh voted in favor of the Act.  The House is the same the most verbal outrage has come from Boner, damn sorry, I mean Boehner voted in favor of the Act. Oh yeah, let us not overlook the rantings of Frank, who also voted in favor of the Act.

Obama and the Dems are trying to lay the blame for the economic situation in the lap of GW and I cannot believe I am defending the guy, but it all began with the Clinton admin and good old Larry Summers.  And the most senior Dems in Congress do not have clean hands either

Even though there were opponents of the Act and in some cases knew exactly what would happen….all in the Congress had the same reaction……What could it hurt?

The Act passed in 2000 and went into effect in 2001 and 10 years later we see just how effective it was and how prophetic Sen. Dorgan was.  Maybe he should be in charge of the committee that oversees the financial dealings of the country, apparently he is a bit smarter than the average Congressperson.

After all, what could it hurt?