John McCain, suddenly a Socialist!

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Movement conservatism, which came to power with the Reagan Revolution, is a political ideology that for the past 28 years has preached blind faith in free market capitalism.  Less government and less regulation would unleash business innovation and the creation of new businesses and jobs.  To accomplish this, we were told that we had to enrich the super-wealthy investor class who would wisely invest their riches to create this new era of economic prosperity, which would trickle down to the rest of us.  The guiding principle of this movement was "greed is good," as Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) told us in the movie Wall Street:

John McCain, as he regularly reminds voters, was "a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution."  His 26 years in Congress have been defined by his steadfast opposition to government regulation and oversight of the "free market."  McCain began his career in Washington by intervening with government regulators on behalf of his friend and campaign contributor, Charles Keating, during the Savings & Loan scandal.  Thanks to McCain’s involvement on behalf of Keating’s Lincoln Savings & Loan, U.S. taxpayers ended up footing the bill for a cool $2.6 billion.

McCain’s closest friend and adviser, the man he describes as his "economic guru," Phil Gramm, was the principal  architect of Republican deregulation efforts during the 1990s. "Gramm left the Senate in 2002 but now has emerged as what Fortune magazine calls “McCain’s econ brain,” not only filling the Arizona senator’s acknowledged void on economic expertise (“I don’t know as much about the economy as I should”) but recognized as one of McCain’s closest friends in politics. The two men talk daily."  McCain Defends ‘Enron Loophole’

Foreclosure Phil Gramm, with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, repealed the cross-ownership provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act, the depression era law which established firewalls between banking, investment and insurance to protect investors against the excesses of capitalism that led to the Great Depression.  Gramm also slipped in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act into an omnibus spending bill that Congress voted for without debate, or even reading the bill. 

This act was largely responsible for the creation of "exotic" financing and investment "opportunities" over the past decade which were, in reality, high risk investments (games of chance) that turned Wall Street into Casino Royale. Gramm created an unregulated "shadow banking system" where investors could gamble free of government regulation and oversight.  The sub-prime mortgage meltdown is Gramm’s legacy.

The "alphabet soup" regulatory agencies which still existed were starved of funding and staff by Congress, and were headed by conservative appointees ideologically opposed to government regulation and oversight.  The oversight committees in Congress, like the Commerce Committee which John McCain chaired for the better part of a decade, failed to conduct any meaningful oversight or to propose any meaningful regulatory reforms.

In early 1995, after Republicans had taken control of Congress, McCain promoted a moratorium on federal regulations of all kinds. He was quoted as saying that excessive regulations were "destroying the American family, the American dream" and voters "want these regulations stopped." (The moratorium measure failed).

"I’m always for less regulation," he told The Wall Street Journal last March, "but I am aware of the view that there is a need for government oversight” in situations like the sub-prime lending crisis. But he emphasized that "I am fundamentally a deregulator."

Later that month, McCain gave a speech on the housing crisis in which he called for less regulation, saying, "Our financial market approach should include encouraging increased capital in financial institutions by removing regulatory, accounting and tax impediments to raising capital."

At the Republican National Convention just a few weeks ago, McCain’s friend Fred Thompson, and his veep nominee, Sarah Palin, sung his praises for being a "deregulator." John McCain: The Deregulator

But this week with the collapse of Wall Street financial giants, John McCain is suddenly singing a different tune.  Now he tells us that he wants to "reform" Wall Street, and impose tough new regulations to "end greed." McCain even promises to regulate what companies pay their CEO and other officers in compensation.  And he now supports a federal government bailout of these failed financial institutions.

A day after flatly rejecting the idea of a taxpayer bailout for American International Group Inc. (AIG), John McCain said Wednesday the government had been "forced" into proposing an $85 billion loan to the nation’s largest insurer.  "These actions stem from failed regulation, reckless management and a casino culture on Wall Street that has crippled one of the most important companies in America." McCain shifts gears on bailout: It protects ordinary Americans  The "casino culture" that he and Phil Gramm and countless other Republican conservatives have nurtured and breathed life into for the past 28 years.

John McCain, if he is to be believed, just rejected the fundamental principle of movement conservatism and the Reagan Revolution – free markets unregulated by the government. Republicans, including John McCain, have defamed Democrats over the years as being "Socialists" for supporting government regulation and oversight of the market.  But now that his super-wealthy investor class buddies on Wall Street are in deep trouble, McCain is suddenly a Socialist!

For years now, we have had to listen to bankers attacking Washington for imposing regulations that inhibit the free markets from making even more money.

And all the while, they took exorbitant salaries, justifying them on the grounds of their huge contribution to capitalism.

How bitterly ironic it is, then, to see these one-time freemarketeers becoming socialists overnight.

The schoolyard bullies of Wall Street have gone running to the state for help, pleading to be saved from destruction.

George W. Bush came into office promising to be the next Ronald Reagan, getting government out of people’s lives. In the final months of his presidency, he has implemented the largest nationalization program in 75 years. ANALYSIS: Free-market capitalism lies shredded

John McCain’s overnight conversion to regulatory reform is not to be believed.  This dishonest and dishonorable man will say anything, and lie like a rug to fool just enough Americans to get elected.  It explains his weak call for a "commission" to study what went wrong and how to fix it.  This is what politicians always do when they don’t have any answers and they want to delay taking any action in the hope that the problem may resolve itself and fade from the public eye so that they do not have to actually do anything.  John McCain, if elected, will stay true to form after 26 years in Washington as a "deregulator."  And he will appoint his best friend, "Foreclosure" Phil Gramm, the man who created this mess, to serve in his cabinet.  The nightmare will continue.

Senator Barack Obama was appropriately dismissive of McCain’s feigned conversion to regulatory reform. "Yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he’s president he’ll take on — and I quote — ‘the old boys network in Washington.’ I’m not making this up… This is somebody who’s been in Congress for 26 years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign.  And now he tells us that he’s the one who’s going to take on the old boys network. The old boys network. In the McCain campaign that’s called a staff meeting." Obama is going on offense with McCain

"Senator McCain bragged about how as chairman of the Commerce Committee in the Senate, he had oversight of every part of the economy. Well, all I can say to Sen. McCain is, ‘Nice job. Nice job.’" Obama is going on offense with McCain