Another reason why a McCain presidency should scare the hell out of you

McCain economic policy shaped by lobbyist

Remember Phil Gramm? He's that guy that called America a "nation of whiners" because of the economic troubles we have been seeing (you know, the ones that just got a whole hell of a lot worse in the past week). He's also an extremely close friend of John McCain and was his campaign co-chair and most senior economic adviser until his comment about us all being whiners (he stepped down in order to blunt some of the criticism McCain got for his comment). He still travels with McCain and is said to give him advice on economic affairs.

Here's his Wikipedia entry.

Here's some choice exerpts:

Involvement in "Enron Loophole" Legislation

Gramm was one of five co-sponsors of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000^[3]. One provision of the bill was referred to as the "Enron loophole" because the House Agriculture Committee drafted it and it was later applied to Enron. Some critics blame the provision for permitting the Enron scandal to occur.^[4] At the time, Gramm's wife was previously on Enron's board of directors.

Banking Deregulation and the 2008 Mortgage Crisis

Later in his Senate career, Gramm spearheaded efforts to pass banking reform laws, including the landmark Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, which served to reduce government regulations in existence since the Great Depression separating banking, insurance and brokerage activities.

Years later, critics of Gramm point out that this same legislation may have been pivotal in encouraging the corporate practices that led to the 2008 mortgage crises in America.^[5]

Between 1995 and 2000 Gramm, who was the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, received $1,000,914 in campaign contributions from the Securities & Investment industry.^[6]

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Is this really who we want helping shape our economic policy? John McCain stands up and tells the world he's the man to fix the mess we're in, when he and Gramm both had a part in helping create it in the first place (McCain voted for the same deregulation that Gramm did). Is he serious?????????

How many strikes does one have to get before people wake the hell up and see McCain for what he is: a lock-step Republican, not a maverick. He's in the same Washington camp that got us into this quagmire in the first place, why would we hand him the reigns of the country? There is no way this election should be as close as it is if people actually looked at and researched the candidates positions and backgrounds with an open mind. I just don't understand it.... which leads to my next topic: abortion. See above.