McCain and Regulation

FACT CHECK: Biden on McCain's regulatory history

McCain Embraces Regulation After Many Years of Opposition

"In 2002, McCain introduced a bill to deregulate the broadband Internet market, warning that "the potential for government interference with market forces is not limited to federal regulation." Three years earlier, McCain had joined with other Republicans to push through landmark legislation sponsored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm (Tex.), who is now an economic adviser to his campaign. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act aimed to make the country's financial institutions competitive by removing the Depression-era walls between banking, investment and insurance companies.

That bill allowed AIG to participate in the gold rush of a rapidly expanding global banking and investment market. But the legislation also helped pave the way for companies such as AIG and Lehman Brothers to become behemoths laden with bad loans and investments."

"As far as a need for additional regulations are concerned, I think that depends on the legislative agenda and what the Congress does to some degree, but I am fundamentally a deregulator." - John McCain

So now, John McCain, the great deregulator for the last 26 years, is all of a sudden the man to fix the problem that he (and the economic adviser to his campaign) helped create???? Give me a flipping break. His tune changes faster than a broken piano lately. Talk about someone who will say anything depending on the weather.

I don't think it's any mystery that the rampant deregulation over the last 20 years that has been championed by the Republican party has hurt this country. Deregulation helps a few corporations and their CEOs who can then run wild and do whatever they want with little oversight. These are the same people lobbying and donating tons of money to our politicians campaigns, both Democrat and Republican.

Deregulation is another scam of the "free market - corporate welfare" crowd. If everyone was a saint that didn't have any motives for greed or personal gain, then yeah, deregulation would be awesome. The problem is, there are people out there who are so greedy that they don't mind a multitude of people suffering if it means they get to have a solid gold umbrella stand. This is why we need regulation, to ensure these people can't take advantage of the system for their own benefit while millions of us suffer through the loss of our retirement or 401k.

If we decide to tune out and let our government be taken over by special interests and corporations, then I guess we get what we deserve (which looks like 10 extra years of working in order to retire). Maybe now people that people are really hurting they will realize that the key to a functioning representative democracy is the participation of the people that are supposed to be represented. Think about that next time you are deciding whether to vote or whether paying attention to politics is worth your time.

I apologize for getting off topic....