DLC lines up against Dean's re-regulation remarks [View All]

[Rose Siding]

I'm surprised to see Clark's name isn't used in their examples.

Gov. Howard Dean delivered a good speech on "Enron Economics" in Houston Tuesday. It echoed Sen. John Edwards' lines about the Bush administration's determination to shift the tax burden from wealth to work, and earlier speeches by Sen. Joe Lieberman and others on the importance of corporate responsibility. It even appropriated a concept championed by the DLC, and endorsed by President Clinton, that we need a "new social contract for the 21st century, based on shared responsibility and our country's deepest values," to guide economic policy. The speech had us hoping that Gov. Dean might take to heart the challenge from Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards to offer America answers, not just anger.

Unfortunately, in an interview with a small group of reporters, Gov. Dean suggested that his answers might be a lot like his anger -- driven more by reflexive opposition to Bush than by a well thought-out effort to solve America's problems. According to Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post, Dean said the answer to the corporate excesses of recent years was "a comprehensive 're-regulation' of American business."

"The former Vermont Governor," reported VandeHei, "said he would reverse the trend toward deregulation pursued by recent presidents -- including, in some respects, Bill Clinton -- to help restore faith in scandal-plagued U.S. corporations and better protect U.S. workers." Dean also "listed likely targets for what he dubbed as his 're-regulation' campaign: utilities, large media companies, and any business that offers stock options. Dean did not rule out 're-regulating' the telecommunications industry, too."

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