McCain Gets It, Obama Doesn't (banking regulation) - Robert Scheer, HuffPo

[highplainsdem]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-scheer/mccain-gets-it-obama-does_b_412786.html

Maybe I got it wrong. During the presidential campaign I wrote columns blasting Sen. John McCain for siding with the big bankers on deregulation, citing his choosing ex-Sen. Phil Gramm, currently a vice chairman of the Swiss-owned banking giant UBS, as his presidential campaign chair. Barack Obama, on the other hand, repeatedly blasted Gramm and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which the Texas Republican had pushed through Congress, with President Bill Clinton's support -- legislation that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act and radically deregulated the financial industry.

But now the roles are reversed, and it is McCain who, along with Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has sponsored a bill to repeal Gramm's legislation, while Obama seeks to preserve it.

The Gramm legislation, which permitted the merger of investment and commercial banks into too-big-to-fail corporations (including Citigroup and AIG, two financial giants that had to be bailed out by taxpayers), was thought by Obama the candidate to be a key cause of the meltdown. But as president he reappointed the Clinton-era officials who had sided with Gramm in ending sensible banking regulations that had protected the public for 70 years and made the U.S. banking system the envy of the world.

Rather than restore Glass-Steagall, the Obama-backed banking regulation bill passed last month by the Democratic majority in the House went along with the desire of Wall Street lobbyists to prevent the breakup of the big conglomerates and to block control of their massive trading in the derivatives that proved to be so toxic.

The result, with some deceptive reformist window dressing, is a pro-Wall Street business-as-usual cop-out, and the Senate version is likely to be more of the same. Fortunately, there is a better way, and thanks to the McCain-Cantwell bill and a companion one authored by Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., in the House, there is still a chance at serious financial regulation through the restoration of the key provisions of Glass-Steagall.

How odd that it now remains for McCain to stand up to the oversize banks.

-snip-

Although Obama has blasted "fat cat bankers on Wall Street," it is time for those who elected him to ask for more than rhetoric. And to ask that of the Democratic leaders of the House, who refused to allow a vote on Hinchey's amendment to include the restoration of Glass-Steagall in their so-called Wall Street Reform Act.

-snip-

[nevergiveup]

1. McCain is always for something before he is against it.

This is typical McCain grandstanding that results in him getting lots of attention, sort of like Lieberman being for reducing age to 55 for Medicare before he was against it. Lieberman and McCain have the same warped mind-set.

[corpseratemedia]

2. I don't think our economy has a chance of recovering unless it's restored

and what better way to hemmorrage democratic votes than continuing to bailout and support predatory uber-banks

[Karmadillo]

3. Why won't Obama stand up to the oversize banks?

nt

[AllentownJake]

4. McCain didn't vote for GLB

We are very lucky this crisis didn't come to a head in June of 2008 instead of October of 2008.