As we all ride the rough seas of this economy one thing has become abundantly clear: the GOP "starve the beast" strategy has left this country weaker and unable to confront the challenges before us.
It has left us less safe.
It has left our rights less protected.
McCain's laissez-faire position on regulation has yet to be hammered at effectively by Obama, and the timing could not be more perfect to open up a new front against McSame and the GOP hate machine.
One of the hallmarks of the Reagan Revolution McCain is identified with is deregulation... of everything. Business run amok. Airlines. Banking. OSHA. The environment. Port inspection. Securities law. Left to the hand of the efficient market, the theory went, business would create a fantastic trickle-down effect.
We all know the real results:
- bad loans
- home foreclosures
- lead paint from Chinese factories in our toys
- contaminated food
- more pollution and no strategy to move us off of fossil fuels
- more copyright infringement
- less worker protection on the job
- bank failures
- job losses
- more gun deaths
- offshoring of jobs
- less unionization
- airline bankruptcies
- higher fuel costs
- upcharges for checked baggage
- higher health care premiums
- a broken health care system
- insurance companies sun amok
Etc...
And McCain's Senate voting record and gift for gab HAVE TO SHOW SOMETHING, probably LOTS OF THINGS, which play up his support for deregulation.
In this economic environment this is LOW-HANGING FRUIT to be picked and harvested by the Obama team. So, while McCain's man crush on Phil Gramm is widely known that can't be the sum total of McSame's deregulatory record.
These are not irrelevant concerns to American citizens.
McCain and the GOP have left the barn door wiiiiiiiide open, and it's up to Obama and the Dems to play clean-up crew and get those animals back in the barn. We all want someone competent minding the store. QUICK! Stop me before I use another folksy, small-town metaphor!
So let's start digging on McCain's views vis a vis deregulation. These are not state secrets. Go forth and dig my fellow Kossacks!
DIG!!!!!!!!!!!!
UPDATE!
From Today's NY Times:
In early 1995, after Republicans had taken control of Congress, Mr. 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 was unsuccessful.
"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 subprime lending crisis, the problem that has cascaded through Wall Street this year. He concluded, "but I am fundamentally a deregulator."
Later that month, he 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."
NY Times link
Props to FundaMental Tranlation:
DIGG here!