(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
Newt Gingrich,
making some news:
TAPPER: One question I want to ask has to do with your call to repeal the Wall Street reforms, Dodd-Frank. I don’t think a lot of Americans would understand why anyone would want to repeal regulations that happened after this calamity on Wall Street. If you disagree with those regulations that were imposed, do you agree at least that there should be some new reforms or regulations?
GINGRICH: Sure, there should be very decisive reforms. I think, in retrospect, repealing the Glass-Steagall Act was probably a mistake. We should probably reestablish dividing up the big banks into a banking function and an investment function and separating them out again.
Wow. I'm not sure how you simultaneously can denounce regulating the industry, via things like Dodd-Frank, and simultaneously endorse re-regulating the industry, but what the hell: We'll take it. There you have it, folks, the super-duper genius of the Republican presidential race agrees with Occupy Wall Street and much of the rest of America: It's time to reinstitute the restrictions imposed by Glass-Steagall, breaking up the big banks like Citigroup. Carve them back up, separating the "Wall Street casino" side from the boring commercial banking side.
It will be interesting to see if, in the next debate, Romney, Perry et al are on board with this suggestion. (For that matter, it will be interesting to see if anyone ever speaks of this again.) But if even the prime accomplices in dismantling Glass-Steagall are now agreeing it needs to be reinstated, hell, let's introduce that legislation right now.