The McCain Gramm Wrecking Ball

MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olberman exposed an outrageous influence advising Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.

His “national campaign general co-chair, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, was being paid by a Swiss bank to lobby Congress about the U.S. mortgage crisis at the same time he was advising McCain about his economic policy. McCain himself has often cited Gramm’s influence as a way to establish his bona fides with economic conservatives.”

In a shockingly irresponsible moment, McCain has hinted that he might make Phil Gramm Treasury Secretary. A quick run down by Keith himself will give you a painful insight into a party bent on destruction.



A few tidbits more from MSNBC, read it and weep:

“When Gramm chaired the Senate Banking Committee, he wrote and passed
deregulatory legislation…establishing himself as a pre-eminent foe of government
regulation. McCain’s March 26 2008 speech recommended further deregulation of
the banking industry as his response to the mortgage crisis.”

“After Gramm passed a law easing regulation of energy-commodity trading,
California experienced a sharp run-up in energy costs. The energy-trading
company Enron was blamed and soon collapsed.”

“In 1999, Gramm successfully undid the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, removing the decades-old wall between commercial banking (put in place to prevent another depression). Some economists fault Gramm’s deregulatory successes, as well as lax enforcement of remaining oversight powers, not just for the subprime mortgage crisis, but for its spread to other sectors of
finance.

Gramm was lobbying the Senate in the second half of 2007 (against) the Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act. The bill failed.”