The line the Democrats have been using to shift blame for the financial crisis — that it was due to deregulation and laissez-faire philosophy of the Republicans — is unraveling. As Peter Wallison writes in today’s Wall Street Journal, there has been almost no deregulation in financial markets in many years and what there has been is not the least bit pertinent to the mortgage mess. Read Wallison’s piece here.
Wallison also recounts some extremely important history from 2005, when Democrats blocked legislation that would have tightened regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (That was probably too late to have made a lot of difference, but that wasn’t why the Democrats opposed it.) What did Senator Obama do? I quote from Wallison: “Mr. Obama wrote a letter to the Treasury Secretary, allegedly putting himself on record that subprime loans were dangerous and had to be dealt with. This is revealing: if true, it indicates Sen. Obama knew there was a problem with subprime lending — but was unwilling to confront his own party by pressing for legislation to control it. As a demonstration of character and leadership capacity, it bears a strong resemblance to something else in Sen. Obama’s past: voting present.”
Apropos of that last point, why won’t someone ask Obama why he voted “present” many times during his period in office as a state senator in Illinois?
