Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Some conservatives blame the Democrats for everything bad that happened during the last two years of the Bush presidency because they were in charge of Congress.
If people want to hold Clinton responsible for his time in office then they have to do the same for Bush. That's all I'm saying.
I'm holding Clinton responsible for his ACTIONS while in office. If you believe Bush's ACTIONS or OMISSIONS contributed to the economy"s downfall, please share this information with us. Being in office while Congress ignored warnings from the Bush administration and senior Senators like McCain, Dole and Sununu doesn't make Bush responsible for the Democrat's actions in dismissing these warnings (see S.190).
Watch: YouTube - Shocking Video Unearthed Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our Eco - Mixx (http://www.mixx.com/videos/2257126/youtube_shocking_video_unearthed_democrats_in_thei r_own_words_covering_up_the_fannie_mae_freddie_mac _scam_that_caused_our_eco - broken link)
"THE CLINTON administration’s free-market program culminated in two momentous deregulatory acts. Near the end of his eight years in office, Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, one of the most far-reaching banking reforms since the Great Depression. It swept aside parts of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 that had provided significant regulatory firewalls between commercial banks, insurance companies, securities firms, and investment banks."
"In 1993, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had considered extending capital requirements to derivatives, but such proposals went nowhere, and Wall Street lobbied to prevent any regulation of derivatives. Then in December 2000, in his final weeks in office, Bill Clinton signed into law the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which shielded the markets for derivatives from federal regulation."
What a bunch of crap. Republicans passed the GLB act of '99 by a veto proof majority, along party lines.
You can keep trying to come up with anything to try and deflect what was done by your party, but the actual truth shall set you free.
Of the 362 house votes in favor of GLBA, 155 were Democrats and 207 were Republicans. In the Senate, 52 Republicans and 38 Democrats voted for the bill. I'm not sure how that is a "party line" vote. If Clinton wanted to veto it, he could have, but he didn't want to do that. He was in full support of the legislation and even had a "working group" involved directly with the negotiations. Clearly the Congress was also wrong, but this thread is about Clinton screwing up. His missteps are commonly attributed to Bush. I'm just setting the record strait. Clinton, not Bush, set us on this path to financial crisis. That the Congress supported this irresponsible legislation in bi-partisan fashion is to be expected. If they come together to do something, it is typically to screw us.
If Republicans thought it was such a bad idea (which they didn't, they pushed for it) then why didn't Bush repeal it as soon as he was elected?
It passed the House 377 to 4. Nice try though.
The subject of this thread remains Clinton's screw ups that are credited to Dubya. If democrats and Republicans in Congress got together long enough to screw us, it doesn't lessen Clinton's culpability.
This is much of what caused the financial situation we are in today. It was a bad decision.
I do find it interesting that so many people on these threads take the heat off Bush by saying that during his last couple years it was a democratic congress.
It was a Republican Congress the last couple years of Clinton's term. You can't have it both ways.
If you are going to blame Clinton for this, then you have to blame Bush for what happened during his complete term.
So what did Bush sign in his last two years in office?
It was Alan Greenspan, appointed by Reagan that really got the ball rolling on the financial mess that we have found ourselves in today.
Greenspan even admitted to his mistake in TESTIMONY.
And it was a brave woman who was unfortunately snubbed by the Clinton administration under the influence of Greenspan that might have been able to prevent this crisis.
Stiggie also was another Clintonite who warned of the dangers of deregulation.
Volcker was the former Fed Head under Reagan that brought down inflation from 15% to under 5%. The Volcker Rules has found favor among Wall Street's famous & Simpson is another old school Reaganite cat credited with reforms to Social Security.
So what's with all this socialist nonsense, being too partisan and reckless spending claims?
1. You're right. Gramm's Commodity Futures Modernization Act, rushed through in the waning weeks of the Clinton administration, led pretty directly to the creation of the credit default swaps that brought down AIG. Not coincidentally, it was hugely profitable for Gramm's wife.
2. The way Gramm got it passed was to get it stuck into the budget bill, so it would have been a very hard thing to veto, particularly since that thug Scalia and his accomplices had just turned over the presidency to Bush.
3. I think you draw the wrong lesson from this experience. This is just more evidence that, no matter what conservatives claim, Clinton was not a liberal. This deregulation was not Clinton's idea, even though he should have stood up and fought it, regardless of the cost.
4. Don't forget that Gramm was McCain's top economic adviser.
The subject of this thread is deregulation by President Bill Clinton.
Certain regulations, like Glass-Steigall, were beneficial while others, like the CRA, are not.
The article describes one bone headed move after another by Clinton. That Bush is forever being blamed for Clinton's deregulation reveals the level of ignorance that permeates the ranks of the left. Bush deserves credit for at least attempting to rein in the GSEs in 2001 and again in 2003 when Snow lobbied Congress for a new oversight body to manage Fannie and Freddie.
Under the CRA, banks must convince a set of bureaucracies that they are not engaging in discrimination, a charge that the act encourages any CRA-recognized community group to bring forward. Otherwise, any merger or expansion the banks attempt will likely be denied. But what counts as discrimination?
According to one enforcement agency, “discrimination exists when a lender’s underwriting policies contain arbitrary or outdated criteria that effectively disqualify many urban or lower-income minority applicants.” Note that these “arbitrary or outdated criteria” include most of the essentials of responsible lending: income level, income verification, credit history and savings history–the very factors lenders are now being criticized for ignoring.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
