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Dear Bernie: I Like You, But These Red Flags Are Too Frequent To Ignore
Interesting read.
TWEET:
Brenda Johnson
?@TucsonVoice28
.@MaddowBlog .@MSNBC Dear Bernie: I Like You, But These Red Flags Are Too Frequent To Ignore http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-womack/dear-bernie-red-flags-frequent_b_9289954.html …
#ImWithHer #Hillary
THE BLOG
Dear Bernie: I Like You, But These Red Flags Are Too Frequent to Ignore
02/23/2016 09:43 am ET | Updated Feb 23, 2016
ASSOCIATED PRESS
................. But Senator, we have a problem, and it’s a big one. When it comes to the specifics surrounding the core issue of your campaign, you have too often come across as either disingenuous or strangely removed from current reality.
The red flags have become too frequent to ignore.
You recently claimed that under your leadership, “the Treasury Department will create a too-big-to fail list of banks and insurance companies.”
Of course it will. The Treasury Department has been legally required to do that since the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. The institutions are, on top of that, already subjected to stress tests, and when they fail, there are fairly serious consequences. The Department’s annual report is available right here. You can find a list of these institutions on Wikipedia, for crying out loud. The Financial Stability Board also maintains a global list, which you can find right here, should you find that helpful.
Similarly, you have made a fair amount of noise calling for an independent audit of the Federal Reserve. That’s already done, every single year. You can find last year’s report right here.
What the plan that you and Sen. Paul have put forth does is, a) pander to low-information voters, and b) make the Federal Reserve’s every decision subject to congressional pressure. What you are proposing, Senator Sanders, would set the Fed’s independence back four decades and allow Paul Ryan to pressure it at every turn.
Even when I agree with your proposed policies, I am too often alarmed by your extreme departures from reality.
You have proposed, for example, to pay for universal free public college with a tax on Wall Street speculation. .................
But none of this holds a candle to the bizarre narrative you have consistently pushed around Glass-Steagall, your primary point of distinction from Secretary Clinton on finance. You have repeatedly insinuated, implied and said flat-out that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which you tend to call a repeal of Glass-Steagall, caused the financial crisis.
Senator Sanders, that simply isn’t true. That is a lie invented for a slimy attack ad during the 2008 campaign. There is an overwhelming consensus—not from Wall Street, but from watchdogs and academics — that the repeal of Glass-Steagall did not cause the financial crisis. Fact checker after fact checker after fact checker after fact checker has found the claim to be, at best, an enormous stretch. They were doing so, from all parts of the political spectrum, years before you launched a presidential campaign.
The law had little if anything to do with the practices leading up to the crisis. It aimed, as you well know, to separate commercial from investment banking. You can support that policy or oppose it, with honest, pro-regulatory arguments on either side. I might even agree with you. But you cannot with a straight face blame the financial crisis on its absence. ....................
37 replies
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are better than my better angels. But I will refrain from engaging.
Response to riversedge (Original post)
