The honeymoon is over.
by lschach on Feb.25, 2009, under Commentary, World News
The Associated Press is appearing to lead the way among the MainStreamMedia in discovering that our new President is just shy of reality on the proposal side of things. In this article, writers Calvin Woodward and Jim Kuhnhenn point out eight areas in the President’s speech last night that appear to be no more than wishful thinking. Here’s a sample:
OBAMA: “Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.”
THE FACTS: This may be so, but it isn’t only Republicans who pushed for deregulation of the financial industries. The Clinton administration championed an easing of banking regulations, including legislation that ended the barrier between regular banks and Wall Street banks. That led to a deregulation that kept regular banks under tight federal regulation but extended lax regulation of Wall Street banks. Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, later an economic adviser to candidate Obama, was in the forefront in pushing for this deregulation.
Take it or leave it.
