It’s all a sham, a shameless, cynical game of chicken. When crunch time came on Oct. 1, 2008, that bold free-marketer Mitch McConnell and 31 of his fellow Republican senators voted in favor of the TARP bailout to save Wall Street. That was their chance to prove just how deeply this supposed free-market purity ran in their souls, and they folded. Now, less than two years later, they claim to have reclaimed their religion. Once again, the official Republican position is that the biggest banks must be allowed to fail in order to maintain market discipline. They aren’t bothered by the fact that economists almost unanimously reject that course as impractical. They don’t care that had we followed that course in the most recent meltdown, the consequences would have made our current difficulties seem petty by comparison.
The Democrats acknowledge that government intervention is a possibility and are trying to set up a system to rationalize it and minimize the risk to taxpayers. For example, if Uncle Sam is going to be Wall Steet’s ultimate savior, the Dems insist that the banks accept rules to make a rescue less likely, including more transparency and regulations regarding derivatives. They also want Wall Street, not taxpayers, to contribute financially to a $50 billion pool that would be used to fund such a rescue should it be necessary.
For more: GOP, Wall Street working a cynical scam on taxpayers | Jay Bookman
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