How
deregulation — bought by Wall Street campaign cash and lobbying
— led directly to financial meltdown
 A
stunning and well-researched report, just released, details how
the financial services industry spent more than $5 billion on
federal campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures during
1998-2008.
Report co-author Robert Weissman writes,
"This extraordinary investment
paid off fabulously. Congress and executive agencies rolled back
long-standing regulatory restraints, refused to impose new regulations
on rapidly evolving and mushrooming areas of finance, and shunned
calls to enforce rules still in place."
"Sold
Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America"
is a well-researched report just released by Essential Information
and the Consumer Education Foundation. It details a dozen crucial
deregulatory moves over the last decade - each a direct response
to heavy lobbying from Wall Street and the broader financial sector.
Combined, these deregulatory moves helped
pave the way for the current financial meltdown.
The full report is available
at: www.wallstreetwatch.org/soldoutreport.htm
Read
the Executive Summary (7-page PDF)
In many ways, this report details a
smoking gun, responsible for the current economic malaise.
Do we need any
further proof of the need for fundamental reform of our
lobbying and campaign finance laws?
We must fight to make democracy
work for Main Street, instead of Wall Street - and that
begins with fundamental reform of our campaign finance
and lobbying laws!
Everyone understands
this, who has lost a job or faces home foreclosure, or
who can't afford health care or college for the kids.
It's no longer just about the growing concentration of
wealth in America while ordinary wages are stagnant. Instead,
it's about creating an economy that works for everyone,
instead of just the captains of finance and silk-shirt
investors who trade stocks and derivatives, earning real-cash
commissions and bonuses on phantom wealth.
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This report details how the financial
sector (finance, insurance, real estate) invested more than $5.1
billion in political influence purchasing over the last
decade. More than $1.7 billion was spent, drowning candidates
in campaign contributions from 1998-2008. The industry spent even
more - topping $3.4 billion - on officially registered
lobbying of federal officials during the same period.
This lavish spending led to a dozen
specific deregulatory steps (including failures to regulate and
failures to enforce existing regulations) that enabled Wall Street
to crash the financial system.
The report says Wall Street didn't obtain
these regulatory abeyances based on the force of its arguments.
"At every step, critics warned
of the dangers of further deregulation. Their evidence-based claims
could not offset the political and economic muscle of Wall Street.
The financial sector showered campaign contributions on politicians
from both parties, invested heavily in a legion of lobbyists,
paid academics and think tanks to justify their preferred policy
positions, and cultivated a pliant media - especially a cheerleading
business media complex."
And the result? An economic meltdown
that is bringing untold misery to millions of Americans - not
to mention worldwide.
Really - is there any question that
we need to demand campaign finance and lobbying reform?
Fair Elections Now Act needs
grassroots support
Within a month, an updated Fair
Elections Now Act will be introduced in Congress, by Senators
Dick Durbin and Arlen Specter. A House version may be introduced
by Congressmen John Larson (D-CT) and Walter Jones (R-NC).
When this happens, we will need to apply
our full grassroots lobbying pressure on Washington state's two
U.S. Senators and our nine members of Congress, to actively support
and champion this reform in campaign finance law. We should ask
them to hold public hearings on the proposal, where households
can testify - those who have been harmed by the economic destruction
wrought by lawmaking for sale.
We will need widespread public attention
to demand this change. Community presentations, Op-Eds, blog postings,
and letters to the editor, will help. We may need to arrange our
own community hearings - as Speak-Outs, to demonstrate the demand
for change.
Public financing of campaigns is only
a beginning - but it's a step in the right direction. Incumbents
and candidates for Congress will then be able to run Clean Campaigns,
beholden only to constituent voters. Anyone with community support
will be able to run for office, with an equal opportunity at a
win. And elected lawmakers will be able to thumb their nose at
the lobbyists and campaign financiers who, out of greed and self-interest,
would skew the economy and subvert our democracy.
Together with other struggles for peace
and justice, it's how we'll achieve a government and society "of,
by, and for the people."
~ Craig, March 10, 2009
Craig Salins is
Executive Director of Washington Public Campaigns, working for
public financing of campaigns at every level. washclean.org
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