Topics in the News: Deregulation
Donald Trump on Deregulation:
(Government Reform Feb 28, 2017)
For every new regulation, must eliminate two old ones
We have undertaken a historic effort to massively reduce job-crushing regulations, creating a deregulation task force inside of every Government agency; imposing a new rule which mandates that for every
1 new regulation, 2 old regulations must be eliminated; and stopping a regulation that threatens the future and livelihoods of our great coal miners.
Click for Donald Trump on other issues.
Source: 2017 State of the Union address to Congress
Bernie Sanders on Deregulation:
(Budget & Economy Nov 15, 2016)
2008 Crash's foreclosures brought about by deregulation
As a result of the financial meltdown of 2008, more than 9 million American jobs were destroyed. Real unemployment skyrocketed to more than 17 percent, as more than 27 million workers were unemployed, under-employed,
or had stopped looking for work altogether.The American dream of homeownership turned into a nightmare of foreclosure for millions of households, as more and more people could not afford to pay their mortgages.
This was bound to happen. For years, financial predators received fat commissions form lenders for steering Americans into the riskiest subprime mortgages imaginable--no documentation, no job, no income... no problem.
And then, the banks bundled those mortgages, over and over again, into almost worthless and unregulated derivatives, until the house of cards collapsed.
Click for Bernie Sanders on other issues.
Source: Our Revolution, by Bernie Sanders, p. 298
Bernie Sanders on Deregulation:
(Budget & Economy Feb 4, 2016)
I led the effort against deregulation, but we lost
SANDERS: Let's talk about why, in the 1990s, Wall Street got deregulated. Did it have anything to do with the fact that Wall Street spent billions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions?CLINTON: You're the one who voted to deregulate swaps
and derivatives in 2000, which contributed to the over-leveraging of Lehman Brothers, which was one of the culprits that brought down the economy. I'm not saying you did it for any kind of financial advantage. What we've got to do as Democrats is to be
united to solve these problems.
SANDERS: I was on the House Financial Committee at that time. I heard the arguments coming from Democrats and Republicans -- Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan -- about how great an idea it would be if we did away with
Glass-Steagall and if we allowed investor banks and commercial banks and big insurance companies to merge. Go to YouTube today -- look up Greenspan -- it was the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression.
Click for Bernie Sanders on other issues.
Source: MSNBC Democratic primary debate in New Hampshire
Bernie Sanders on Deregulation:
(Corporations Oct 13, 2015)
Fraud is the business model of Wall Street
The greed and recklessness and illegal behavior of Wall Street, where fraud is a business model, helped to destroy this economy and the lives of millions. In the 1990s, when the Republican leadership and
Wall Street spent billions in lobbying, when Alan Greenspan said, "what a great idea it would be to allow these huge banks to merge," Bernie Sanders fought them, and helped lead the opposition to deregulation.
Click for Bernie Sanders on other issues.
Source: 2015 CNN Democratic primary debate in Las Vegas
Rand Paul on Deregulation:
(Environment Apr 7, 2015)
Balance environmental safety with business deregulation
Counteracting excessively burdensome government regulations has become a centerpiece of my tenure in Washington. All my actions seek to find a balance between environmental, safety and health protection, without compromising the ability of family
businesses to flourish. Unelected bureaucrats should not have the power to enact regulations that affect the lives of everyday Americans. Whether it's ObamaCare or EPA regulations, cutting red tape and opening the regulatory process to scrutiny is an
important step in holding government accountable to all Americans.
In the Senate, I proudly introduced the Regulations from the Executive Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act. This legislation is designed to increase accountability for and transparency in the
Federal regulatory process.
As President, I will place common sense and reasonable limitations on a bureaucracy that seeks to target well-intentioned businesses with burdensome regulations.
Click for Rand Paul on other issues.
Source: 2016 presidential campaign website, RandPaul.com, "Issues"
John Kasich on Deregulation:
(Tax Reform Mar 7, 2015)
Eliminated the Ohio estate tax but hiked cigarette taxes
Kasich remains the deeply conservative politician he has always been: the government-slashing deficit obsessive who drove Democrats bonkers as chairman of the House Budget Committee in the 1990s. As Ohio's chief executive, Kasich has eliminated the
estate tax, cut income-tax rates, tightened food-stamp requirements, cut school funding, and championed business deregulation. In so many ways, then, Kasich is the stuff of conservative dreams. But the governor is also prone to jabbing his finger in
the eye of his base with moves like raising infrastructure spending, increasing tax breaks for low-income residents, championing a fracking tax on oil and gas producers, pushing to hike cigarette taxes, making education funding more redistributive, or
commuting death sentences. And of course there's the granddaddy of betrayals: Medicaid expansion, which Kasich rammed through over opposition from Ohio's Republican-controlled Legislature.
Click for John Kasich on other issues.
Source: National Journal 2015 coverage of 2016 presidential hopefuls
Elizabeth Warren on Deregulation:
(Budget & Economy Apr 22, 2014)
Financial crisis due to deregulation, not boom-bust cycle
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, I'd quoted his remark that a financial crisis every 5 to 7 years was inevitable and given my own blunt assessment: He was wrong. The real cause of the crash was not some inevitable cycle; this crash was the direct
consequence of years of deliberate deregulation and the resulting dangerous actions of the big banks. I'd repeated this view multiple times, saying we needed a cop on the beat to make sure that a crash didn't happen again.
Click for Elizabeth Warren on other issues.
Source: A Fighting Chance, by Elizabeth Warren, p.177
Bernie Sanders on Deregulation:
(Jobs Nov 8, 2012)
Real unemployment is 16%; official unemployment only 9%
While "official" unemployment is at 9.8 percent, real unemployment is over 16 percent--and even higher for blue collar workers. Despite massive unemployment and the collapse of the middle class, the representatives or organized money want more tax
breaks for the wealthy, more government deregulation, more unfettered free trade, more anti-union legislation and--as if this was not bad enough--they want an end of funding for unemployment benefits.
Click for Bernie Sanders on other issues.
Source: Sanders Introduction to `Playing Bigger`, by S. Acuff, p. 3
Elizabeth Warren on Deregulation:
(Budget & Economy Nov 1, 2011)
Deregulation has created Wild West conditions at banks
She crisscrossed the country, spreading the word about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She spoke about her belief in free markets & in government regulation as a mechanism that protected free enterprise by ensuring that the markets functioned
fairly and honestly.In those speeches she would outline the impact on middle-class Americans of rising health-care costs, burgeoning debt, and the depletion of not only their savings but also, with the rise in joblessness, their confidence.
She spoke of "the Wild West" conditions deregulation had created, where banks could sell virtually any product they wanted, on any terms: mortgages they knew consumers could not pay off, credit cards whose rates they could raise at whim.
Her final remarks: "We cannot run our country without a strong middle class. We cannot run a democracy without a strong middle class," she said, her voice quavering slightly. "If we hollow out the middle class, then the country we know is gone."
Click for Elizabeth Warren on other issues.
Source: By Suzanna Andrews in Vanity Fair, "Woman Who Knew Too Much"
Joe Sestak on Deregulation:
(Budget & Economy Apr 12, 2010)
Deregulation of banks led to the economic meltdown
Sestak blamed Toomey, who was a member of Congress from 1998 through 2004, for supporting the Bush tax cuts and deregulation of banks and brokerages, which he argued helped lead to the economic meltdown."I learned in the Navy to expect what you
inspect," said Sestak, a retired admiral who served for 30 years in the Navy before being elected to Congress in 2006. "Even little league football has a referee on the field. He [Toomey] removed the referee from Wall Street."
Toomey said he admired
Sestak's creative mind, but said his opponent did not understand the financial system. The real threat to the economy, he said, is in the billions of dollars spent on bailouts for banks and the auto industry, along with the economic stimulus and now a
health-care regime that he said were all pushing the deficit to stratospheric levels. "Some people believe if you are productive and successful you should get soaked and get soaked hard. I just don't believe in that," Toomey said.
Click for Joe Sestak on other issues.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer coverage of 2010 PA Senate Debates
Jesse Ventura on Deregulation:
(Budget & Economy Mar 8, 2010)
Keep savings banks separate from speculative investments
The new era of deregulation resulted in a boom time for the rich getting richer. Reagan opened wide the door for companies to gamble with taxpayers' money. In 1999, the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed, and a real free-for-all began. It was passed in
1993 to keep separate the low-risk commercial banks where we put our deposits, and the brokerage banks that engage in high-risk speculative investments. This worked just fine for more than 50 years. During the Reagan years, the lobbyists for the finance,
insurance, and real estate outfits started pushing to dump the law; then the rules of the game changed totally. Mergers and commercial/investment partnerships skyrocketed. Now banks could start taking multiple home mortgage loans and turning them
into securities to trade on Wall Street. They could all gamble like crazy, and with very little regulation.How insane was it to destroy one of the main protection devices created out of the pain of the Great Depression.
Click for Jesse Ventura on other issues.
Source: American Conspiracies, by Jesse Ventura, p.169
Joe Biden on Deregulation:
(Budget & Economy Oct 2, 2008)
Deregulation got us into the housing crisis
Q: Who is to blame for the subprime lending meltdown?BIDEN: Barack warned about the sub prime mortgage crisis. We let Wall Street run wild. John McCain thought the answer is that tried and true Republican response, deregulate, deregulate.
And guess what? The middle class needs tax relief. They need it now.
PALIN: It was predator lenders who tried to talk Americans into thinking that it was smart to buy a $300,000 house if we could only afford a $100,000 house.
There was deception, and there was greed and there is corruption. Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, we need to band together and say never again.
We need to demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings. Let’s do what our parents told us before we probably even got that first credit card. Don’t live outside of our means.
Click for Joe Biden on other issues.
Source: 2008 Vice Presidential debate against Sarah Palin
Bernie Sanders on Deregulation:
(Corporations Oct 1, 2008)
Deregulation led to incredible greed of $39B in CEO bonuses
In our country today we have the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on Earth, with the top 1% earning more income than the bottom 50%, and the top 1% owning more wealth than the bottom 90%. We are living at a time when we
have seen a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the very wealthiest people in this country; when, among others, CEO's of Wall Street firms receive unbelievable amounts in bonuses, including $39 billion in bonuses in the year 2007 alone
for just the 5 major investment houses. We have seen the incredible greed of the financial service industry manifested in the hundreds of millions of dollars they have spent on campaign contributions and lobbyists in order to deregulate their industry so
hedge funds and other unregulated financial institutions could flourish. We have seen them play with trillions and trillions of dollars in esoteric financial instruments in unregulated industries which no more than a handful of people even understand.
Click for Bernie Sanders on other issues.
Source: Outsider in the White House, by Bernie Sanders, p.323
Barack Obama on Deregulation:
(Technology Oct 30, 2007)
Airlines got into trouble after deregulation
The airlines got into trouble after deregulation, and it has continued and compounded. They have tried to make more money. They’re seeing better solvency, but they’ve done it on the backs of consumers. Anybody flying commercial knows that service has
gone down & deteriorated. We have to make sure there’s enough airport capacity. We’ve got to place, potentially, restrictions on some flights & encourage airlines to deal with the problems of remote areas having difficulty in terms of making connections.
Click for Barack Obama on other issues.
Source: 2007 Democratic debate at Drexel University
Jennifer Granholm on Deregulation:
(Technology Oct 1, 2005)
We have failed to invest in our physical infrastructure
[In summer 2003 we experienced a 2-day blackout]. As circuit breakers tripped at generating stations from NY to Michigan and into Canada, millions of people were affected. "What's the lesson here?" I asked the chair of Michigan's Public Service
Commission, the body that regulated utilities and electricity lines. "It's pretty simple, actually," the chair told me. "We've failed to invest in the power grid. Now the facilities are old, deregulation has removed responsibility for investment, and
the infrastructure has become enormously fragile."
The blackout was symptomatic of deeper, systemic stresses. It involved the failure to maintain and invest intelligently in our human and physical infrastructure. For decades, we'd preferred to pretend
that the systems we relied upon to make life worthwhile could be wholly self-correcting and self-supporting. Now those decades of neglect were taking their toll--first in small, chronic failures, then in massive, catastrophic breakdowns.
Click for Jennifer Granholm on other issues.
Source: A Governor's Story, by Jennifer Granholm, p. 40
Bill Weld on Deregulation:
(Principles & Values Aug 25, 2005)
Mixes fiscal conservatism and social liberalism
The constant description of Weld as a "moderate" Republican is not inaccurate, but it is misleading. Moderates like Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe are not just the left of the Republican platform on social issues. They are also usually to its left on
economics. Moderate Republicans tend to be less eager to cut taxes, more generous with social spending, and generally cautious about deregulation.Bill Weld, on the other hand, truly mixes fiscal conservatism with social liberalism.
As governor of Massachusetts he cut taxes sixteen times, balanced the budget annually, pursued privatization, and vetoed minimum wage increases.
Yet Weld does live up his socially liberal reputation in spades.
Does this strange combination of thorough economic conservatism and social liberalism make Weld a libertarian? Not unless libertarians also support expansive environmental regulations, gun control, and affirmative action.
Click for Bill Weld on other issues.
Source: American Spectator, "Understanding Bill Weld"
Page last updated: Mar 01, 2022
Error processing SSI file