Gramm-Leach-Bliley

"Democrats largely supported it at the time, and one of their own, Bill Clinton, signed it. Now they frame it as a Republican bill that helped send the nation on the path to perdition."

Even Bill Clinton has been interviewed recently as saying it was a good idea, and of course, he could have vetoed it. So why do we let the Democrats get away with saying it is the Republicans and deregulation's fault? Here's what happened.

Modernized the rules, says IBD.

The mistakes had nothing to do with the 1999 law.

Pumping up home ownership was good for business and good for the politicians--all of them.

A new multitrillion-dollar market emerged

And what happened from there to cause the collapse needs to be investigated.

Well, maybe, but we sure shouldn't put Barney Frank in charge, he definitely needs to go; and congress definitely shouldn't be patting themselves on the back!

Bill and Barry disagree on banking

Barack Obama's tale is pretty fishy. It's not the way Bill Clinton remembers it.

"In BusinessWeek.com, Maria Bartiromo reports that she asked the former President last week whether he regretted signing that [1999] legislation. Mr. Clinton's reply: "No, because it wasn't a complete deregulation at all. We still have heavy regulations and insurance on bank deposits, requirements on banks for capital and for disclosure. I thought at the time that it might lead to more stable investments and a reduced pressure on Wall Street to produce quarterly profits that were always bigger than the previous quarter.

"But I have really thought about this a lot. I don't see that signing that bill had anything to do with the current crisis. Indeed, one of the things that has helped stabilize the current situation as much as it has is the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, which was much smoother than it would have been if I hadn't signed that bill. . .

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act passed the Senate on a 90-8 vote, including 38 Democrats and such notable Obama supporters as Chuck Schumer, John Kerry, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Dick Durbin, Tom Daschle -- oh, and Joe Biden. Mr. Schumer was especially fulsome in his endorsement."

Story here.

How a bill becomes a law

by James Taranto in today's WSJ is very interesting, and he wrote it for the Kos Kidz misinformation being spewed at the Daily Kos, a far left-kook web site. By the time he finished I think I understood more about the 1999 Graham-Leach-Bliley Act which passed the Senate on a 90-8 vote, with both Reid and Obama running mate Joe Biden casting "aye" votes. ". . . without Gramm-Leach-Bliley, which abolished the barrier between commercial and investment banking, the recent deals that saved Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch would have been impossible, since both of them involved a commercial bank acquiring a troubled investment bank." Story here.

And Obama's links to Freddie and Fannie don't sound good to me.

Top recipients of Fannie/Freddie donations:

#1 Chris Dodd
#2 John Kerry
#3 Barack Obama
#4 HIllary Clinton

How do you get to be #3 of the top 25 when you've spent so little time in the Senate? Maybe he's been text messaging them while on the road running for President the last 2 years? Sen. McCain wasn’t listed in the report.