Wall Street Meltdown Turns McCain Pro-Regulation

Republican backs off earlier enthusiasm for deregulation
By Gabriel Winant,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 17, 2008 12:00 PM CDT
Wall Street Meltdown Turns McCain Pro-Regulation
Sen. John McCain calls on a supporter wanting to ask a question during a town hall style meeting at the Asociacion Borinquena de Florida Central in Orlando, Fla., Monday, Sept. 15, 2008.    (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)

With Wall Street in extremis, John McCain is backing away from a long history as an opponent of financial regulation, reports the Washington Post. The paper cites McCain's record in backing banking deregulation, including the 1999 legislation, sponsored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm, a McCain campaign adviser, that removed the Depression-era walls between banking, investment, and insurance companies.

That bill allowed AIG to expand into the global banking and investing behemoth, but also paved the way for the likes of AIG and Lehman to take on the massive loads of risky debt that have precipitated this crisis. Now McCain is ferociously charging their CEOs with greed and misconduct, which he says is aided by "casual oversight by regulatory agencies in Washington," where oversight is "scattered, unfocused, and ineffective." As recently as March, he was calling for more deregulation.

(More Barack Obama stories.)

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