Tomorrow’s editorial page in The Wall Street Journal will be playing for laughs:
President Obama has laid a political trap for Republicans with his allegedly bipartisan budget deficit commission, and the question is whether the GOP leadership on Capitol Hill will fall into it. One way to increase the odds of dodging it would be for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to name the likes of former Texas Senator Phil Gramm as one of his three appointees. …
Mr. Gramm—who slowed the growth of spending in the 1980s, first as a Democrat in the House and later in the Senate as a Republican—would be one good selection. The Texan left the Senate in 2002 and now works for UBS. He knows where spending can be cut, and he’d be willing to say so.
As Richard Nadler wrote approvingly of Gramm upon the Senator’s retirement, “No member of Congress — not Jack Kemp, not Newt Gingrich, not Bob Dole — played a more decisive role in launching the Reagan agenda.” Indeed. So it stands to reason the Journal would like to see this supply-sider – who would likely have been Treasury Secretary in the administration (shudder) of John McCain – plunked into a commission that already is co-chaired by another former (but more cuddly) Senator who wants to deconstruct Social Security.
In case you’ve forgotten Gramm’s claims to infamy, besides telling Americans in 2008 that they were in a “mental recession,” it was he – as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs – who was point man for the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the law that repealed hunks of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act. That 1930s law prevented commercial banks from operating as investment banks and from entering the insurance business. It was the repeal of Glass-Steagall which served as midwife to the financial conglomerates such as AIG and Citigroup. Ironically, McCain, together with Sen. Maria Cantwell, is now seeking to reinstate Glass-Steagall. The Enron loophole can be put on Gramm’s plate. As well as derivatives deregulation. He also blocked legislation that would have cracked down on off-shore tax havens, a law that might, just might, have had a little impact on reducing federal deficits. And he is now vice chairman of the scandal-plagued UBS investment firm.
Yeah. Definitely a good guy to have giving advice on keeping government spending in check. If Edward Teller were alive, the Journal’s editorialists would be recommending him for a seat on the President’s zero-nukes advisory team.
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2003: Reviews are in: Bush sucked:
A competent president would seek out the tough questions — proving by force of argument the truthfulness of his position. This is somethig Blair does almost weekly. Instead, Bush punishes any dissent (read: “real journalism”) and coddles the weakest amongst the press corps. That group has to be the laughing stock of the journalism world.
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