GOP’S WALL STREET OUTREACH HAVING AN EFFECT…. It didn’t generate nearly as much attention as Democrats had hoped, but the WSJ ran a provocative item late last week about Republicans trying to solidify their relationships with Wall Street.
As the article explained, Democrats are trying to bring new levels of oversight and accountability to Wall Street, which in turn has prompted the GOP to “step up their campaign” to win campaign contributions from the financial industry. As Republicans make the case, if Wall Street gives the GOP cash, Republicans stand a better chance of making things easier on those who nearly brought down the global financial system.
It was almost comical to read. More importantly, though, the efforts appear to be working.
While [JPMorgan Chase] has contributed to some individual Democrats and state organizations, it has rebuffed solicitations from the national Democratic House and Senate campaign committees. Instead, it gave $30,000 to their Republican counterparts.
The shift reflects the hard political edge to the industry’s campaign to thwart Mr. Obama’s proposals for tighter financial regulations.
So, let me get this straight. The financial industry took truly insane risks with the global economy, and their irresponsible misconduct brought about economic collapse. Democrats are, with varying degrees of urgency, trying to bring some levels of common sense and accountability to the system, in order to prevent future catastrophes.
And as a result, Wall Street, its corporate lobbyists, and congressional Republicans have teamed up to block reform and prevent new rules from becoming law, and the GOP is being rewarded with huge campaign checks.
Conservatives, who somehow claim to be economic populists, are on board with all of this, and the electorate, which is presumably livid with Wall Street, is poised to reward the political party that stands with those who brought the global system to the brink of collapse, and reject efforts to prevent another crisis.
It’s quite a system we have here.
