Democrat Dirty Laundry: Hypocrisy: Dems in Reform Debate Soak Up Wall St. Money

Hypocrisy: Dems in Reform Debate Soak Up Wall St. Money
“The Democratic Majority was Bought and Paid for by Wall Street”

SPIN CYCLE: Speaker Pelosi Vowed that Democrats Would Lead the “Most Honest, Most Open, and Most Ethical Congress in History”

“Our goal is to restore accountability, honesty and openness at all levels of government. To do so, we will create and enforce rules that demand the highest ethics from every public servant, sever unethical ties between lawmakers and lobbyists, and establish clear standards that prevent the trading of official business for gifts.” (Nancy Pelosi’s “A New Direction for America,” Page 21)

RINSE CYCLE: Wall Street Funnels Cash to Dems Critical to Passing Legislation Intended to Rid the Financial Sector of Corruption

When President Barack Obama’s vast new regulatory state is completed, Wall Street firms ought to have a competition over the naming rights.

Will it be the CitiDeal? Or the Goldman Society? Or the UBS/J.P. Morgan Joint Initiative for the Establishment of a Social Democracy?

The Democratic majority was bought and paid for by Wall Street and corporate money. The Masters of the Universe helped give us the Masters of the Beltway, in a synergistic exercise that would have dumbfounded even Lenin. When he famously said capitalists would sell the rope to hang them with, he was at least talking of a commercial transaction – not maxing out to a campaign committee.

Back in 2006, Democrats began a hard sell on Wall Street led by New York senator Chuck Schumer and then-representative Rahm Emanuel, now White House chief of staff. The basic pitch was that Democrats were taking Congress, and the financial world should get on board – surely delivered with all the bare-knuckled subtlety for which those two are justly renowned.

Democrats beat Republicans in the Wall Street money chase in 2006, and kept on going. In the 2008 election cycle, Democrats garnered 73 percent of the political donations of Goldman Sachs, as well as the majority of donations from other financial giants such as UBS and Citigroup. They soaked up most of the hedge-fund money, and won the battle for donations from industries as varied as health care, defense, and law.

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At the end of last year, the Center for Responsive Politics wrote of hedge funds and private equity firms, “This election cycle is proving to be the most left-leaning for the industry.” And it wasn’t just finance. “Democrats have an enormous lead in almost every business sector they denounce,” NR’s Kevin D. Williamson noted in January.

When Obama went to Cooper Union to chide the titans of finance on reform, it was basically a tiff within the family (although there are signs they are starting to warm to the GOP again).

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Then, there’s fear and greed. The more Washington does, the greater the need to protect yourself, and the greater the opportunities for profit. A writer for the Huffington Post reported on carve-outs in the financial-reform bill. “Obtaining a carve-out isn’t rocket science,” a Republican financial-services lobbyist told the website. “Just give Chairman [Chris] Dodd and Chuck Schumer a [expletive denoting a lot] of money.”

That’s the Democratic appeal writ large. They are running a protection racket. No matter how bad a “reform” is, it could be worse. This is how they bought off the drug companies in the health-care debate – by threatening worse. It is why the insurance companies were conflicted. Yes, they were maligned. But they’d live to fight another day, and in the meantime, the government would mandate that people buy their product. (Rich Lowry, “The Wall Street Democrats,” Real Clear Politics, 4/24/10)

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