I swore a couple of weeks ago that I was going to move away from politics for a bit. I’ve tried! Oh, how I’ve tried.

 

So much has happened over the past few weeks, however, that I just can’t pass up another opportunity to state the obvious… you know, stuff that even the dumbest of us should be able to figure out.

 

As most of you know, unless you’ve been in a deep coma over the past several months, we are in the throes of a serious national crisis that threatens us with a level of financial insolvency not seen since the Great Depression.

 

Our fearless president—this time only a minor blamee—is at it once again: explaining how we, the people, face financial obliteration if we don’t grant his administration, via Treasury Secretary (Henry Paulson) and the Federal Banking Chairman (Ben Bernanke), unquestioned authority to “fix” the problem.

 

Of course, these folks will have to run their proposals by the United States Congressional Banking Committees first. The only problem, however, is that these committees have been nothing but rubber approval stamps for the banking industry for years.

 

The details surrounding this mess are so massive that it’s impossible to do them justice here. I’m not even going to try.

 

In fact, though, banking lobbyists on K Street had been spending millions (for several years) on efforts to win Congressional approval aimed at segregating the worlds of investment banking from commercial banking.

 

In 1999, Bill Clinton signed into law the Financial Services Modernization Act, aka the Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) Act. At the time, Senator Phil Gramm was the bill’s lead sponsor and the banking industry’s “bestest friend in the whole world.”

 

The passage of this legislation, with the blessings of Fed Chief, Alan Greenspan, repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, one that Congress had put in place to protect the citizens of this country from the ravages of greed-induced unfettered free enterprise: the underlying platform that ushered in the unforgettable Great Depression of the ‘30s.

 

On November 12, 1999, Senator Gramm said; “The world changes, and Congress and the laws have to change with it.”

 

He continued with, "Abraham Lincoln used to like to use the analogy that old and outmoded laws need to be changed because it made about as much sense to continue to impose them on people as it did to ask a man to wear the same clothes he did when he was a child.”

 

Then, he followed up with this gem; "In the 1930s, at the trough of the Depression, when Glass-Steagall became law, it was believed that government was the answer. It was believed that stability and growth came from government overriding the functioning of free markets.”

 

Old Phil was full of wisdom as he continued with, "We are here today to repeal Glass-Steagall because we have learned that government is not the answer. We have learned that freedom and competition are the answers. We have learned that we promote economic growth and we promote stability by having competition and freedom.”

 

The man was as proud as a peacock as evidenced by his last statement concerning the bill’s passage; "I am proud to be here because this is an important bill; it is a deregulatory bill. I believe that that is the wave of the future, and I am awfully proud to have been a part of making it a reality."

 

The Republicans were in the majority at the time. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) chaired the U. S. Senate committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

 

Other Republican members were Richard Bennett (Utah), Wayne Allard (Colo.), Michael Enzi (Wyo.), Chuck Hagel (Neb.), Rick Santorum (Pa.), Jim Bunning (Ky.), Elizabeth Dole (N. C.), John Sununu (N. H.), and Lincoln Chafee (R. I.).

 

The ranking minority member was Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.). The other Democrats were Chris Dodd (Conn.), Tim Johnson (S. D.), Jack Reed (R. I.), Chuck Schumer (N. Y.), Evan Bayh, III (Ind.), Zell Miller (Ga.), Tom Carper (Del.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), and Jon Corzine (N. J.).

 

Committee Republicans voted “aye” (11-0). Committee Democrats voted “nay” (10-0). As usual, partisanship ruled the day, not public best interests.

 

Remove Paul Sarbanes, Zell Miller, Debbie Stabenow, and Jon Corzine for the Democrats. Also, remove Rick Santorum, John Sununu, and Lincoln Chafee for the Republicans.

 

These folks are no longer on the committee. Some are no longer in the United States Congress, thank God.

 

For the past two years, the Democrats have been the majority party. So, committee leadership and partisan makeup has changed. Chris Dodd (D-CT) chairs the 2008 version of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, while Richard Shelby (R-AL) is the Ranking Member.

 

And, the tables have turned. There are now 11-Democrats but only 10-Republicans. Perhaps they’ll take the initiative, realizing that SOME government oversight is both good and necessary.

 

We have to learn two things if we are to fully understand the real causes of this financial dilemma.

 

First, the terms legal and moral are NOT mutually inclusive, at least not in the secular world of Wall Street. And, second, we all must soon realize that incumbency for the sake of friendship and loyalty is dysfunctional.

 

The sooner we recognize that the only effective political vaccination against this type of dysfunction is shaking up the political status-quo by voting longstanding incumbents out of office, the better off we’re going to be.

 

Relative to morality and legality, when it comes to money and finance—on Wall Street in particular—if it’s legal, morality is not a consideration.

 

Even if it’s ILLEGAL, Wall Street can, and does, spend millions on lawyers who specialize in either finding or creating loopholes. And, as soon as they succeed, morality is, again, no longer a consideration.

 

For many people who become somewhat queasy over the prospect of doing something “immoral,” legal loopholes—for those who can afford them—serve as most effective antidotes.

 

And, trust me; Wall Street epitomizes both worldly secularity AND financial affordability when it comes to easing those frustrating moral “queasies” that crop up occasionally.

 

It is business as usual. Politics is the only profession whose members create massive problems and then campaign on the alleged virtues of their OWN solutions to solve them. Even more tragically, we buy into the scheme every two- and four-years.

 

As I wrote above, it is time that we all learn to throw the “bums” out before they become too powerfully ensconced in what seems to have evolved into a powerful fraternity that is the United States Congress.

 

But, as it now stands, we are supposed to take—on blind faith—the words of current Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson (formerly of Wall Street), Ben Bernanke (formerly of Wall Street), and Richard Shelby (Republicans ALL) that they’ll fix this problem if we’ll only give them $700-billion (that’s $700,000,000,000).

 

Personally, I’d as soon have my hemorrhoids ripped out by a medical quack using needle-nose pliers and NO anesthesia than trust a single word these people say.

 

To the contrary, we should be looking for ways to INDICT all of them: every “aye” that voted for bill 900’s passage, as well as the banking lobbyists and Wall Street titans who paid for its passage!

 

It simply boggles my mind the way that all of the chest-thumping, stalwart proponents of absolute, individualistic free enterprise preach its biblical tenets while things are going their way.

 

But, the second things fall apart, these same folks stampede to be first in a line of those advocating the socialization of it all. In a single twist of ironic fate, the staunch individualistic “I” becomes the all-encompassing “we.”

 

In 1999, government had to get out of the way for the good of the fine citizens of this great nation. But, in 2008… oops, perhaps not. It doesn’t get any phonier than this.

 

I mentioned above that I consider George W. Bush a minor blamee relative to this particular mess.

 

But, his short speech about this matter, delivered the other day to the American people, appeared to be another scare tactic his administration has used throughout the past eight-years to achieve a desired end.

 

In the George W. Bush tradition of the past eight years, if we don’t give them what they want, all of us could end up selling apples on the street… or worse.

 

Try as I have, I cannot find a single front on which he has not failed. And, I think we’ll be uncovering much more of it for years after he’s out of office. As a Conservative, myself, I cannot think of a single commendable thing he’s done.

 

I’ve reached a point where I cannot stand to look at him or listen to his voice. In every respect, we’re going to be worse off—by a long shot—on his departure from the national scene than we were on his arrival.

 

No matter which of the 2008-candidates we elect in November, if we do not give them the support and authority to kick out the cronies and partisan ideologues that have crippled virtually every aspect of the process, we'll be no better off than we are now!

 

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.