"An Act to enhance competition in the financial services industry by providing a prudential framework for the affiliation of banks, securities firms, and other financial service providers, and for other purposes," reads the U.S. Senate description of the historic 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.
The repeal is known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, and is one culprit in the financial melt-down on Wall Street.
The anti-regulation champion John McCain was the sole Senator not voting on the bill (Conference Report) that passed 90-8-1-1.
McCain was still smarting from his associations with the Keating Five 10 years earlier when that vote was held.
As McCain deals with the fall-out from revelations that his campaign manager, Rick Davis, received payments exceeding $2 million from Freddie Mac up until last month, it would be nice to hear a fresh recollection from McCain of why he missed the Glass-Steagall Act vote.
Is the answer that McCain was so deep into the pockets of the Financial Services industry that he was afraid to be too closely associated with this key piece of legislation, even as McCain had attached his name on the reformist McCain–Feingold Act, filibustered for the third time in 1999?
You make this too easy. Is this the same bill Credit Card Biden, John Forbes Kerry, Nobody's Senator but his Herb Kohl.
ReplyDeleteBad bill I agree. All but 7 Dems voted for it, McCain didn't.
See this is Obama's and the Dems problem. Its difficult to attack McCain on any issue because the Dems record is so poor. But go ahead attack McCain for not voting for a bad bill, when most Democrats did.
Obama was not the Senate. His hands are clean.
ReplyDeleteThe Dems' are not.
McCain, his conspicous non-vote notwithstanding, is uncontrovesially a deregulator, then and now.
You dispute that?
Coming off the Keating scandal, McCain avoided the vote, and embraced McCain-Feingold, taking the lead name though this was Feingold's baby from the start.
Yes, Dems voted for the bill, as I have pointed out elsewhere as well; the vote was 90-8-1-1.