A guiding principle of the conservative faith is that government fails at all it tries to do. When they get in power, they prove that theory in spades, at least for times when they are in power. The latest example from the New York Times:
After months of watching a growing credit crisis made worse by steadily eroding home prices, the Bush administration responded on Thursday with the outlines of a plan that officials emphasized is meant more to prevent future crises than to address the current one.
The plan, which relies primarily on state regulators and private industry to tighten their oversight of financial markets, calls on states to issue nationwide licensing standards for mortgage brokers. (Emphasis added)
Not to detract from the overall stupidity of the proposals, but the one I’ve emphasized takes the cake. The last time I looked there were 50 states. The federal government is proposing that each state adopt identical standards to regulate an industry which, shall we say, appears to affect interstate commerce. Wouldn’t federal regulation make more sense?
But that would be letting facts get in the way of ideology, and Republicans don’t do that sort of thing. They’d far rather expose the country to more financial skullduggery than allow the federal government to succeed at anything-other than torturing and wiretapping, that is.
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