To the Editor:
With the economic wreckage left behind by the administration of President George W. Bush, Republicans and conservatives have tried to shift the blame for this chaos onto someone else. Their arguments are weak, inaccurate and hypocritical.
The same people who now complain about the federal debt being accumulated under President Barack Obama are silent about the $8 trillion of debt created and left behind by former Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and both George Bushes. I believe that this enormous debt fueled the stock market and real estate bubbles that recently collapsed, causing the financial crash of today.
A change in banking regulations in 1999 made the situation worse by reducing government oversight of banking institutions. This passed Congress during the Clinton administration, with almost unanimous GOP backing. The change was authored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm of the Senate Banking Committee, and co-sponsored by other Republican senators. Only one Republican senator voted against it. Of 212 Republican House members, only five voted "no."
When flaws in this regulation change became obvious, warning flags went up. Republicans controlled both the Senate and House from 2003 through 2006. They occupied the White House, too, giving them the power to correct the problem. They did not.
Today's financial panic is the direct result of the deficit policies of the Republican presidents and the deliberate lack of government oversight concerning Gramm's legislation. Both factors are primary pillars of the economic philosophy known as "Reaganomics."
It has taken nearly 30 years of reality to show that the theory of Reaganomics does not work. We're paying for it now.
Back in 1980, George H. W. Bush called Reaganomics "Voodoo economics." He was right.