WP: Senate Democratic Leader Blasts Greenspan ("political hack")

Senate Democratic Leader Blasts Greenspan

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 4, 2005; Page A06


Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan generally gets accolades for his public pronouncements. Yesterday he got a brickbat from Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who blasted Greenspan as "one of the biggest political hacks we have here in Washington."

Reid ripped Greenspan during an interview on CNN's "Inside Politics." He said the Fed chairman has given President Bush a pass on deficits that have built up in the past four years and should be challenging Republicans on their fiscal policies, rather than promoting Bush's plan to introduce personal accounts into Social Security.

"I'm not a big Greenspan fan -- Alan Greenspan fan," Reid said when asked about the Fed chairman's testimony this week urging Congress to deal quickly with the financial problems facing Social Security and Medicare. "I voted against him the last two times. I think he's one of the biggest political hacks we have in Washington."...

***

"Why doesn't he respond to the Republicans and tell them the big problem here is the debt that this administration is created?" he said. "We had a $7 trillion-dollar surplus when Bush took office. Now we have a $3 or $4 trillion-dollar deficit. That's, in fact, what Greenspan should be telling people."...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5396-2005Mar3.html

He's so . . . passive midwest looking. The contrast between his demeanor and his words is pure beauty, and his post SOU address speech, I thought, was perfect.

I've written Good King Hank a letter.

Here it is. Maybe you'd like to add your comments.

http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/BankruptcyBill/

You've got two more signatures. :thumbsup:

gLad to have you. :hi:

It seems he's some kind of stealth fighter, no?

This guy is really starting to impress.....

Now if we can get all or most Democrats to to join Reid and form a united front to expose and erase the false legitamacy buttressing Greenspan that will be good.

damn near every month when Clinton was President! He was just so pissed off that the economy was doing so well, and he tried everything he could to stop it!

during the last two years of Clinton's last term.

Reid's right. He's a hack who is pandering to the rich and he needs to go. He doesn't give a shit about the country or the people who live here, the people he's supposed to be serving. All he cares about is how much wealth he's amassed, and I think he fully expects to take it with him when he finally croaks.

He's the most anti-worker Fed chair we've ever had. What gets me is why so many Democrats think this guy walks on water.

Greenspan has played THE major role in shifting wealth upward over the last two decades. He has held workers' wages down and deliberately kept interest rates artificially low, and credit easy to get. Low interest rates have also led to the US having the lowest saving rates of all the industrialized nations.

This has been a lethal combination for working people, who now have to borrow more $$ (at record-low rates) to make up for the wages they used to get. That's why we have record-breaking personal bankruptcies, record personal debt, and even greater wealth concentration in this country.

Easy credit is no substitute for better wages. You get to KEEP your wages-- you have to pay back credit, eventually. It's just another way that big corporate banking and finance companies transfer wealth up the food chain.

Reappointing Greenspan was Clinton's WORST mistake, IMO-- even worse than NAFTA. Greenspan is not only a partisan hack, he's a menace to working- and middle-class wage earners.

of clinton's term, why isn't it important now? Bob Woodwards book on clinton's economic policy that year portrays him (greenspan) as supportive and cooperative with clinton's plan?

showing his support for Clinton's deficit reduction plan. I think he is more of a suck-up than anything.

hillary and (i think) tipper gore. Thanks for the confirmation.

Amen and Amen and Amen.

He referred to the private accounts as "personal" accounts. There is nothing personal about the SS piratization boondoogle.

If he's going to write about one of our people, he needs to speak our language.

'personal' accounts. It is the privitazation of those accounts that sux. U R right, Balz needs a lesson in language.

... "private accounts." Every 'journalist' that uses the term "personal accounts" has sold out to the GOP. When the media surrenders control of language itself to the Reich Propagandists, they're complicit in the Fascism running amok in this country.

to really love ya!

You also will love commondreams.org's "Greenspan Shrugged" on the Fed chairman's free market/ deregulatory ideology. Keep the scandals a-comin' !

Oh, and as an economist, Greenspan surely knows the meaning of Regressive Taxation...Some members of these committees Al testifies before should ask him all about that with 'consumption taxes' and 'marginal propensities to consume'. Will probably sink the Bush Tax Cuts !

Greenspan complained about the surplus.
Greenspan complains about the deficits.

Greenspan "fixed" Social Security 20 years ago
Greenspan thinks Social Security need to be fixed

The guy sure knows how to STRADDLE an issue!

Spurt-spurt!

:-)

Boxer, Dean, Reid... Hot damn, we've got some live Democrats again!

It's for us!!!

and play like a TEAM once in a while :shrug:

peace

Thank you Senator Reid! Please make sure this message gets out wall-to-wall 24/7 by the entire Democratic Party.

Also, you should start pointing out how Alan Greenspan is a damn con man shilling for the banks too. He told people four months ago to go out and get variable rate mortgages!!!!

What ...a...JERK!

Oh yeah, this guy has balls! Hip-hip hooray! :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

"BIG GOP HACK" or is it "PIG GOP HACK"!!!!



more

www.libertywhistle.us

appropriately disturbing image. :-)

fiasco, how?

by considering a national sales tax, which basically means the poor and the middle class will be ponying up the money to balance asshole bush's spending spree and huge tax giveaways to his big bucked cronies.

i now use my favorite smiley:

:grr:

...to those that have been pleasantly surprised by Reid. Greenspan has been involved in hackery for the past decade, but he's getting more blatant and less careful about it.

someone said it.....

:yourock:

Yes, Virginia, we do have an opposition! And Reid is our head shit-kicker. People scoffed but those of us who knew (or posses unique psychic powers) when we touted Reid from the start. He supported Boxer in the Ohio debate; encouraged opponents to Rice; voted against Gonzales; enforces strong discipline on Social Security; signed the letter (only 4 other Senators signed) demanding a Gannon investigation; called out the "little boys and little girls" in the WH the day the RNC sent out the anti-Reid hit piece.

And now, he tells the TRUTH about the biggest sacred cow in DC.

Give em Hell Harry (He just tells the truth and they think it's Hell)

NEW LEADERS FOR A NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
SOCIAL JUSTICE, INTERNATIONAL RESTRAINT, NO
MORE “BUSH LITE


(BTW, to all you doubters, this is incontrovertible proof that Reid is leading an OPPOSITION; allowing me to say I told you so. Aren't you glad I was right?)

that the good die young and the truly bad ones seem to go on forever???

The old bastard is a fraud akin to the soothsayers of the dark ages.

it's just scary that a party hack like greenspan is in the most powerful position in this nation.

corporate oligarchy.
among other things that other duers have pointed out that greenspan said -- he also said that personal debt in this country was not a problem because americans have more tools to deal with it.

oh yeah -- like the new bankruptcy bill?
greenspan is corrupt.

and i'm baffLed whenever i hear DUers caLLing him repubLican Lite and such.

I lived in Vegas for 5 years--left there in 2001. I liked Reid and thought he did a good job.

Greenspan: "one of the biggest political hacks we have in Washington"

GO!! HARRY! GO!!

that Democrats sound like Democrats again.
Email form:
http://reid.senate.gov/email_form.cfm

balanced coverage this story requires.

This is the first time I have seen someone in a position of power actually go after Mr. Ayn Rand and I think its great. After all, the son of a bitch has:
1.damaged the economy and Clinton/Gore with his interest rate hikes during the nineties.

2.propped up Bush at every opportunity and again damaged the economy by supporting the tax rip-off for the rich and now the raid on social security

3.and now is supporting one of the most regressive tax models that could possibly exist - the national sales tax.


Greenspan has never been "evenhanded." He needs to go.

this guy needs his ass fired!!

Maybe what's needed here is to dose out a little of their own medicine to the repigs. What if the problem they have with Social Security is that it generally reminds them of something akin to 'Socialism'? That they just can't stand the idea of government doing anything that would, in fact, 'Provide for the general welfare'? My bet is that if these SOB's had been around in 1776 that language would never have made it into the Declaration, or the Preamble, or wherever it is.

So, how about just renaming the program to something they could cozy up to without getting all apoplectic? Say, 'A Little Something for Our Beloved Seniors'...or, 'Mom's and Dad's Safety Net'...or just, 'Personal Security' (but without all the extra privatizing and personalization stuff - I mean if folks want to put money into IRA's and such, they're at liberty to do so, which also assumes they've got something to put into them in the first place)...you get it.

of people just like them around in 1776. They were called Tories.

I am really starting to like Reid. He's a large improvement over Daschle by a mile.

I really like Reid... I love when he speaks because, you always know, he'll have lethal weapon behind this very nice man!

Its about time someone blasted that tool called Greenspan. What an ass.

give em hell Harry, make their day!

I'd heard he was a no nonsense guy...quiet but effecient where the rubber meets the road.

Not perfect, but SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH BETTER than what we've been subjected to in recent years.

WOOHOOOOOOOOOO GO HARRY! :bounce:

And having that dopey-looking political hack Greenspan chairing the Fed is a joke.

The Fed is not some arm of the government. It's a bank that was given the authority to issue our "currency" by Woodrow Wilson. Ever since then, it's NEVER been audited. Lord knows what that bank has been financing over those years. Former Congressman Henry Gonzales knew something's not right with the Fed, but all of the other stooges in Washington fought him off until he retired.

It's about time somebody calls a spade a spade. I've gotten so sick of everybody fawning over Greenspan in the past. We need to call him out. And the same with his crater-faced wife, Andrea Mitchell, too!

I agree. They both need to go. JUST GO!!

Here's another thread on DU that links to an article with statistical evidence of the Fed playing politics with interest rates, all the way back to the Kennedy administration.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1639046&mesg_id=1639046

Sure sounds that way!!

He's is in a very visible position now and he's using the right way!

Greenspan endorsed the surplus squandering/deficit creating tax cuts and basically destroyed the fiscal responsibility that underpinned the nineties boom. And now he thinks things are unsustainable. No shit.

gave him a hearty "Way to Go"! And I was a skeptic on this guy. But he definitely has some fight in him.

very ashamed of. I made fun of his faith as a Mormon. I realized my idiocy shortly thereafter, and that feeling of stupidity is amplified more now that I see he's actually a Senator who is actually willing to fight.

Sen. Reid, I am sorry that I ever doubted you it is an honor to have you as our Senate Minority Leader keep up the great work.

By Dana Milbank and Nell Henderson

Saturday, March 5, 2005; Page A01

Questioning the wisdom of Alan Greenspan in political Washington is akin to challenging the integrity of the pope in Rome, so figures in both parties agreed yesterday that the top Senate Democrat's description of the Federal Reserve Board chairman as a "political hack" was a blunder.

But Democrats said the accusation by Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) reflected a real frustration in the minority party with Greenspan. Even before Reid's attack, Democrats say, they have been changing their view of Greenspan from one of an above-politics wise man to the Republican partisan he had been in the 1960s and '70s.

In Democrats' view, Greenspan's endorsement of President Bush's tax cut in 2001 reduced the Fed chairman's standing from when he was hailed by both sides in the 1990s as the "maestro" of a healthy economy. Then, last week, Greenspan urged changes to Social Security "sooner rather than later," private retirement accounts and a restructured tax code -- siding with Bush in each case. The White House pointed to this as nonpartisan validation; Democrats cried foul.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), who worked with the Fed chairman as a Clinton administration official and in Congress, said Greenspan has been "unbelievably effective" at the Fed but he does not forgive Greenspan for flashing "a green light" to tax cuts that contributed to large deficits. "There's a moat around the Fed that says he doesn't get involved in political discussions," Emanuel said. "He took the moat down."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8519-2005Mar4.html

fallen!

noticed how people around Bush seem to, I don't know how to state this, but they seem to be diminished, discredited? He pulls everyone around him down.

I congratulate him for it. If Greenspan chooses to spew right wing rhetoric, let him do so but he loses all credibility of being neutral.

Why is this brought up now? Greenspan evidently changed his spots. What we needed was an economist not a politician going with the flow. Dump him now.

So saith my avatar

...to the issue of Social Security. President Clinton said many times that we're headed for a train wreck with the program. I believe him.

I just hope that Bush is not allowed to dismember the program.

Having said that, we need to come up with our own ideas to fix it, not just criticize everything the other side proposes.

and are traveling the country with it. As they travel where Bush goes, they are explaining why his plan won't work.

...I disagree when I hear them say the other side only wants to scare voters with this issue.

The system really is headed for a train wreck. I hope we can fix it and not let anyone fall through the cracks.

That's where the surplus went and with it our social security money!

or post otherwise.

"...You can take the President at his word when he says "I want you to think about a Social Security system that will be flat bust, bankrupt". Of course he does. Remember when all he wanted you to think about was nerve gas, smallpox and mushroom clouds?

Iraq didn't have Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Social Security isn't going bankrupt.

...Alternatively under current law Social Security can pay 100 percent of benefits until around 2050, after which point 80 percent of benefits can be paid forever.

Does that sound like a bankruptcy crisis to any sane person?"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/4/83318/07155

He's my congressman.

know of a proposal other than to ship the money to Wall Street Brokers. I don't criticize the everything the other side proposes, because the only thing they have proposed is to destroy the AARP. Their plan is a secret.

If you've ever read anything by GRover Norquist you would know that.

If you raise the ceiling on payroll taxes past the $90K limit, the system would be solvent for centuries.

The workers pay a much higher percentage of payroll taxes than the wealthy. Make those rich bastards pay their fair share!

:grr:

Have to say I had my doubts about him, but he's been pretty outspoken and willing to "start something."

What he said is true, greenspan is partisan, I've felt that since bush got into office. greenspan was only "non-partisan" when clinton was in office. Interesting, don'tcha think?

This article contridicts itself quite quickly. First paragraph "figures in both parties agreed...was a blunder" (sounds like "some people say") and then third paragraph "democrats said the accusation reflected a real frustration..." Ok, which is it?

He's got guts.

Both clearly saw that the country was being led by a village idiot, and they supposedly formed a pact to make sure the neocon's shill didn't bring the economy down, with both concerned about the deficits.

But now with his buddy gone, he seems to have no spine. Whats he got to lose?? He's got all the money in the world, hes clearly older than Moses, why doesn't he choose to live the last years of his professional life as a leader with an ounce of dignity, instead of a spineless wimp?

way back in his younger days...

Conservative since.

Why is this news?

Have you ever seen any "news reporting" from his wife Andrea Mitchell? Like on The Tweety Hour....

Liberal Media?

Gimme a break.

with a smarter President. He had to tell the truth. With his neocon god in place, he can go his elitest length, knowing that his family will be a part, because of the wealth he has amassed, of the new aristocracy. I say in the next few years, if unchecked, they'll be handing out titles.

that Greenspan is now nothing but a bush shill and a partisan.

He IGNORES the FACT that keeping bush's TEMPORARY tax cuts for the richest 1% as temporary would fully fund SS until the 22nd century.

INSTEAD, he says we should just CUT SS BENEFITS.

OBVIOUS PARTISAN SHILLING FOR BUSH.

He's past the point where he can stand up to a gang of thugs like Bushco who will surely find a way to make him heel.

him what he really is.

Everybody knows that. Even a a high school economics student knows that. Massive deficits lower investor confidence, especially when we know we have to pay it back with interest or make some really unpleasant cuts in necessary programs. The fact that Greenspan is not speaking up about this tells you a lot about where his loyalties lie. Trust me, he is not afraid of punishment, he's just a Republican asshole. always has been. Look at his donations; http://www.newsmeat.com/washington_political_donations/Alan_Greenspan.php
We should have sacked him long ago.

Bush is definitely NOT an economic conservative. I expect his plans would be a lot less popular if we had to pay for them now.

Greenspan even endorsed the national sales tax idea. He wants a hybrid system with income and sales tax as a transition.