Phil Gramm: "A sorcerer's apprentice of instability and disaster"

Reid, Dems Go For McCain's Jugular
September 16, 2008 03:16 PM

Democrats, going after John McCain and the GOP jugular, are launching a coordinated attack over the economy, painting the current administration as the worst since Herbert Hoover and declaring that the Republican nominee represents a steady continuation of those failed policies.

The language is at times personal and cutting, with many of the party leaders echoing some of the same attacks that Barack Obama has levied this past week. It is a coordinated message that many activists and operatives have been pining for over the last several months.

"One Senator -- John McCain -- woke up yesterday morning, surveyed the state of the U.S. economy, summoned the ghost of his fellow Republican, Herbert Hoover, and declared, 'The fundamentals of our economy are strong,'" said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, before laying responsibility for the current woes in part on McCain's economic adviser Phil Gramm.

"I served with Phil Gramm here in the Senate," he said. "The same Phil Gramm who, as a Senator, was responsible for the deregulation of the financial services industry that paved the way for much of this crisis to occur. I like Phil Gramm, I don't like his economics. A respected economist at the University of Texas -- now that's where Phil Gramm taught, in Texas -- a respected economist at the University of Texas, James Galver said that Gramm was, and I quote, 'the most aggressive advocate of every predatory and rapacious element that the financial sector has,' and went on to say he is a 'sorcerer's apprentice of instability and disaster in the financial system.'"