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In recent months I have been troubled by some of the things Dylan Ratigan has been saying on his show. Earlier today on MSNBC Ratigan said something that I think was wrong. Ratigan claimed that the Democratic Party was doing the bidding of Wall Street. Ratigan made it seem that the Democratic Party was the political wing of Wall Street. That is wrong.
Anyone can be upset about the fact that Democrats did not go farther on certain financial issues, but everyone should admit that if the Republicans had been in control of Congress or if there had been a Republican President the majority, if any, of the financial reforms inacted over the last two years would not have been implemented. The Republican Party opposed reforms of the credit card industry that among other things prevented credit card companies from abruptly increasing a person's interest rates. The Republican Party opposed rules changes that forced banks to make overdraft protection an opt-in program instead of an opt-out program. Finally, it was the Republican Party that opposed the latest financial reform laws that among other things created the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. In addition, it was John Boehner, the House Republican leader who said this financial reform was like using a nuclear weapon to get rid of an ant. I do not think Boehner was comparing the financial crisis to an ant, but I and many others disagree with Boehner on the issue of financial reform.
The whole point of this post is to say no matter how angry Ratigan is at the Democratic Party things would have been worse in the Repbulican had been in control. I realize Ratigan is not advocating giving control to the Republican Party; however, he should give more criticism to the Repbulican Party. They are just as big a group of Wall Street boosters, if not bigger, than the Democratic Party.
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