Must-read article: "John McCain's Gramm Gamble" (May 2008)

[ProSense]

John McCain's Gramm Gamble

The GOP presidential nominee is relying on the ex-senator who helped bring you the mortgage crisis and Rick Perry.

Patricia Kilday Hart | May 30, 2008 | Features

In the early evening of Friday, December 15, 2000, with Christmas break only hours away, the U.S. Senate rushed to pass an essential, 11,000-page government reauthorization bill. In what one legal textbook would later call “a stunning departure from normal legislative practice,” the Senate tacked on a complex, 262-page amendment at the urging of Texas Sen. Phil Gramm.

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While the nation’s investment bankers are paying a heavy price for their unbridled greed (in billions of dollars of write-offs), Gramm has fared quite nicely. He currently serves as a vice president at UBS AG, a colossal, Swiss-owned investment bank, the post, no doubt, a thank you for assiduously looking out for Wall Street interests during his 23 years in public office. Now, with the aid of his longtime friend Arizona Sen. John McCain, Gramm may be looking at a quantum leap in power and influence.

Gramm serves as co-chair of the McCain 2008 presidential campaign. As one of the candidate’s chief economic advisers, he is mentioned as a possible secretary of the treasury in a McCain administration. Their friendship was forged in the Senate as they worked against the Clinton health care proposal, and cemented when McCain served as national chairman of Gramm’s own (ill-fated) 1996 presidential bid.

During McCain’s rocky road to the nomination, it was Gramm as much as anyone who helped smooth the way. Last July, when it looked as though McCain’s campaign would go bankrupt, Gramm, who once called money “the mother’s milk of politics,” advised him to slash his costs and assisted him with fundraising. Throughout the marathon primary season, Gramm has made numerous appearances with McCain and served as an ambassador to conservative groups. This spring, when conservative commentators attacked McCain as too liberal, McCain shored up his conservative bona fides by (according to The Huffington Post) bringing Gramm to a meeting with the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal.

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In Gramm, McCain has chosen for a campaign adviser a former senator who espouses free market, conservative principles, but whose actions in public office served wealthy contributors and even himself. Exhibit A: Gramm’s cozy Enron Corp. connections. Not only did CEO Ken Lay chair Gramm’s 1992 re-election campaign, but Gramm’s wife, Wendy, earned $50,000 a year as an Enron director from 1993 to 2001 (not counting perks that included stock options). Meanwhile Gramm pushed the company’s aggressive—and ultimately self-defeating—political agenda to escape government scrutiny.

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[msongs]

1. what was approved CAN BE repealed by congressional action...Nancy n Harry .. nt

[ProSense]

2. Kick n/t

[karynnj]

3. Interesting that McCain's economic advisor

has some responsibility for both Enron and the current crisis. Even as McCain will try to pull away, they have been allies for years.

[ProSense]

4. He's a

walking economic catastrophe.

[elleng]

5. MUCH MORE

than 'some' responsibility; gramm's advice has and will devastate us, and is the worst example of mcC's horrible judgment.

[ProSense]

6. Exactly. n/t

[karynnj]

7. Right

He was arguably the single most responsible person for both this and Enron. In both cases, he led the way to removing regulation with additions to bills. In addition to putting blame on Gramm for legislation that helped create the mess, it does argue against the practice of people inserting complex legislation, sometimes completely unrelated, into the complex bills written by the committees.

It does as you say reflect on McCain that Gramm is his economic adviser.

[ProSense]

8. Exactly. n/t