Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission a rare case of bipartisanship
Kitty Felde/KPCC
Phil Angelides and former California congressman Bill Thomas, a fellow Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission member
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There was a rare showing of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill last week … mostly because the only politicians around were the ones no longer in office. Democrats and Republicans worked together to cast Wall Street as the bad guy.
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is looking into the country’s financial meltdown.
The chair is the former head of the California Democratic Party Phil Angelides; the vice-chair is Republican Bill Thomas — Bakersfield’s congressman for nearly three decades. Both men skewered bank execs at last week’s hearing for failing to realize that subprime loans and complex derivative deals were kicking their assets off a cliff.
Angelides says one reason there’s no partisan bickering on the commission is that no one’s running for re-election. But he says there’s another reason, "I think we all take seriously the fact that something very bad has happened to tens of millions of Americans and to communities across this country and this is bigger than party."
Angelides admits there’s “dialogue and discussion” behind the scenes. But he points out that he and his Republican colleague Bill Thomas share the view that executives who crashed their banks shouldn’t get a big payday for doing it.
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Jim Green
11 months ago
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Please forward to: The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
ATTN: Phil Angelides
Twice in the past almost 100 years we had an alarming disparity in wealth distribution – in 1928, and again in 2007, and in the graph “Share of Total Income Going to Top 1% of Families, 1913-2007” – the concentration of wealth reached a staggering 23.9% in 1928, and 23.5% in 2007—with both years showing the greatest disparity in this almost 100 year history – in sharp contrast that disparity in income was only 9.0% in 1978.
This raises several questions I would like the Commission to explore:
Is it pure coincidence that only shortly after we reached a certain level of disparity in wealth distribution – that our economy went into a meltdown?
And if this is not currently being used as an economic index, a warning light if you wish – to warn our economists and the American people of an impending economic collapse, why not?
We certainly have an economic index for almost everything else--
It is my understand that the purpose of the Commission is to explore the conditions, as it were, that led up to our economic collapse in 2008 – so that we can avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
And in that regard I would urge the Commission to consider the following – and in the same spirit of bipartisanship:
From 1980 to the close of the Bush administration [and including the Republicans in Congress to this day], the primary policy of the Republican Party has been to shift as much of America's wealth out of the hands of 99% of Americans – and into the hands of the top 1% of Americans. There is substantial data to verify this reality, and the methodology, even if we were to disregard that this has been their one and only policy—the result of the current disparity in wealth is a verifiable fact.
The larger point is that when we siphon the income away from the consuming public – we weaken the buying power of the consuming public and this is the direct and specific cause for our economic meltdown. And we had more businesses failures as a result of this policy than during any other period since WW II.
The purpose is pointing this out is to get to the truth, rather than pointing fingers—but if bad policy is the cause the American people are entitled to learn that.
Jim Green, Democrat candidate for Congress, Dist 21, TX, 2000 www.Inclusivism.org