In fact, all history points towards leaving Wall Street alone to do whatever they want. Let's be clear about McCain's history here. He started his political life in DC in the Keating Five scandal. McCain used his influence to deflect regulators from investigating Charles Keating's troubled S&L, Lincoln Savings. Thanks to McCain's involvement the US taxpayers ended up getting stuck with the $2.6 billion.
Fast forward to this campaign where McCain has relied on Phil Gramm, former Senator who set up the economic problems on Wall Street today and who now works for exclusive Swiss bank UBS. Gramm helped rescue a failing McCain campaign last year and McCain has repeatedly referred to Gramm as his economic brain and his rumored Treasury Secretary. Gramm has a long history of changing Wall Street rules, creating an "anything goes" atmosphere that never, ever, never includes regulation. So for McCain to suggest he is now in favor of regulation is a ridiculous assertion. Who honestly believes that 72 year old John McCain, without any history of encouraging regulations on Wall Street, can change and suddenly be in the lead on regulation? C'mon.
Mr. McCain’s reaction suggests how the pendulum has swung to cast government regulation in a more favorable political light as the economy has suffered additional blows and how he is scrambling to adjust. While he has few footprints on economic issues in more than a quarter century in Congress, Mr. McCain has always been in his party’s mainstream on the issue.
In early 1995, after Republicans had taken control of Congress, Mr. McCain promoted a moratorium on federal regulations of all kinds. He was quoted as saying that excessive regulations were “destroying the American family, the American dream” and voters “want these regulations stopped.” The moratorium measure was unsuccessful.
“I’m always for less regulation,” he told The Wall Street Journal last March, “but I am aware of the view that there is a need for government oversight” in situations like the subprime lending crisis, the problem that has cascaded through Wall Street this year. He concluded, “but I am fundamentally a deregulator.”
Later that month, he gave a speech on the housing crisis in which he called for less regulation, saying, “Our financial market approach should include encouraging increased capital in financial institutions by removing regulatory, accounting and tax impediments to raising capital.”
