The sudden acceleration of the nation’s economic troubles was predictably met by both of the major party candidates for President with a ramping up of their rhetoric on the economy.
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Neither Obama nor McCain have spared words to criticize Wall Street. Railing against greed and corruption, McCain has promised to end the “casino culture” on Wall Street. Obama vowed to end “crony capitalism.” Both say they will take on lobbyists and “special interests,” reform the tax code, and force bankers to be more “transparent.”
With such posturing going on, one might start thinking that McCain and Obama are indeed enemies of the big bankers who have gotten us into this economic crisis in the first place. That is certainly what their speechwriters would like us to believe.
McCain and Obama are extremely cozy with the capitalists they criticize. Tough talk aside, neither candidate is shy when it comes to donations from Wall Street’s fat cats. Many of the financial profiteers on their top donor list either have received or expect generous bailouts from the government—all at the expense of taxpayers.
Seven out of 20 of Obama’s top contributors are employees in the banking establishment. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup come in first and third, respectively. Lehman Brothers ranks 10th, and three Lehman executives have also bundled over $500,000 for Obama. Execs from Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and UBS, among other financial firms, have all forked over hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Obama campaign. It is clear from an examination of the records: Obama is a close ally of the very financial interests he claims he will take on.
McCain’s vows to clean up Wall Street are at least as implausible as Obama’s, if not more. During the last major prolonged economic crisis—the meltdown of the late 1980s, known as the Savings and Loan Crisis—McCain was one of the “Keating Five.” These were five senators who, among other things, received thousands of dollars in return for helping lawyer and banker Charles Keating fight off regulators who sought to investigate illegal practices at his Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. McCain took over $100,000 from Keating, as well as all-expenses-paid trips to the Bahamas for him and his family.
With this stellar record, it comes as no surprise that McCain’s five largest contributors come from financial firms, led by none other than employees at Merrill Lynch. Twelve out of McCain’s top 20 donors are from Wall Street. Big-time bundlers from the houses of finance also appear in McCain’s contribution column as well. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae. Phil Gramm, McCain’s former top official economic adviser and now unofficial adviser, was one of the Congressional masterminds behind ending the last of the Depression-era financial regulation laws, which helped open the doors to the high-risk gambling in the financial markets in the first place.
McCain and Obama are both in bed with the wealthy criminals behind the financial crisis, but not all candidates are the same. The La Riva/Puryear campaign takes no money at all from the big bankers. It was the insatiable and unrelenting drive for profit of those financiers, an inherent component of the capitalist system, which led to the present economic crisis. They are the ones who should pay.
Our campaign believes there should be an immediate moratorium on evictions and foreclosures; and the profits and assets of the financial powerhouses, accrued in the course of their gambling with the lives of working people, should be used to fund real relief for the millions of unemployed and underemployed people who have been victimized by this capitalist crisis. The problem is not cronyism, but capitalism! Join with us: Vote La Riva/Puryear!
