Why We Need Federalism-6

"Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. ... Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers. ... [T]he Bush administration ... embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye. ... For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers. ... The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules. ... [W]hen the dust settles, the administration will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders ... [s]o willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers", my emphasis, Elliot Spitzer at the Houston Chronicle, 15 February 2008.

Imagine, the Republican party is supposed to be the party of federalism. Hahahaha would the Mogambu Guru say. It's the party, "Of the banks, by the banks and for the banks". Now that the idiot bankers are in trouble, the Fed and Treasury will steal hundreds of billions from savers to prop them up. What a system.