We’ve all known for decades that multi-national corporations are screwing the consumer, the poor, animals, the planet, and just about anything else that should not be screwed in the interest of a few extra bucks. Yes, we’ve all known these things for decades, but what has been done to stop this corporate corn holing of America?
Any blame for corporate shenanigans obviously falls on the Republicans because we all know that the Republican party is for big business and the Democratic party represents the decent honest working people of this country…right?
WRONG!
Bill Clinton a Democrat held the White House for eight years, four of which President Clinton enjoyed the support of a Democratically controlled Congress. During this time President Clinton pushed for and passed:
Major legislation supported and signed into law
- 1993-02-05 - The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993
- 1993-08-10 - Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993: Raised income tax rates; income tax, top rate: 39.6%; corporate tax: 35%
- 1993-09-21 - creation of the AmeriCorps volunteer program
- 1993-11-30 - Brady Bill
- 1994-09-13 - Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act: Part of an omnibus crime bill, the federal death penalty was expanded to some 60 different offenses (see Federal assault weapons ban)
- 1996-02-01 - Communications Decency Act
- 1996-02-08 - Telecom Reform Act: Eliminated major ownership restrictions for radio and television groups.
OVERWHELMING BI-PARTISAN SUPPORT In the House of Representatives 414 Ayes, 16 Nays, 4 Present/Not Voting. In the Senate 81 Ayes, 18 Nays, 1 Present/Not Voting. In reality a huge coup for BIG business and a major loss for competition in the marketplace. Remember this is the same government that went out of its’ way to punish Microsoft for being a web browser monopoly, (which it was not) five years later legislating that creating media monopolies is just fine. Hypocrisy anyone?
- 1996-03-14 - Authorized $100 million counter-terrorism agreement with Israel to track down and root out terrorists.
- 1996-04-09 - Line Item Veto Act (Later declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Clinton v. City of New York).
- 1996-04-24 - Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
- 1996-08-20 - Minimum wage Increase Act
- 1996-09-21 - Defense of Marriage Act: Allowed states to refuse recognition of certain same-sex marriages, and defined marriage as between a male and female for purposes of federal law
- 1997-08-05 - Balanced Budget Act of 1997
- 1997-08-05 - State Children's Health Insurance Program
- 1997-08-05 - Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997
- 1996-08-26 - Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act: A welfare reform bill
- 1998-10-28 - Digital Millennium Copyright Act
- 1998-10-31 - Iraq Liberation Act
- 1999-11-12 - Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act: Repealed part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, allowing commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to consolidate
This is as close to OVERWHELMING BI-PARTISAN support as a vote can get in the US Senate. By the way, this “deregulation” of the banking industry is purported to be partially a significant factor in the credit crisis and sub-prime mortgage meltdown that would occur 8 years later. While the Republicans defended the legislation claiming it was not a culprit in the debacle, the Democrats failed to mention they supported the act and neglected to own up to Bill Clinton signing it into law without a veto… rather convenient and remarkably cowardly.
For the record, I would also argue that the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act neither contributed to the crisis, nor would the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 prevented or even mitigated the fallout of 2007 crisis. If I were looking for a scapegoat that provides the requisite easily identifiable target, yet retaining the aspect of mind boggling complexity that bamboozles the average voter into taking my word for it, I’d have gone a different route… the Steve Bartman incident always plays well in these scenarios when a good measure of smoke and mirrors is needed to hoodwink John Q. Public just long enough (varies between 15 minutes to 3 weeks) for him to forget there was an issue to be hoodwinked over in the first place.
- 2000-12-21 - Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 : Deregulated the Derivatives Market
Once again we have OVERWHELMING BI-PARTISAN SUPPORT (Yeas: 292 and Nays: 60) for a bill that had a REAL effect on the credit crisis and sub-prime mortgage meltdown that would occur 8 years later. Neither party seems to remember their support of this Act, and their certainly not going to remind you of their support either.
Now wait, before you go attacking me as a Republican or a Democrat… I’m not! I don’t support either the Democratic or the Republican parties because support of one is support of the other.
It is far past the time when WE THE PEOPLE need to wake up and see the political matrix construct we are living inside and the answer is not one or either of the major political parties. One is not better, or less worse than the other, that is just an illusion meant to keep you engaged in this…
