After spewing the traditional Republican talking points about all the bad things contained in the stimulus package signed into law today by President Barack Obama (in Denver, no less), Republican freshman congressman Mike Coffman actually decided to turn on his own brain and stray away from the “free market will save us all” rhetoric.
From The Columbine Courier:
In a break from traditional Republican ideology, Coffman said a lack of regulation led to the current economic morass.
“The demise of this economy was really a failure of government to properly regulate the economy,” Coffman said. “We had these subprime loans infecting a lot of balance sheets. I don’t see the appropriate oversight there, and it eventually brought the economy down.”
The lack of discipline wasn’t limited to profit-seeking banks, Coffman said.
“Essentially, the problem was spending beyond our means,” the congressman said. “Too much easy money, too much easy credit, and spending beyond our means as individuals and collectively as a nation. I don’t know how, again, spending and borrowing is going to be the cure here. It’s a real concern.”
Coffman, of course, doesn’t have an answer of his own for what should have been done – specifically – to fix the economy. But at least he shows that he may be willing to break the party line on the talking points that really make no sense at all. Like pretending a lack of regulation wasn’t the problem, for example. Because Republicans need leaders who can sound reasonable, for a change.
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And I never thought I’d say this, but on this issue, I agree 100% with Mike Coffman.
Now there’s some bipartisanship you can believe in.
Yes, I agree with Coffman on this issue, but I’m certainly nowhere close to 100% agreement with him. His comment is not quite complete. To be fully honest he would need to add to the massive increases in national and personal debts, over 47,000,000 citizens without health insurance, the high cost for those who do have have it and soaring medical inflation. The occupation of Iraq has also helped ruin the economy along with off-shoring and employers free to hire H1B workers when American workers were available. Underemployment, unemployment and shuttered factories have helped to drag down the once robust economy. Add to all of those the vodoo economics of the stock market and banking systems and anyone can see the multiple whammies we face. Yes, we need to re-regulate and do something different for a change. We need to enforce the regulations we have.