The GOP Is Right, It Is Clinton's Fault

I was listening to a local NPR talk show the other day and it struck me, it IS Clinton's fault, just like the Republicans claim.

The radio discussion concerned the near doubling of electric bills for many customers in Maryland. The cause? Deregulation of the electric industry. When the debate went on concerning it a decade ago, the line was that the free market would bring prices for consumers down. Competition good, regulation of industry bad. Market forces raise all boats. So, the legislature went along and -- of course -- the consumer got the shaft. So now there are attempts to put the genie back in the toothpaste tube and re-regulate the industry.

It is just one small example of everything we are seeing all the way across the economy. Why? Because high school never ends. The jerks from high school who lied, cheated, and stole? They went to college, got MBAs and now run corporations. Those with power positions in the marketplace are filthy rotten.

When their buddies got hold of the Congress and White House, of course, they invited the foxes into the hen house. Bush created a special tax break to help transport them into the hen house. But then so did Clinton. Clinton and his DLC chums happily sold out the party -- Clinton especially so when he realized that it was his ticket to a second term after Monica -- and played the deregulation game just like the GOoPers. VP Biden did it too with the bankruptcy bill. Call it "deregulation" and appeal to free market competition and how it will benefit everyone and really use the legislation to rig the game against most Americans in ways that someone without a law degree could never understand. Put on commercials with Harry and Louise to demonize anyone who doesn't want to hand the country over to our corporate overlords as dirty fucking hippies, socialists. And when it passes, let people with the moral fiber of Jesse James loot our entire economy into dust.

Yes, we have "people" like Phil Graham to blame. Yes, this sort of thing became endemic during the last eight years. But the snowball was rolling happily downhill for the years before that. To get himself another term William Jefferson Clinton gave our government to the people that destroyed it by becoming one of them.

The man did great things in terms of foreign policy which is why having Hilary at the helm of the Department of State is a very good thing. But keep the Clintons and their ilk away from anything that relates to economic regulation...you know, folks like Larry Summers who Obama put in one of the most powerful positions.