McCain's Top Economic Advisor: We Are A Nation Of Whiners

In an interview with the Washington Times, McCain's top economic advisor Phil Gramm showed why Republicans are just not fit to be in charge right now:

"You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. "We may have a recession; we haven't had one yet."

"We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline" despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said.

"We've never been more dominant; we've never had more natural advantages than we have today," he said. "We have benefited greatly" from the globalization of the economy in the last 30 years.

Mr. Gramm said the constant drubbing of the media on the economy's problems is one reason people have lost confidence. Various surveys show that consumer confidence has fallen precipitously this year to the lowest levels in two to three decades, with most analysts attributing that to record high gasoline prices over $4 a gallon and big drops in the value of homes, which are consumers' biggest assets.

"Misery sells newspapers," Mr. Gramm said. "Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day."

I'm sure if you are an old rich guy like John McCain or Phil Gramm, racking up $750,000 in credit card debt in one month, struggling to pay property taxes on one of your eleven homes, or blowing thousands at a time at the craps table, then maybe it's hard to relate to the average Joe. When you are on a private plane, or being chauffered around, you don't realize the impact of $4 gas, downsizing, outsourcing, and job losses.

John McCain has never been unemployed in his life. The same is probably true for Phil Gramm. Neither man has ever had to struggle to pay the rent. Neither man has ever been without health insurance. They don't know what tough economic times are like.

But what's really rich about this, what's really disgusting in fact, is that Phil Gramm is one of the architects of our current economic crisis:

Before he retired from the Senate in 2002, he wrote the Gramm-Bliley bill, an act broadly deregulating the financial industry -- and now blamed by many economists for the epidemic of speculation and fraud that has shaken the global economy.

Touting those changes as a way to "modernize" American finance for a global future, Gramm said they would bring wonderful new efficiencies and savings to consumers. As with the energy deregulation that he sponsored -- which was supposed to bring lower prices and better service, but led to blackouts and price gouging -- those economic wonders never quite appeared. The damaging effects of banking deregulation took nearly a decade to be felt, but whether we have experienced the worst still remains to be seen.

Over and over again, from the savings-and-loan fiasco to the Enron shock to the global banking meltdown, the golden promises of deregulation have turned to leaden ruin. Perhaps nobody cares about the lobbyists surrounding McCain, but someone should ask him why he would cherish the advice of a man whose devotion to ideology has already done us so much damage.

McCain can pretend to distance himself from these comments...



...but McCain himself has said similar things before:



Voting for McCain is like voting for another four years of failed policies and ignorant leadership.