Democrats and Republicans Must Share Blame for Financial Crisis

The Bush administration has been the target of attacks by Democrats for the international financial crisis that began on Wall street earlier this year. The critics' main argument is that the Bush-era anti-regulation environment allowed unregulated derivatives contracts, called "weapons of mass destruction" by Warren Buffett, to grow into a mushroom cloud.

While it is true that the dramatic growth of derivative contracts such as credit default swaps happened on Republicans' watch, the fact is that the seeds of the current crisis were sown during Clinton years. It all began with an obscure but critical piece of federal legislation called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. And the bill was a big favorite of the financial industry it would eventually help destroy.

It not only removed derivatives and credit default swaps from the purview of federal oversight (on page 262 of the legislation), Congress prohibited the state and local governments from enforcing existing gambling and bucket shop laws against Wall Street.

As the recent CBS 60 Minutes segment explained, "In retrospect, giving Wall Street immunity from state gambling laws and legalizing activity that had been banned for most of the 20th century should have given lawmakers pause, but on the last day and the last vote of the lame duck 106th Congress, Wall Street got what it wanted when the Senate passed the bill unanimously." Though CNN has only picked Senator Phil Gramm as one its top 10 Culprits of Collapse, the entire senate is responsible for it.

Clearly, the unanimous Senate passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 demonstrated the power of Wall Street over both Republicans and Democrats. In fact, the data of the financial services industry's recent campaign contributions shows that two of the top three recipients of the largess from Wall street are Democrats Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. John McCain is in a distant third position. Overall, Sen Obama's campaign is awash with record, massive cash contributions.

Since the current financial crisis has its roots in easy, plentiful mortgages and the housing bubble facilitated by the Democrats' unabashed and reckless support for home ownership via Fannie and Freddie and community re-investment legislation, a larger share of the blame for the current crisis should be assigned to the Congressional Democrats such as Barny Frank and Chris Dodd.