Who caused the American financial panic and the wild swings in our financial
system -- and what are we going to do about it in the long term after the
markets settle down?
Republicans point to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Politically wired
executives at Fannie and Freddie cooked the books. They received
mega-bonuses and took cover through campaign gifts to their Democratic
supporters in Congress. Then almost everyone involved justified their scams
by claiming that, as good liberals, they only wanted to help the poor buy
homes.
Democrats counter that Republicans always pushed for more deregulation and,
as good conservatives, kept quiet about multimillion-dollar CEO bonuses paid
out from shaky Wall Street firms and passed off as good for business -
rather than symptoms of suicidal greed.
Those in the present Bush administration blame the Clintonites for seeding
the disaster; those in the last administration blame the present one for
harvesting it.
Long ago, John McCain warned about the antics of Freddie and Fannie, and
later charged that Barack Obama and some of his advisers received too much
money from these agencies for looking the other way. Obama has countered
that McCain was a reckless deregulator and that some on his staff were
lobbyists for Wall Street firms.
The blame game goes on and on. But so far no one seems willing to tell the
American people the truth: It is not just "they," but we, the people, who
have recklessly borrowed to spend what we haven't yet earned.
Take energy. In recent years, we've borrowed trillions of dollars overseas
to buy oil from foreign producers. Wind and solar may sound like neat and
easy solutions. But for decades to come, Americans must drill more oil and
natural gas of our own for transportation and heating; we must build more
coal and nuclear power plants to power the electric grid; and we must
conserve. Otherwise, we'll go broke before clean alternate fuels become
accessible and affordable.
Our energy challenges do not just concern independence, natural security and
global warming. They involve basic financial solvency as well. Yet so far,
none of our public officials have warned us that the energy crisis is
largely a money matter: We're borrowing too much to buy what we won't or
can't produce at home.