By ZAID JILANI
ThinkProgress
Truthout.org
As ThinkProgress has previously noted, the 99 Percent Movement has
been set off thanks to long-standing economic inequities and and a
recession caused primarily by Wall Street’s misdeeds.
Wall Street did not engage in reckless financial behavior — which
plunged 64 million people worldwide into extreme poverty — in a vacuum.
In order to engage in these practices that brought the world’s
economy to its knees, Wall Street had to make sure that the federal
government based in Washington, DC would both de-regulate the financial
industry (and provide lax oversight) and that Congress and the Federal
Reserve would bail out banks with few strings attached if they were in
danger of failing.
The way the financial industry and big banks won this kid glove
treatment from the federal government is by occupying Washington —
flooding it with campaign contributions, lobbyists, and its own staffers
and executives to occupy key positions of power. ThinkProgress has
assembled a rundown of three ways Wall Street has occupied Washington:
1. Wall Street Occupies Washington With Massive Campaign
Contributions: On Nov. 12, 1999 President Bill Clinton signed into law
the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, a Depression-era law that
created a firewall between commercial and investment banking. Repealing
this law was one of the top legislative goals of the financial industry.
In the 1998 election cycle, commercial banks spent $18 million on
congressional campaign contributions, with 65 percent going to
Republicans and 35 percent going to Democrats.
Securities and investment
firms donated over $40 million. The mega-bank Citibank spent $1,954,191
during that cycle, and it was soon able to merge with Travelers Group
as a result of the repeal of banking regulations. Between 2008 and 2010,
when new financial regulations were being written following the
financial crisis, the finance, insurance, and real estate industries
spent $317 million in federal campaign contributions, with $73 million
of that coming from Political Action Committees (PACs). The hold of
campaign contributions is starkly bipartisan. As Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA)
explained to Real Clear Politics in an interview last year, he couldn’t
get a vote on a windfall profits tax on bonuses at bailed out banks due
to campaign contributors. “I couldn’t even get a vote,” Webb explained.
“And it wasn’t because of the Republicans. I mean they obviously weren’t
going to vote for it. But I got so much froth from Democrats saying
that any vote like that was going to screw up fundraising.”....
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Source: Bulatlat.com
URL:
http://bulatlat.com/main/2011/10/17/the-other-occupation-how-wall-street-occupies-washington/