Julian Zelizer: Washington has Always Helped Set Rules for Wall Street
[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. His new book is "Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security: From World War II to the War on Terrorism," published by Basic Books. Zelizer writes widely about current events.]
On Sunday, Sens. Chris Dodd and Richard Shelby said that they were close to a bipartisan compromise on financial regulation, which could be reached as early as this week.
Yet many Republicans are attacking the regulations by painting them as yet another example of big government taking over private markets. Even if the bill will likely pass, GOP leaders are planning to use this floor debate to raise philosophical concerns about the role of government in economic life....
During the 19th century, as University of Virginia historian Brian Balogh showed in his recent book, "A Government Out of Sight," federal and state policy helped create the foundation for the American economic system. Rather than a laissez-faire period, it was a time when the federal government protected property rights, funded public infrastructure projects -- as roads and canals -- and protected international and domestic trade routes.
In the early 20th century, federal policy remained integral to the vitality of the corporate economy. At a time when radical political movements challenged America's political and economic status quo, progressive-era legislation attempted to curb the worst behavior of the new economic titans so that the nation would not move leftward. As President Theodore Roosevelt explained, he wanted to distinguish "good" trusts from "bad" trusts so that Americans would have faith in the former and not embrace socialism or anarchism.
During the heyday of economic regulation, the New Deal, the story was very much the same. The sweeping financial reforms that were put into place by Democrats were a far cry from the type of socialist ideas sweeping through parts of Europe, though many of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's opponents charged him with being on the far left. But in fact FDR wanted to save capitalism by restoring confidence in market institutions.
The government ensured the savings of Americans in their banks through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and imposed numerous regulations on Wall Street so that financiers could not engage in the kinds of destructive practices that led to the market crash in 1929....
When he signed TARP into law, Bush argued, "The legislation is a critical step toward stabilizing our financial markets and ensuring an uninterrupted flow of credit to households and businesses."
Now, Obama is finishing the job that Bush began. The president is pushing for permanent regulations to curb the speculative and fraudulent behavior that robbed America of huge sums of their savings, made wealth vanish and crippled many of our important civic institutions....
Read entire article at CNN.com
On Sunday, Sens. Chris Dodd and Richard Shelby said that they were close to a bipartisan compromise on financial regulation, which could be reached as early as this week.
Yet many Republicans are attacking the regulations by painting them as yet another example of big government taking over private markets. Even if the bill will likely pass, GOP leaders are planning to use this floor debate to raise philosophical concerns about the role of government in economic life....
During the 19th century, as University of Virginia historian Brian Balogh showed in his recent book, "A Government Out of Sight," federal and state policy helped create the foundation for the American economic system. Rather than a laissez-faire period, it was a time when the federal government protected property rights, funded public infrastructure projects -- as roads and canals -- and protected international and domestic trade routes.
In the early 20th century, federal policy remained integral to the vitality of the corporate economy. At a time when radical political movements challenged America's political and economic status quo, progressive-era legislation attempted to curb the worst behavior of the new economic titans so that the nation would not move leftward. As President Theodore Roosevelt explained, he wanted to distinguish "good" trusts from "bad" trusts so that Americans would have faith in the former and not embrace socialism or anarchism.
During the heyday of economic regulation, the New Deal, the story was very much the same. The sweeping financial reforms that were put into place by Democrats were a far cry from the type of socialist ideas sweeping through parts of Europe, though many of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's opponents charged him with being on the far left. But in fact FDR wanted to save capitalism by restoring confidence in market institutions.
The government ensured the savings of Americans in their banks through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and imposed numerous regulations on Wall Street so that financiers could not engage in the kinds of destructive practices that led to the market crash in 1929....
When he signed TARP into law, Bush argued, "The legislation is a critical step toward stabilizing our financial markets and ensuring an uninterrupted flow of credit to households and businesses."
Now, Obama is finishing the job that Bush began. The president is pushing for permanent regulations to curb the speculative and fraudulent behavior that robbed America of huge sums of their savings, made wealth vanish and crippled many of our important civic institutions....