What's Important 50

Fiftieth in a series.

This has quotes from McCain:

To the Des Moines Register, Monday Sep 29, 2008: "I have always been a free enterprise person who thinks families make the best choices for themselves."

On Monday, Sep 15, 2008, in a campaign statement: “we cannot tolerate a system that handicaps our markets and our banks.”

In the magazine Contingencies, Sep-Oct 2008 issue: "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

To the Wall Street Journal, March 2008: "I'm always for less regulation. But I am aware of the view that there is a need for government oversight. ... I am fundamentally a deregulator. I'd like to see a lot of the unnecessary government regulations eliminated, not just a moratorium."

In 2007, he told a group of bloggers that he "regretted" his vote on Sarbanes-Oxley (one of his few pro-regulation votes, sparked by national outrage over Enron).

In 1999, McCain voted for a law that loosened barriers between banks and investment firms that dated to the Great Depression (which led to the rapid growth of those firms now keeling over today).

In 1996, he was one of only five senators to oppose a comprehensive telecommunications act, saying it did not go far enough in deregulating the industry.

And in 1995, he backed an unsuccessful effort to create a moratorium on all new government regulation. He was quoted as saying that excessive regulations were "destroying the American family, the American dream."

And let's not forget (though apparently many have) McCain's involvement in the "Keating Five" scandal in the late 1980s. In the aftermath of that Senate ethics investigation - in which McCain was faulted for poor judgment by advocating for a major campaign contributor with savings and loan regulators - McCain said he understood the need for government oversight of financial institutions

So his track record is to go for regulation in a crisis, and then back away from it as soon as it's possible to do so - setting up the next one. And his plans for your health care include moving that (epically failed) paradigm from your bank to your doctor.

John McCain's true religion is the unfettered market. I think we've seen enough of how that works to know that most of us don't do well under those conditions.