Yikes! A liberal Democrat is running for president. Calls for Medicare for all, a new WPA, massive

[Karmadillo]

52. Wikinews interviews Darcy Richardson, Democratic Party presidential challenger to Barack Obama

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_interviews_Darcy_Richardson,_Democratic_Party_presidential_challenger_to_Barack_Obama?dpl_id=310400

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Policy

William S. Saturn If you had been elected president in 2008, what would you have done differently than Barack Obama?

Richardson: The fact that President Obama initially appointed Larry Summers as chairman of his White House Economic Council shortly after taking office, should have given everybody pause. Summers is probably more responsible for the country’s current economic mess than any other individual.

As President Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to January 2001, Summers shaped and pushed the financial deregulation that unleashed the near-collapse of Wall Street in the autumn of 2008, particularly when he pushed through the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 during the final years of the Clinton Administration — legislation, as you know, that had prohibited banks from doing both commercial and investment banking.

An architect-turned-enabler of this never-ending economic crisis, Summers later supported the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that, unbelievably as it might seem, mandated that financial derivatives — including the reckless credit default swaps at the heart of the financial crisis — could be traded between financial institutions without any government oversight whatsoever.

It’s little wonder that Rolling Stone writer William Greider, in a marvelously detailed article in late 2008, pointed out that Obama’s choice of Summers and other key economic advisers, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, seemed designed to sustain the failed economic policies of the Bush presidency — an administration that never saw the financial crisis coming in the first place.

The Summers appointment told me that the President had no earthly clue how this devastating financial crisis happened or how to reverse it.

Things only got worse after that. President Obama failed to resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. He failed to include a public option in health care. He failed to assert his constitutional responsibility during the recent debt limit crisis. Unbelievably, he's failed to protect Social Security and Medicare. He extended the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. He failed to push for cap-and-trade. And he failed to close Gitmo. I could go on, but I think you get the point. If anybody deserves a serious intraparty challenge, it's the current occupant of the White House.

In retrospect, it's really incredible that a Democrat of national stature and credibility hasn't entered this race — at least as of now.

WSS: Do you believe Obama has done any good things as president?

Richardson: Nothing I could write a book about, unless it's a work of fiction. He's generally been disappointing, allowing the GOP to frame the debate on issue after issue. Who in their right mind wants the Republicans to dictate fiscal or economic policy in this country? The folks in the Occupy Wall Street movement have already figured that out. It's just a matter of the rest of the country coming to the same conclusion...

WSS: What necessary freedoms are currently lacking in American society?

Richardson: Since the beginning of the Bush Administration, most of our personal freedoms have been under constant attack — including freedom of assembly, as many in the Occupy movement can sadly testify.

WSS: Do you disagree with any parts of the current U.S. Constitution?

Richardson: Not really, but I'm not particularly crazy about the second amendment.

WSS: What are some of your policy proposals, and if elected, how would you implement these?

Richardson: First and foremost, I'm advocating a capital levy on wealth, not unlike the proposal currently being debated in Germany and other European countries. Much of our current $15 trillion national debt should be recouped from the rich — the pampered and privileged class that hasn't paid its fair share in recent years.

Though I'm still developing my platform, I also support a second stimulus package — roughly five or six times the size of Obama's meager $447 billion "Son of Stimulus" — to jump-start the U.S. economy; a Medicare-for-All health care plan; and a moratorium on home foreclosures (for primary residences only), not unlike that initiated by Minnesota's radical Farmer-Labor Party during the Great Depression.

I also want an immediate end to the war in Afghanistan and am strongly opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline. The American people are hurting, and they're hurting badly.

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