And the Republicans have a bad case of it, so bad it could ruin all of us.
Where it shows most is in their inability to deal with consumer protection. They're going after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Paul Krugman gets it. Senate Republicans are trying to kill the CFPB because it is a symbol of a reality they're unable to confront.
What Republicans are demanding, basically, is that the protection bureau lose its independence. They want its actions subjected to a veto by other, bank-centered financial regulators, ensuring that consumers will once again be neglected, and they also want to take away its guaranteed funding, opening it to interest-group pressure. These changes would make the agency more or less worthless — but that, of course, is the point.
How can the G.O.P. be so determined to make America safe for financial fraud, with the 2008 crisis still so fresh in our memory? In part it’s because Republicans are deep in denial about what actually happened to our financial system and economy. On the right, it’s now complete orthodoxy that do-gooder liberals, especially former Representative Barney Frank, somehow caused the financial disaster by forcing helpless bankers to lend to Those People. ...Krugman, NYT
If we let them get away with it, we -- and we're among "Those People" -- will find ourselves back in a repeat of the financial crash, and sooner rather than later.
