Hillary Talks the Talk, But Will She Walk the Walk?

Hillary Clinton’s low-key announcement that she is running for president has left me wanting more, more Elizabeth Warren. Hillary wants to “champion the middle class,” but to do that she’d have to be like Elizabeth Warren and actively fight for Wall Street reforms.

I’m worried. I was hoping Hillary would have a stronger message out of the gate. Anyone can say they champion the middle class. Republicans are saying it. As if. Republicans have been championing the rich and cutting funds to educators so long they probably assume, and rightfully so in many cases, that voters are too ignorant to know what side the Republicans are on.

There are even Democrats who think that Pres. Obama has championed the middle class, and they couldn’t be more wrong. Pres. Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, came from Covington and Burling, a law firm specializing in helping corporate criminals avoid the consequences of their actions. As U.S. Attorney General, Holder used fines to “punish” Wall Street criminals instead of putting them in prison. No arrests, no indictments, no charges, no convictions. Just fines. It was the best deal Wall Street could get, a slap on the wrist.

“I can tell you, just from 40,000 feet, that some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street, in some cases, some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street, wasn’t illegal.”

The hell it wasn’t illegal. According to Charles H. Ferguson in Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America, a reasonable list of prosecutable crimes committed during the bubble, the crisis, and the aftermath period by financial services firms includes:

* Securities fraud (many forms)

* Accounting fraud (many forms)

* Honest services violations (mail fraud statute)

* Bribery

* Perjury and making false statements to federal investigators

* Sarbanes-Oxley violations (certifying false accounting statements)

* RICO offenses (racketeering) and criminal antitrust violations

* Federal aid disclosure regulations (related to Federal Reserve loans)

* Personal conduct offenses (many forms: drug use, tax evasion, prostitution for business purposes, etc.)

So much for behavior that was “the least ethical” but not “illegal.” Notice the distance that Obama puts between himself and Wall Street: “40,000 feet.” Really? Then why did he save Wall Street at the expense of Main Street? Had he done less to help Wall Street and broken up the banks too big to fail, as Elizabeth Warren advocated, and done more to help homeowners and small businesses on Main Street, the Recovery wouldn’t be so sluggish and would do more to help ordinary Americans. Real wages have been stagnant or declining since the mid-1970s.

Robert Reich, an economist and Secretary of Labor under Pres. Bill Clinton from 1993-1997, said, “we are now living amid an economic recovery, but this is the first recovery in history in which median household income has dropped.”

We were required to read a book in the University of Iowa School of Social Work: The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison. If you think the title is exaggerated, read the book. Note that it was written before the TARP bailout at taxpayer expense. The title isn’t just true, it’s truer now than it has been since the Gilded Age.

So what’s Hillary going to do about that? Just call herself “the champion of the middle class”? Or is she going to be the champion of the middle class?

We need to see action behind your words, Hillary. Wall Street, knowing Elizabeth Warren’s record of fighting for Main Street over Wall Street, spent over $6 million to defeat her in her Massachusetts bid for the Senate and Warren won without wobbling one bit on her principles of reforming Wall Street. Wall Street lost. Warren doesn’t just talk the talk; she walks the walk. She’s a woman we can trust.