Bipartisan Trouble Ahead

baselinescenario.com — In Washington today, “bipartisan” is a loaded term. The traditional usage of bipartisan is an agreement across the usual political divide – sometimes a good idea and in many cases the only way to get things done. But a darker meaning applies all too frequently – a group in which the members, irrespective of party affiliation, are very close to special interests and work to advance an agenda that helps a few powerful people while hurting the rest of us. Financial deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s was pushed by both Democrats and Republicans. This is probably why President Obama and Mitt Romney shied away this fall from the issue of who was responsible for the financial crisis that brought us the deep recession and slow recovery of the last five years. In this context, the new Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative of the Bipartisan Policy Center seems eerily familiar.

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