Last updated on: 11/19/2015 12:48:04 PM PST
Should Glass-Steagall Be Reinstated?
Pro (Yes)
Pro
"TCR [The Casey Report]: What about Glass-Steagall, the law repealed in the last year of the [Bill] Clinton administration, that had kept the investment banks and the commercial bank separate? Some people blame the crisis largely on the loss of that law. Do you think we should reinstate it?
GJ [Gary Johnson]: I understand how that may have exacerbated all this, so I think reinstating it might be a good thing."
Source: Casey Research, "The Best Presidential Candidate No One’s Heard Of," caseyresearch.com, Oct. 20, 2011
Pro
"So the Glass-Steagall Act is a very important protection so that the investment bankers are not gambling with public money. Right now, they can do that and they can do all kinds of other abuses that are, well, they're doing that. They're doing that big time. In fact, the banks are bigger and more consolidated than they were before the crash in 2007. So, there's every reason for us to bring back Glass-Steagall but not only that. We should break up the big banks right now. We need public ownership of the banks. We need banks in the public interest, not banks for the private interest. The same goes for the Federal Reserve, which needs to be a public institution, which is transparent and run on behalf of taxpayers and America, not on behalf of private banks and their profits, and we need to create those public banks, not only at the national level, but at the community level."
Source: Green Party US, "Jill Stein: Doctor, Activist and a Villain to Corporate America," gp.org, Mar. 19, 2016
Pro
"Dodd-Frank has been a disaster, making it harder for small businesses to get the credit they need. The policies of the Clintons brought us the financial recession – through lifting Glass-Steagall, pushing subprime lending, and blocking reforms to Fannie and Freddie. It’s time for a 21st century Glass Steagall."
Source: Tim Hains, "Trump Proposes 'New Deal for Black America' in Charlotte," realclearpolitics.com, Oct. 26, 2016
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Con (No)
Con
"I fully respect my colleagues who have said 'let's reinstate Glass-Steagall.' And if I thought that alone would prevent the potential next crisis, I'd raise my hand and join, but that's not my assessment... Some of the major actors who caused the '08 crash were not big banks, they would have never been covered by Glass-Steagall...
What I want to do is to crack down on the banks by assessing a risk fee and forcing them to have to comply with Dodd-Frank and tougher regulations. And I am absolutely in favor of breaking them up if they become a risk to the economy. But the potential next threat to our economy that has to really be reined in is what's called the shadow banking world, the hedge funds, the money market funds. Glass-Steagall wouldn't do anything about it, if it were reinstated tomorrow."
Source: CSPAN, "Hillary Clinton on Glass-Steagall," cspan.org, Oct. 20, 2015
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FORMER CANDIDATES
(Candidates who have withdrawn or who no longer meet our criteria appear below in black and white and in alphabetical order.)
Pro (Yes)
Pro
"Mike Huckabee: Look, I'm not sure that the repeal of Glass-Steagall was a brilliant idea because what you did, you erased the line between traditional banks.
John Harwood: Would you bring it back?
Mike Huckabee: And – very likely. Yeah. And I'm not saying there shouldn't be some regulatory controls. And I hate to use the word, controls – some regulation. But what you don't want is a referee that doesn't simply enforce the rules, but tries to totally control flow of the game."
Source: CNBC, "CNBC Digital Video Exclusive: Mike Huckabee Sits Down with CNBC's Chief Washington Correspondent John Harwood," www.cnbc.com, Oct. 16, 2015
Pro
"Any Democrat running for president who expects to succeed in the general election I believe will need to make basic commitments... to pass a modern version of Glass-Steagall.
For 70 years we separated the speculative banking activities from the depository activities and it worked. We need to return to our true selves and put in a modern version."
Source: Jonathan Easley, "O'Malley seizes on Glass-Steagall," thehill.com, July 23, 2015
Pro
"We not only must reinstate this important law, but we also have to break up the too-big-to-fail financial institutions in this country. If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist…
I was proud to lead the fight in the House against repealing the Glass-Steagall Act [in 1999]. I predicted then that such a massive deregulation of the financial services industry would seriously harm the economy. I would give anything to have been proven wrong about this, but unfortunately what happened to the economy during the financial collapse of 2008 was even worse than I predicted…
It [repeal of Glass-Steagall] precipitated the largest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world. It caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, homes, life savings and ability to send their kids to college. It substantially increased wealth and income inequality. And it led to the enormous concentration of economic power in this country."
Source: Bernie Sanders, "Sanders Backs Bank Regulation Bill," sanders.senate.gov, July 17, 2015
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Not Clearly Pro or Con
"I'm open to the idea [of reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act]... Glass-Steagall was a prohibition, was a wall, if you will, between investment banking and commercial banking... when that was eliminated we had these large global banks that created systemic risk. One way to deal with this is to restore Glass-Steagall...
The other way is to have higher capital requirements for large banks."
Source: Daniel Marans, "Jeb Bush 'Open to the Idea' of Reinstating Key Wall Street Regulation," huffingtonpost.com, Dec. 23, 2015
Not Clearly Pro or Con
"I'm not one of those people who say just get rid of all regulations. Some regulations are quite good. You know, Glass-Steagall, which kept the banks from playing fast and loose with money, which was one of the things that caused the crash in '29, that was a good regulation. We kind of did it in in the '90s and it took about twenty years for it catch up with us. So we have to be smart in what we regulate. But, again, we should be always thinking about how do we create a conducive environment."
Source: The Daily Signal, "As Presidential Contender, Ben Carson Vows to Fix Economy before Entitlement Programs," YouTube.com, May 4, 2015
None Found
No position found as of Nov. 25, 2015
None Found
No position found as of Nov. 10, 2015
None Found
No position found as of Nov. 25, 2015
None Found
No position found as of Nov. 20, 2015
Not Clearly Pro or Con
[Editor's Note: Kasich voted yes on Nov. 4, 1999 on the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act.]
Not Clearly Pro or Con
"What I've been thinking about - and I've met with several people, I don't know that they have a solution yet - is a way to do something like Glass-Steagall... but not with the heavy hand of government, but withholding government insurance…
[W]hether or not there's a way to limit anything that government gives that encourages bigness."
Source: Jon Ward, "Rand Paul Cool on Breaking up Big Banks, Open to Starving Them," huffingtonpost.com, Mar. 12, 2013
None Found
No position found as of Nov. 10, 2015
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