Does anyone else find it discordant that Obama, campaigning for Governor Jon Corzine Thursday in Holmdel, New Jersey--attempting to rescue a Democrat at real risk of losing the State House to Republican Christopher Christie-- delivered lines that would have worked were the candidate, say, Jon Tester, the Montana farmer recently elected to the U.S Senate?
Remember that in the lines quoted below, President Obama is boosting a man who was chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs from 1994 to 1999. That was when Wall Street began to shed regulation which led, over the next decade-- aided and abetted by President Bush's policies-- to the derivative meltdown and an economy that is correctly labeled "The Great Recession." Corzine, Senator from New Jersey before giving that up to run for Governor, reaped millions from his time at Goldman, Sachs--when he was pushed out in 1999, he was, according to a report in the New York Times, worth approximately $400 million.
President Obama: "We inherited an economy where Washington didn't pay for anything, made a lot of promises, so we ended up inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit. Financial regulation, nobody even thought of. And as a consequence, people could take enormous risks and have Main Street end up paying the cost. .... There are some in Washington and probably some in Trenton who want us to just go down the path we've already traveled for most of the last decade -- to do the same-old, same-old; the path where we just throw up our hands at the challenges we face. You hear those voices now 'Oh, we can't regulate Wall Street; no, that's too hard.' The only thing they're offering is more tax breaks to the wealthiest few that make the rich richer and the deficit larger, and leave you holding the bag. That's their idea of America."