Objective Avenue: Peggy Newman Claims Government Is As Much A Part Of The Problem As Wall Street

America used to be united by "a sense that we should comport ourselves in a way unlike the other nations of the world," but recently, the glue binding us together has been wearing thin, or so says Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Newman. What she refers to as the "Great Coming Apart" is, in her opinion, the direct fault of both bad government and Wall Street.

"It is a blow-by-blow recounting of how politicians—Democrats and Republicans—passed the laws that encouraged the banks to make the loans that would never be repaid, and that would result in your lost job. Specifically it is the story of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage insurers, and how their politically connected CEOs, especially Fannie's Franklin Raines and James Johnson, took actions that tanked the American economy and walked away rich. It began in the early 1990s, in the Clinton administration, and continued under the Bush administration, with the help of an entrenched Congress that wanted only two things: to receive campaign contributions and to be re-elected.

The story is a scandal, and the book should be the bible of Occupy Wall Street. But they seem as incapable of seeing government as part of the problem as Republicans seem of seeing business as part of the problem."

What surprised me the most about her column were the quotes she derived from Representative Paul Ryan's (R-WI) speech earlier this week.

"Rather than raise taxes on individuals, we should 'lower the amount of government spending the wealthy now receive.' The 'true sources of inequity in this country,' he continued, are "corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless.' The real class warfare that threatens us is 'a class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society.'"

Mind you, Ryan spent the majority of his time attacking President Obama for promoting "class warfare." Plus, he has a track record that clearly proves his speech was mostly just talk.

Rhetoric aside, both Miss Newman and Representative Paul Ryan are correct in that government needs a slap across the face just as much as the business community. My hope, however, is that Obama will work diligently to ameliorate this situation, though the fact that he is pulling in more Wall Street donations than his Republicans challengers is of a grave concern to me.