Shawn Dixon September 29th, 2008

For some reason the media is falling all over themselves to say that Jim Bunning is somehow “prophetic” with regards to this financial crisis situation. In two stories over the weekend, one in the Glasgow Times and one in the Herald Leader, Bunning is somehow portrayed as having predicted this whole financial mess. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. Neither of the stories actually say how or why they are giving Bunning credit or how he supposedly predicted this.

The only thing that turns up in a search with regards to Bunning and the financial mess is that he consistently opposed Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke in their respective nominations as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. But, the only reason that Bunning gave for opposing Greenspan was that he always raised interest rates too quickly. Further, the only reason he ever gives for opposing Bernanke is that he was too close to Greenspan.

The only dissenting voice in the article is Lt. Governor Dan Mongiardo who tries to offer a reality check:

“And he never really explained to the public why he was railing (against the Fed),” Mongiardo said.

These unsubstantiated stories wouldn’t bother me so much if the Herald Leader hadn’t run a story last week that showed just how wrong Jim Bunning was on the financial crisis. Jim Bunning in 1999 when supporting the bill that deregulated Wall Street and directly led to this mess said:

“You could deal with one company for all your financial services needs,” Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., said at the time, praising the Financial Services Modernization Act. “All the other major countries already have their financial industry set up that way. We’d just be catching up.”

In light of current events, that statement could not be more ridiculous. I’m not sure what the media is talking about.

• Mitch McConnell
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