Just Yesterday, Dole Pushes for “Less Regulation” to Help Economy Grow

In NC, One in Every 876 Households Filed for Foreclosure in August Alone

October 9, 2008

GREENSBORO- “Less regulation,” was Elizabeth Dole’s answer to a question posed to her just yesterday in Kinston in reference to what she could do to help the economy of eastern North Carolina grow. That seems to be Elizabeth Dole’s mantra, as she pushed for fewer regulations on financial institutions as recently as March, as Congress considered legislation to bailout Wall Street with $700 billion taxpayer dollars, and as SEC Chairman Chris Cox just days ago said, “The last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work.”

“Elizabeth Dole just can’t help herself,” said Hagan Campaign Communications Director. “She is mimicking the Republican Party’s talking points about less regulation while Congress just had to bailout Wall Street because there was no regulation, no oversight and plenty of greed. Her comments fly in the face of the thousands of North Carolinians who have been or are facing the reality of being evicted, and the millions of taxpayers who now have to clean up Wall Street and Washington’s mess. Dole may not live in her house in North Carolina, but other folks do live in their homes here, and the fact that she’d push for less regulation at a time like this just illustrates that she is out-of-touch and absentee.”

In August of 2008, one in every 876 North Carolina households filed for foreclosure, an increase of 32% over August 2007.

Dole has been a vocal proponent of financial deregulation, introducing a bill in March 2008 to loosen reporting requirements for financial institutions under Sarbanes-Oxley, just months before our financial markets crumbled. Six days later, she received a check from Bear Stearns’ PAC for $2,500. Three days after that, Bear Stearns collapsed, another step in the beginning of the financial dominos that continued even while Congress discussed a massive $700 billion bailout proposal earlier this month.

Elizabeth Dole has voted with President Bush 92% of the time, and Bush is also a proponent of deregulation, saying, “America’s capital markets are the deepest, the broadest, and the most efficient in the world, yet excessive litigation and over-regulation threaten to make our financial markets less attractive to investors, especially in the face of rising competition from capital markets abroad.”

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