Phil Gramm Speaks: CEO's Underpaid, EnviroReg Bad, Cut Everything (Including Defense)

Phil Gramm opened his dirty stinking mouth to WSJ and went on record with what will be John McCain's defacto Economic Policy... in as many words, the WSJ endorses Gramm as McCain's Treasury Secretary, and well, that should strike the fear of God in any sane American.

On the fact that CEO's are Undpaid

Most of his former colleagues probably can't fathom why Wall Street bankers make tens of millions of dollars in salaries and bonuses each year. How would he justify these fat pay days? "It's simple," he lectures, sounding very much like the Texas A&M economics professor that he was in the 1970s: "In economics, we define labor exploitation as paying people less than their marginal value product. I recently told Ed Whitacre [former CEO of AT&T, who retired with a $158 million pay package] he was probably the most exploited worker in American history because he took Southwestern Bell, which was the smallest of the former Bell companies, and he turned it into the dominant phone company on earth. His severance package should have been billions."

It gets much much worse...

Next, on the fact that his horrid deregulation legislation caused the current Housing/Energy crisis, he uses the Crisis itself to defend his record

"The law has come under fire from the same people whose solution to every problem is always more and more government control of the economy," he says. "Broadening the base of financial institutions had nothing to do with the subprime problem. There's every evidence that the markets were made more stable by the diversification. J.P. Morgan could not have bought Bear Stearns and prevented a meltdown without Gramm-Leach-Bliley."

If you thought it couldn't get worse, watch out Entitlements... John McCain will cut everything, even defense, and if he cuts defense, what on earth will he do to Social Security and Medicare

Mr. Gramm has a nearly fanatical faith that Mr. McCain will alter the rotten GOP culture of overspending and even balance the budget in four years, which to Mr. Gramm is the Holy Grail of economic policy. He has it all mapped out: "John's going to cut the defense budget by making major changes in procurement. As we win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must use every penny of savings for deficit reduction. And we're going to restore strict fiscal spending targets like we had in the late 1990s."

And on how we got into the current oil mess?  George Bush's GOP Spening (Note Barack, Phil Gramm just wrote a new talking point)

He sends some mixed signals on monetary policy and doesn't always sound like an inflation hawk when he tells me: "A weak dollar has had some positive effect." When I grimace, he corrects himself mid-sentence by adding "but you look at commodity prices – price of oil would be about $80 if the dollar had stayed at par with the euro."

And in closing, it seems that Phil Gramm doesn't much buy into the John McCain is Green/Tree Hugging Hippie meme much

I remind Mr. Gramm that Mr. McCain supports the multitrillion dollar cap-and-trade global warming tax, which contradicts much of what he says on shrinking government. It is comforting to learn that Mr. Gramm is not so comfortable with that McCain position. He agrees that this legislation would be "one of the largest interventions of government into our economy in my lifetime and could do lasting economic damage."

Why does all this matter? The WSJ answers

So have I been speaking with the next Treasury secretary? Almost certainly, yes, if Mr. McCain wins in November.

God Help Us All!  Please, if you have time or spare cash, Give to Barack again, $15 and you get this swank car magnet.