Phil and Me: Ex-Sen. Gramm Says of the Economic Collapse, Don’t Blame Me (Video)

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Last year, I wrote an article explaining how former Republican Senator Phil Gramm had helped grease the way to the subprime meltdown in 2000 when he was chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Gramm wouldn’t talk to me for the article. At the time, he was a close adviser to presidential candidate John McCain, and his past support of financial deregulation and his subsequent work as a lobbyist for UBS, the Swiss banking giant, became a campaign issue. Neither McCain nor Gramm addressd these matters publicly. And then Gramm generated further controversy when he dismissed Americans worried about the economy as “whiners.” After that, McCain distanced himself from Gramm, who faded from the campaign trail.

Now, Gramm is back–at least to defend himself. Last week, he spoke at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. The subject of his talk: was deregulation responsible for the current financial disaster? The real subject: was Gramm responsible for the current financial disaster? Mother Jones and the American News Project filmed Gramm, and I was able to pose a couple of questions to him. See what happened below in a video that was edited by Tay Wiles.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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