Mitch McConnell's Ability To Understand Economic Legislation Questioned

Kentucky Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said he's determined to make President Obama a one-term President, has demonstrated so poor a grasp of economic issues that one elected official observed he "either doesn't understand or chooses not to."   This was during deliberations in April of 2010 on what became the most extensive set of financial reforms in America.

A set of changes that seemed to be too much for Senator McConnell to grasp.

The person who said that was Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner.  In April, Senator Mitch McConnell said the Senate financial-regulation bill meant "endless taxpayer-funded bailouts for big Wall Street banks," according to Ezra Klein of The Washington Post. But Warner didn't stop there:

"It appears that the Republican leader either doesn't understand or chooses not to understand the basic underlying premise of what this bill puts in place. Resolution, will be so painful for any company. No rational management team would ever choose resolution. It means shareholders wiped out. Management wiped out. Your firm is going away. At least in bankruptcy, there was some chance that some of your equity would've been retained and you could come out in some form on the other side of the process. The resolution that Corker and I have tried to create means the death of the company. The institution is gone."

McConnell doesn't get that the Senate financial-regulation bill solved problem of banks that fell into a category of "large, interconnected non-bank financial firm." Before the law, such banks had only two options: obtain outside capital or funding from the US government or file for bankruptcy.

Now, the bill provides for the government to actually dissolve such banks in a way that avoids use of taxpayer funds. It's not that funds will not be provided, but only on a case by case basis; it's not a bailout program. If anything, it's a bad bank clearout program.

Mitch McConnell doesn't get that.  Instead he's worked to stop financial reform.  It's not that he doesn't agree with it, he's just not able to understand it.

Perhaps, then, Senator McConnell should step out of the decision-making process.   In the case of the passage of the Financial Reform Bill, McConnell led an attempted filibuster - it didn't work.  And all because he did not intellectually grasp what he was voting for.  

Sad way to represent the people of Kentucky.