Pro-Manufacturing Senators: Return to Glass-Steagall and the FDR Paradigm

October 30, 2013 • 9:31AM

Twenty-two U.S. Senators have allied with an industrial grouping headed by the National Association of Manufacturers and the AFL-CIO to push a package of some 40 bills under the rubric of promoting manufacturing jobs in the country.

With his two questions, LaRouche PAC's Matthew Ogden dominated the Washington press conference announcing the initiative today. About half of the attending Senators made a point of stepping to the microphone to answer Ogden's questions, on the need for re-imposing Glass-Steagall, and on the subject of Hamiltonian federal credit which Roosevelt used in the form of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to create manufacturing jobs.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), a cosponsor of the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act of 2013, was adamant in her insistence on the return to Glass-Steagall. She said that she concurred with Ogden—that Glass-Steagall is a prerequisite for being able to build American manufacturing. She also emphasized that she was in Congress when Gramm-Leach Bliley was passed, repealing Glass-Steagall, and that was a terrible decision which is what set us up for the financial crash.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), not yet a cosponsor of either of the Glass-Steagall bills in the Senate, nonetheless emphasized that the nation must return to the "FDR paradigm". For the country to rebuild its industrial base, he said, the public sector must be involved; the task cannot be left to the private sector.