The financial meltdown threatening Americans’ livelihoods has prompted finger-pointing by Republican and Democratic members of Congress over whom is to blame.
Democrats say Republicans blocked attempts to regulate the industry, and Republicans say Democrats made it easier for Americans to obtain mortgages they could not afford.
But a survey of the votes Congress has made to regulate – or deregulate – the financial services industry in the past 10 years shows few splits between Mississippi Republicans and Democrats.
“One of the things that is disheartening about all the finger-pointing is that members of Congress should be looking in the mirror. They should be asking themselves what they should have done,” said Bill Allison, senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a government watchdog group.
