GAI President: Gov't, Political Elite Haven't Learned from Financial Crisis

GAI President: Gov't, Political Elite Haven't Learned from Financial Crisis

on Mon, 16 Sep 2013

Peter Schweizer, the president of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Institute (GAI), said that on the fifth anniversary of the nation's financial crisis, the government and political elite still have not learned anything. 

In an appearance on Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot channel 125 with Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon, Schweizer said the financial crisis taught the country that Americans "can't trust the political and financial elite to make decisions with integrity."

Schweizer, who wrote Architects of Ruin and Throw Them All Out, said he will indict the ruling class in a new book out in the fall titled, Extortion. In that book, Schweizer said he argues that the the government's ability to extort the American public is a bigger problem than the explosion of the lobbying industry. The book calls out lawmakers of both parties and exposes how government is too often a "form of enrichment" for themselves and their family and friends. 

He added that the "government and political elite have not learned" from their mistakes five years ago and they are continuing to engage in "social engineering" in the financial sector that leads banks to make risky loans. 

Schweizer emphasized there is a huge "lack of trust" with the country's governing institutions and noted that is a result of a "failure of leadership" and not a "failure of the system."

He said America's financial troubles have not occurred because "the American people have gone lazy," but because the political elite have betrayed the people to enrich and benefit themselves and their cronies. 

Ultimately, Schweizer said "criminal behavior" was much more of a factor behind--and at the heart of--the financial crisis than people making risky choices.