Bernie Sanders likes to talk about Wall Street a lot. In fact, it seems that is his only issue. You’d think he’d have a flawless plan to rein in Wall Street excesses, but experts have pointed out that Sanders’ simplistic plan is “nowhere near solving the real problems” and the detailed plan Hillary Clinton has proposed is “more comprehensive and better grasps the world of finance today”:
Criticism of Sanders’ Wall Street Plan:
Washington Post editorial board: “He is a politician selling his own brand of fiction….” [Washington Post editorial, 1/27/16]
The New Yorker’s Gary Sernovitz: “If you agree with the Democrats that Wall Street should be reformed […] Clinton’s more comprehensive solution better grasps the world of finance today” than Bernie Sanders’s. [New Yorker, 12/10/15]
The New Yorker’s Gary Sernovitz: Bernie Sanders’s answers to the problems with Wall Street “seem to consist of a broad personal solution and a narrow policy solution.” “Yet his answers seem to consist of a broad personal solution and a narrow policy solution.” [New Yorker, 12/10/15]
New York Times’s Paul Krugman: “Sanders has made restoring Glass-Steagal [sic] and breaking up the big banks the be-all and end-all of his program. That sounds good, but it’s nowhere near solving the real problems.” [New York Times, 1/19/16]
Boston Globe’s Michael Cohen: Bernie Sanders’s plan for breaking up the banks is “four pages and just as short on detail” as his sparse health care plan. [Boston Globe, 1/18/16]
Vox section header: “Sanders’s Wall Street plan is a slogan.” [Vox, 1/18/16]
Vox’s Matt Yglesias: “‘A bank that’s too big to fail is too big to exist’ is a great line for a stump speech or a television appearance. But it’s not even the beginning of an actual agenda on bank regulation.” [Vox, 1/18/16]
Liberal economists have praised Hillary Clinton’s financial reform plans over Bernie Sanders’s because Clinton is targeting areas most in need of oversight, in ways that don’t require the passage of major legislation through a hostile Congress. [The Atlantic, 1/7/16]
AP Spin Meter’s Marcy Gordon: “Sanders pledges to break up the biggest banks and financial firms within a year of being elected president. ‘Break them up’ is his mantra at rallies around Iowa […] But is it that simple? No.” [Associated Press, 1/30/16]