Hours after Hillary Clinton released her plans to clean up Wall Street, Bernie Sanders reminded Democrats he’s always fought big banks.
“Given the image of big banks today, it is easy now to take on Wall Street. I was there when it was not so popular,” Sanders said in a statement.
Clinton’s plan doesn’t address repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act’s separation of commercial and investment banking, which many Democrats argue contributed to the 2008 financial crisis.
“I was proud to lead the fight in the House against repealing the Glass-Steagall Act,” Sanders added. “I predicted then that such a massive deregulation of the financial services industry would seriously harm the economy. I would give anything to have been proven wrong about this, but unfortunately what happened to the economy during the financial collapse of 2008 was even worse than I predicted.”
Sanders introduced legislation to break up too-big-to-fail banks and co-sponsored legislation with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., to re-instate Glass-Steagall . Sanders also voted against the Wall Street bailout.
By reminding voters of this list of longstanding progressive positions, Sanders sets himself apart from Clinton, who is viewed as more of a recent convert on these issues.
The first Democratic presidential debate is coming up on Tuesday in Las Vegas.
