Coakley Challenges Capuano on
Financial Regulation Record

During tonight’s debate, Coakley challenged Capuano on his record of inaction while on House Financial Services Committee as the housing bubble inflated and burst.  She said that Capuano is running on his “experience” but that

From my point of view, I saw too many areas where there wasn’t any experience used to go after predatory lending, for instance, to hold banks accountable.

Coakley, by contrast, has a strong track record of going after predatory lenders as AG, which Capuano acknowledged later in the debate, saying,

Martha, I think you did a pretty decent job on these things.

Later, Capuano said

I’ve been very proud of working with Barney Frank as chair of the Financial Services Committee to re-regulate some of the industries we’re talking about.

I Googled “Barney Frank” and “regulation” and the first reference to appear was a Boston Globe editorial by Jeff Jacoby entitled “Franks fingerprints are all over the financial fiasco.”  It concludes:

Wall Street and private lenders have plenty to answer for, but it was Washington and the political class that derailed this train.  If Frank is looking for a culprit to blame, he can find one suspect in the nearest mirror.