Hot on the heels of Mitt Romney's suggestion that the real solution to the housing market is to have even more foreclosures, Herman Cain debuted his own ideas today.
CAIN: I know people don’t like this, but no. Because then you distort the free market system. Here’s how you encourage banks: Remove the barriers that are keeping them from doing business the way that they would want to. Most banks would want to renegotiate with people on their mortgages, but I’m telling you there are restrictions that are more government driven that are keeping them — I’ve had bankers tell me this. They didn’t give me a list of all the things that, you know, could be done. They want to help people, they really do. But it is the threat of government regulations, it is the threat of the Dodd-Frank bill and rolling it out. Some of it is the threat of the whole Obamacare thing.
The solution is to let them do business the way they want to?
Okay. Let's have foreclosure robo-signing. Let's return to packaging high risk, mortgage backed securities and selling them as prime rib. Let's have another housing bubble.
No matter what the logical solution to any given situation is, you can expect the Republicans to propose the exact opposite. If a lack of oversight and regulation lead directly to a national crisis, you can expect them to say too much oversight and regulation was the real culprit.
Evidence be damned. Common sense be damned.
Conservatism is a mental illness.