Joseph R. Biden and Sen. Bernard Sanders clashed in the Democratic presidential debate over the 2008 bailout of Wall Street, with the former vice president arguing that the nation would have sunk into a depression if the Obama administration didn’t act.
Mr. Sanders said that he voted against the bailout package because he didn’t want to reward the “illegal behavior” of people on Wall Street.
’Had those banks gone under all those people that Bernie says he cares about would be in deep trouble - deep, deep trouble,” Mr. Biden said. “All those little folks. They would have gone out of business. They would have found themselves in the position of losing everything they had in that bank - whether it was $10, $300 or a savings account.”
Mr. Sanders said that at the time he felt the bailout should have been funded with a surtax on the nation’s most wealthy citizens.
“We need to stabilize the economy, but we can’t repeat what we did in 2008,” he said. “Joe voted for that, I voted against it because we have to do more than save the banks or the oil companies. Our job right now is to tell every working person in this country, no matter what your income is, you are not going to suffer.”
The disagreement underscored the divide between Mr. Biden’s push for short-term fixes and Mr. Sanders’ call for long-term systematic change.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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