Interview
Dennis Kucinich
As Ohio’s Tenth District congressman and 2004 & 2008 candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, Dennis Kucinich has earned a reputation of being one of the most progressive politicians in the United States. The Imagineer chatted with Congressman Kucinich about the latest economic crisis and how foreign wars affect the nation’s fiscal hardships.
Conducted by Alexander D. Farris & C. James Block
Imagineer: What do you feel were the causes of the recent economic crisis? Do you think the causes were the fault of greedy bankers, poor regulation, or structural issues within the U.S. economy?
Kucinich: Corporate governance failed massively in protecting our society from predatory and fraudulent lending practices, from excessive risk taking, from compensation schemes that encourage short-term profit taking and that reward incompetence and competence equally. We rely on corporate governance as our society’s first line of protection, and that strategy has failed.
Regulators were far too close to the people they were supposed to monitor and regulate. Worse, it is clear that one cause of the crisis was a decision by the Federal Reserve to address stagnant incomes with a deliberate policy to maintain low interest rates in order to inflate home values. The policy worked too well. We ended up with an $8 trillion bubble in home values. When the inevitable crash came, it came hard. The bubble was so big that when it burst, every financial institution in the United States—and many around the world—was placed at risk.
The last decade was the first time since the Great Depression that we have seen the median income in America decline. For the first time in living memory, Americans have reason to doubt that their children will live better lives than themselves. The causes are several, but I will highlight just two: (1) the decline of manufacturing in the U.S. which has to do with deeply misguided trade and monetary policies that have all but made it impossible to sustain manufacturing in this country, and (2) our inability to gather the political will to commit to major infrastructure investment that lays the foundation, creates the skills, and provides the economic stimulus to reignite growth.
Two years into the crisis, we still haven’t changed the regulatory structure, strengthened corporate governance rules, or acted to reduce industry concentration. We need a recharge, and only the federal government has the capacity to provide that. But because of the way we have things set up today, that capacity has largely been ceded to a small body—the Federal Reserve—that answers neither to Congress nor to the American people. The Federal Reserve sees its sole duty as to protect the American financial system, by which it means private American banks, insurance companies, mortgage lenders, and creditors.
One last point: The question referred to the “recent” crisis. “Recent” implies that the crisis is over. I don’t see that this crisis is over. The policy response to the crisis has not only failed to address the core issue of this crisis—how to handle the loss of trillions of dollars of wealth following the home mortgage bubble collapse—but also has done little to prevent another crisis from occurring. Concentration of finance and risk is greater than ever.
Imagineer: You are known for your opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For instance, you were the only Democratic candidate for President in the 2008 election to vote against the invasion of Iraq in 2003. What are the reasons for your opposition to these wars? What do you think our nation's best option to preserve national security is?
Kucinich: I will start with Iraq: I was one of the first members of Congress to oppose the Iraq war. I have continued to be a vocal advocate of immediate withdrawal from Iraq. I am the only member of Congress to have consistently voted to exercise the Congressional prerogative to end the war by ending the funding for it. The invasion of Iraq was unjustified. It relied upon fabricated intelligence. Our presence there has been counterproductive. Recent reports have indicated that the United States will not live up to its promise to the Iraqi government to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq after the parliamentary elections. Billions of taxpayer dollars have gone completely unaccounted for. Our troops continue to be put in harm’s way. We have already lost almost five thousand troops in Iraq. One million innocent people have been killed. Our illegal occupation has created the largest refugee population in the world. The presence of U.S. Armed Forces and private security contractors will always foment violence in Iraq.
If we accept the premise that we can never leave Afghanistan until the Taliban is eradicated, we will be there forever. The Taliban is a local resistance movement. We must reject the propaganda that we want to negotiate with the Taliban in the future, while at the same time conducting airstrikes to take out “Taliban strongholds” across the country. There is nothing to win in Afghanistan. The U.S. death toll has reached one thousand. Thousands of Afghans have been killed, seriously injured, or displaced by the war. I brought a privileged resolution reasserting Congress’s constitutional role in the decisions of war making. My intention was to create debate and trigger a timeline for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. It invoked the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and was intended to secure the constitutional role of Congress to decide whether America enters into war, continues a war, or otherwise introduces armed forces or materiel into combat zones. Although the House voted down the resolution, Congress did debate the measure for more than three hours and reasserted its constitutional responsibility.
I have been a vocal critic of airstrikes and drone attacks in Afghanistan. I recently wrote a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates demanding accountability for the recent North Atlantic Treaty Organization airstrike in Afghanistan that killed twenty-seven civilians, including women and children. According to the United Nations, airstrikes continue to be the leading cause of civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Such attacks only serve to undermine our moral standing in the world and cement opposition to U.S. Armed Forces in the country.
Our national security is not preserved or furthered through military occupation of other countries. We must reflect on aspects of our foreign policy that create resentment toward us. We must work through our disagreements with other countries through dialogue and diplomacy. Trillions of dollars spent on funding wars would be better spent here at home on job creation, our crumbling infrastructure, health care, and ending the foreclosure crisis. The breadth and depth of our current recession is the real threat to our national security.
Next: The Currency of Currency