RENO, Nev., Feb. 16 (UPI) — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed having a fact-checking dog follow Republican presidential candidates on the campaign trail to keep them honest.
At a campaign stop in Reno, Nev., Clinton told supporters: “[Republicans] actually, with a straight face, say that the great recession was caused by too much regulation on Wall Street. They actually say that.”
Accusing Republican candidates of twisting the truth, she told the crowd she had an idea for how to put a stop to such claims.
“One of my favorite political ads of all time was a radio ad in rural Arkansas where the announcer said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if somebody running for office said something, we could have an immediate reaction to whether it was true or not. Well, we have trained this dog. Well, the dog, if it is not true, he is going to bark,'” Clinton said.
“And the dog was barking on the radio and so people were barking at each other for days after that.”
“I want to figure out how we can do that with Republicans,” she said. “We need to get that dog and follow them around and every time they say these things like, ‘Oh, the Great Recession was caused by too much regulation,’ arf, arf, arf, arf!” The audience laughed, applauded, and a few even howled.
“I think we could cut right through a lot of their claims,” she laughed.
Clinton’s campaign draws considerable support from the financial sector.
While she initially supported the Dodd-Frank legislation that cracked down on banks following the great recession, she called for loosening some restrictions she said fell harder on smaller community banks.
Since then, she has become a fierce supporter of Dodd-Frank, crafting a Wall Street reform plan with the help of former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, for whom the bill is named.
However, Clinton opposes re-implementing Glass-Steagall, a Depression-era piece of legislation that prevented commercial banks from engaging in investment banking. The 1999 repeal of the law — which happened under President Bill Clinton — was considered by many a contributing factor to the recession that occurred nearly 10 years later.
