Spitzer Watch January 2, 2005

Report: Spitzer looking at WJC

Series of money transfers made by group's leader has caught attorney general's eye, newspaper says.

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• "In a surprising bipartisan move, the federal government will be disbanded. Republicans, noting the rising cost of Social Security and Medicare, will argue that eliminating wasteful spending such as the Justice, Health and Parks departments is the only way to pay the bills.

Democrats will observe that no one will miss the federal government because it hasn't done anything in years. Besides, being a minority party in perpetuity isn't any fun.

Skeptics should consider the record. It was the states, not the federal government, that brought the tobacco companies to heel for decades of lies and obfuscation about the harmful effects of smoking.

It was New York's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, not the Securities and Exchange Commission, who exposed and prosecuted the mutual fund industry.

It was New York's Eliot Spitzer (again), not an agency of the federal government, who exposed price-fixing and consumer-gouging by insurance companies. We've got 50 states. Who needs a federal government?

--from Scott Burns' Daily Herald (Chicago) 2005 predictions"