Yesterday Republican Peter Schiff said Democratic Richard Blumenthal’s recent lawsuit against Wall Street credit rating agencies was “political grandstanding.”
Schiff, who takes credit for predicting the financial meltdown, says Blumenthal’s action came too late and asked where was the AG “when such lawsuits might have actually helped avert the crisis?”
Turns out Blumenthal did file a lawsuit against those very same agencies for allegedly giving corporations better rates than they gave municipalities and states.
In 2008.
“We are holding the credit rating agencies accountable for a secret Wall Street tax on Main Street — millions of dollars illegally exacted from Connecticut taxpayers,” Blumenthal said in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “Connecticut’s cities and school districts have been forced to spend millions of dollars, unconscionably and unnecessarily, on bond insurance premiums and higher interest rates as a result of deceptive and deflated credit ratings. Their debt was rated much lower than corporate debt despite their much lower risk of default and higher credit worthiness.”
The case is still pending in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.