Bush's role in corporate fraud

RESIDENT George W. Bush has reassured us that ''From the antitrust laws of the 19th century to the S&L reforms of recent times, America has tackled financial problems when they appeared.'' But the savings & loan reforms came seven years and 150 billion taxpayer dollars late. Nor did that problem merely ''appear.'' It was created by a deregulation bill in 1982 overseen at that time by Vice President George Bush.


From 1981 to 1988, the Reagan-Bush administration covered up the S&L debacle. It forced reductions in S&L examiners and fought against the top federal regulator, Ed Gray, who sounded the alarm. Charles Keating, the felon who drove Lincoln Savings into the most expensive S&L failure in history ($3 billion) considered Vice President Bush an ally in his efforts to force Gray from office. Only after he was safely elected president did Bush propose to reregulate the S&L industry in 1989.

Meanwhile, Neil Bush, private citizen, was getting a ''loan'' from a business partner. The partner invested the loan for the president's son with the agreement that if the investment succeeded Neil would get all the profits and repay the debt, but if it failed he would not have to repay. Neil knew that this business partner was not creditworthy and yet was borrowing over $100 million from Silverado S&L, where Neil was a member of the board. Neil did not warn Silverado that the borrower was not creditworthy. When Silverado failed, the Office of Thrift Supervision proposed a minor enforcement action against Neil, which the Bush administration then attempted to block