As the economic crisis unwinds, House Republican Whip Eric Cantor has been a stern advocate for Main Street vs. Wall Street, has denounced the excesses of financial institutions, and just bemoaned AIG’s “stunning lack of accountability.” According to Cantor, the Obama administration needs to do more to help average folk weather the crisis. “My goodness, we do have an emergency, and we oughta say, look, priority No. 1 is to create jobs,” he recently said.
Given this pose, should Cantor really be taking money — $10,000 last month alone, half for his campaign and half for his Leadership PAC –from UBS, which just paid a $780 million fine for helping thousands of wealthy Americans evade taxes by shipping their money to Switzerland?
Cantor, incidentally, sits on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. The fine on UBS was announced on February 18. Disclosure records show Cantor took the cash for his campaign two weeks before that, and for his PAC eight days later.
