The Republican-controlled House and Senate included the end to Glass-Stegal bank regulations in other crucial legislation and the Republican-controlled Supreme Court (5 rightwing Justices vs. 4 moderate Justices) ruled that the President could not use the line-item veto that President Clinton had tried to have, even though states' governors do have this tool at their disposal, so President Clinton signed the legislation that also contained the GOP's corporate-colluding removal of the Glass-Stegal rule.
To now blame President Clinton, who merely signed the bill for other vital pieces of legislation that also contained the GOP's sneaky bank-colluding repeal of Glass-Stegal---a bill sent to him by the Republicans who had majorities in both House and Senate---is incorrect, especially in light of the simple truth that NOT ONE REPUBLICAN voted for the Dodd-Frank Wall Street and Banking Reform bill which is designed to prevent any future financial rescues (Bush/Cheney $800 BILLION bailouts) at taxpayer expense, at President Obama's insistence.
If Glass-Stegal had been in effect, the banksters would not have been able to engage in the criminal activities associated with the housing and credit markets' COLLAPSE that began in 2004 (according to National Public Radio warnings of pending collapse) and cost millions of Americans their homes, triggering the FINANCIAL SYSTEM MELTDOWN with GLOBAL repercussions that nearly drove this nation off a financial CLIFF and that nearly bankrupted Europe. So why did the GOP unanimously oppose reinstating oversight, consumer protections, and systems of checks and balances that would prevent any future problems? My guess would be they made insider-trading $$money$$ by siding with the banksters and derivatives-betting on the collapse due to subprime lending.
Glass-Stegal did not permit investment banks to use money from deposit banks (2 different kind of banks back then) for investment/financial casino schemes. Thus they could only use money they got if someone want to invest an X sum of money. Now banks can invest a sum like 10.000 times the money they have in deposits. This is dangerous for depositors, which of course dont lose their money (except if the bank defaults and governent doesnt step in and bail it out and if in theory every depositor wanted their money from the bank at the same time)
