This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, September 19th, 2007.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has some harsh words for the modern Republican Party and President Bush

in his new book, and he chides himself a bit for failing to see problems in portions of the market

for home loans.

Stephen Slavinsky, the Director of Budget Studies for the Cato Institute, says

Greenspan offers an analysis that should by now be well known.

Slavinsky is author of the book Buckwild, how Republicans broke the bank and became the party of big government.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Alan Greenspan says,

I was brought up in the Republican Party of

Barry Goldwater. He was for fiscal restraint and for deregulation and for open markets and

for trade. Social issues are not a critical factor. The Republican Party which ruled the House, the Senate,

and the presidency I no longer recognize it's fundamentally been focusing on how to maintain power

and my question is for what purpose?

I think Dr. Greenspan's absolutely right in that.

I think lots of people who were supporters of Ronald Reagan

grew up in the Goldwater mold.

The idea that government shouldn't be doing as many things as it currently does. The idea that government should stay out of your wallet as well as your

bedroom and I think it's been a sign of the times that Republican Party has

been taken over by a more social conservative element, more concerned about moral issues and things of that sort,

and trying to intrude government into those specific spheres.

And so I think it's not surprising that Mr. Greenspan is mimicking, or I should say, putting forward a view that a lot of Republicans,

...