Day 2 of candidates on Wall Street crisis
The presidential candidates are responding for the second day to the Wall Street meltdown.
Republican John McCain, making the rounds of the morning TV news shows, called for a commission along the lines of the one that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to uncover what went wrong.
"I warned two years ago that this situation was deteriorating and unacceptable," McCain said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "And the old-boy network and the corruption in Washington is directly involved and one of the causes of this financial crisis that we're in today."
McCain was even more strident in his populist tone today, praising rank-and-file workers who he called the fundamental strength of the US economy and railing against greedy speculators and CEOs on Wall Street.
"Too many people on Wall Street have been recklessly wagering," he told a crowd in Tampa, Fla., in an "endless quest for easy money."
While shareholders and consumers get hurt, only the CEOs escape the consequences, McCain said, calling their multimillion-dollar severance packages "disgraceful."
"I've spoken out against the excesses of corporate executives," he said. "On my watch we are never going to let these abuses go uncorrected."
McCain also vowed to overhaul regulation of the financial sector, streamlining a dozen federal agencies that haven't done the job with a comprehensive regulatory framework that emphasizes transparency.
"They haven't been doing their job right," he said. "Otherwise we wouldn't have these massive problems on Wall Street. And that's a fact."
Democrat Barack Obama, in a forceful economic address at the Colorado School of Mines outside Denver, blamed the country's financial crisis on weak oversight and challenged McCain's vow to bring more accountability to the financial sector.
"What we’ve seen the last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed," Obama told 2,200 people packed into the college gym. "It is time to put an end to the broken system in Washington that is breaking the American economy. It’s time for change that makes a real difference in your lives."
He added, "This is what happens when you confuse the free market with a free license to let special interests take whatever they [can] get."
Obama said McCain's history of pushing for deregulation shows he will not be a president who brings that change.
"John McCain can't be trusted to re-establish proper oversight of our financial markets for one simple reason," Obama said. "He has shown time and again that he does not believe in it."
Obama also attacked McCain's suggestion this morning that the government create a special commission to study the housing market collapse and the resulting financial mess.
"Senator McCain offered up the oldest Washington stunt in the book – you pass the buck to a commission to study the problem," he said. "This isn't 9/11. We know how we got into this mess. What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I'll provide that leadership. John McCain won't and that's the choice for the American people."
Why does a so called "maverick" like John McCain need to embrace the tactics of distortion, of outright lies in the current political race that looks as if it has become as down and dirty as any election in recent years? Doesn't a maverick refuse to join the herd, to march to a different drummer? If John McCain has already employed the tactics of the last eight years of the Bush administration (lies and deceit as in Iraq's WMD or that Iraq was responsible for 9/11), hasn't McCain already shown that his administration (should he win the election) will simply be a continuation of the untruths and distortions that are a hallmark of George Bush and Company?
Maverick, or Maverisk?
p.s., I cannot take credit for the above statement......I saw it on a T-shirt.
STOP THE NONSENSE AND MADE UP LIES..... MCCAIN FOR PRESIDENT !!!
A commission?!?!? yeah, that's what we need.... that comment alone will cause me not to vote for him.
Yea, John, let's have a commission just like the one your moose babe is refusing to talk to. That will fix things, won't it.
If a bad "situation" is "deteriorating" then that means it's getting better, Father Time. Try going back to school... or maybe back to the grave that you came from 8 years ago.
Right, let's create a "special commission" which is basically saying "oh we'll put together a little something to appease the people and distract them. Works every time"
STOP IT! The economic theory posited by the GOP DOES NOT WORK. How much more proof do we as Americans need? This is insanity to me.
Why do we need a commission to figure out what happened? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened. The banks provided mortgages to people who didn't have the income to pay the mortgages and they default. As the loans go bad the banks have to raise more an more capital to cover the losses.
We need regulators to enforce the current laws and maybe some new legislation.
If McCain needs a commission to figure it out for him, he shouldn't be trusted to be an effective leader or be trusted to oversee our economic policy.
What a novel idea -- convening a comission to analyze how the cow has already escaped from the barn. The damage has been done and pointing fingers will not undo it.
Where was John McCain when federal oversight could have regulated a greedy, out-of-control financial/mortgage industry? The free-market myth of self-regulation has again been exposed as fraudulant and those who continue to support the notion to not deserve to lead.
I do not by any means believe that Obama has all the answers to the economic mess that we are in. I do believe, however, that McCain has no answers at all.
name one of your so-called made up lies... oh yah, there aren't any...
Elect Obama!! He will fix it all, after he parts the sea, rids of us hurricanes, and cures cancer, single-handedly.
He is, of course, OBAMA !!
Where was the DEMOCRATIC CONTROLLED FRIGGING CONGRESS-- or do you wish to ignore that?? What the heck did they do to help the situation we are in? They fiddled while we burned, that's what they did. They did NOTHING. But I am sure you have a great reason for THAT.
If you think this campaign is bad now, mark my words--
WHEN OBAMA LOSES IN NOVEMBER, THERE WILL BE RIOTS IN OUR CITIES.
Obama equals Jimmy Cater. Failed energy. High interest rates. Weak, like a sissy on foreign policy. we will have our butts handed to us with him in office. Jimmy carter was the worst, period.
ZerObama: read your history. Carter's energy plan was visionary compared to the Cro-Magnon in the White House today. His brilliance certainly did not extend to other areas, but you can't fault a guy for being so ahead of the time, people thought he was crazy.
Just keep shrieking all the way to a Obama landslide.
Yes ZerStupid...i do have an answer to your # 12..........Democrats had a non-veto proof majority only since Jan. 2007, or about 20 months.........20 months total since Jan '95 when the Gingrich led Republicans got the majority and held it until Jan. '07. Let me see, that's 12 years (the final 6 WITH a Republican president) out of the last 13 1/2 years with a Republican -i can do anything I want - legislature......... All economic resolutions having to do with regulating the financial service industry have been under threat of veto from the Bush White House the last 20 months.......and during the previous 6 years, the bush led legislature did away with ALL meaningful oversight. So ZerStupid...........maybe you should stop spouting the "talking points" and use what little part of your brain the Repubs haven't yet washed.
Why does Obama continue to surround himself with unethical advisors???
This speaks VOLUMES about his lack of judgment and shows his true character.
Key Obama advisor Jim Johnson, a former chairman of Fannie Mae, quit as head of Obama’s VP vetting committee in June on revelations that he had received a sweetheart loan from Countrywide Financial. Many members of Congress also got cozy deals.
Bill Clinton’s former budget director and current Obama economic advisor Franklin Raines, who served as chairman and CEO of Fannie from 1999 to 2004, pocketed $52 million in pay and bonuses while at the helm. No surprise that Fannie’s earnings were overstated by nearly 50% during that time, and subsequently had to be “restated” downwards by $3 billion after an investigation by the SEC.
Another key Obama supporter is our own Rep Barney Frank (D-MA) who claims he will spearhead the Obama effort to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In 2003, Frank rejected Bush administration and Congressional Republican efforts for the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis. Under the plan a new agency would have been created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry. "These two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis," Frank said. He added, "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."
There’s a lot of stink around Obama from Fannie and Freddie.
An Obama White House and a Democratic Congress thus are likely to be more focused on keeping their names out of the news than enacting real reform.
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.
Send your comments to masspolitics@globe.com
browse this blog
by categoryINside Boston.com