Obama Responds to McCain on Rescue, Fannie (Debate 2)

Obama discusses the future of the economy and corrects McCain on which campaign is tied to the fiscal crisis.

BROKAW: Sen. Obama?

OBAMA: Well, Oliver, first, let me tell you what's in the rescue package for you. Right now, the credit markets are frozen up and what that means, as a practical matter, is that small businesses and some large businesses just can't get loans.

If they can't get a loan, that means that they can't make payroll. If they can't make payroll, then they may end up having to shut their doors and lay people off.

And if you imagine just one company trying to deal with that, now imagine a million companies all across the country.

So it could end up having an adverse effect on everybody, and that's why we had to take action. But we shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Now, I've got to correct a little bit of Sen. McCain's history, not surprisingly. Let's, first of all, understand that the biggest problem in this whole process was the deregulation of the financial system.

Sen. McCain, as recently as March, bragged about the fact that he is a deregulator. On the other hand, two years ago, I said that we've got a sub-prime lending crisis that has to be dealt with.

I wrote to Secretary Paulson, I wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman [Ben] Bernanke, and told them this is something we have to deal with, and nobody did anything about it.

A year ago, I went to Wall Street and said we've got to reregulate, and nothing happened.

And Sen. McCain during that period said that we should keep on deregulating because that's how the free enterprise system works.

Now, with respect to Fannie Mae, what Sen. McCain didn't mention is the fact that this bill that he talked about wasn't his own bill. He jumped on it a year after it had been introduced and it never got passed.

And I never promoted Fannie Mae. In fact, Sen. McCain's campaign chairman's firm was a lobbyist on behalf of Fannie Mae, not me.

So -- but, look, you're not interested in hearing politicians pointing fingers. What you're interested in is trying to figure out, how is this going to impact you?

This is not the end of the process; this is the beginning of the process. And that's why it's going to be so important for us to work with homeowners to make sure that they can stay in their homes.

The secretary already has the power to do that in the rescue package, but it hasn't been exercised yet. And the next president has to make sure that the next Treasury secretary is thinking about how to strengthen you as a home buyer, you as a homeowner, and not simply think about bailing out banks on Wall Street.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• barack
• obama
• economy
• john
• mccain

[NightriderXP1]

Obama may not care, but the American people do. McSame continues to shoot himself in the foot and each time, Obama's lead in the polls increases. I say, keep it up McSame...

[dnno1]

So where does McCain get off calling Obama "That one"? Talk about demeaning.

[optionsupdate]

both of these clowns are assets of Israel, read jeff gates book

[optionsupdate]

obama is an zionist puppet of babylon

[Mrcharliebobo]

LMFAO!! Hey you stay stupid assclown!!!

[blacknosugarnocream]

Your response is NOT relevant to my post you assHOLE!

Go fuck yourself!

[Mrcharliebobo]

@NightriderXP1 - you are a whispering eye!

[NightriderXP1]

You need anger management and I'm not qualified to help you. So I'm bowing out of this. You can spew your hate and anger all over this discussion for all I care. I'm out of here...

Bye, bye...

[Mrcharliebobo]

@NightriderXP1 - What has "CHANGED"??? assclown! Oh and that little hockey mom from Alaska really gets your panties in a bunch doesn't she Suzy?

[NightriderXP1]

It appears that YOU are the idiot as you continue to try to bring this very old video back to life. Your candidates lost the election last November, so get over it...

[NightriderXP1]

The Change is working fine for me. Of course you teabaggers can't be happy about that. I hope you choose Palin to be your torchbearer in 2012. That is going to be a real hoot...

You seem like an angry young man. I hope you can shake that before it kills you. Perhaps if you join the military, you can get some of that anger out of your system over in Afghanistan or Iraq. Unfortunately for you, I doubt that they accept skinheads...

[Mrcharliebobo]

@NightMAREXP1 - who's the Idiot???