Obama Hits McCain on ‘Sit Back’ Approach to Economy
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Democrat Barack Obama ridiculed Republican presidential rival John McCain on Wednesday for what he called a “sit back and watch” approach to the economic troubles gripping the nation.
Back campaigning after a brief family vacation in the Caribbean, the presidential candidate focused on the housing crisis that has rocked Wall Street and the economic downturn that has forced the Federal Reserve to intervene. And after days of sniping with rival Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign, Obama turned his attention to McCain.
On Tuesday, McCain derided government intervention to save and reward banks or small borrowers who behave irresponsibly and offered few immediate alternatives for fixing the country’s growing housing crisis.
“John McCain has admitted he doesn’t understand the economy as well as he should, and yesterday he proved it in giving a speech on the housing crisis,” Obama told an auditorium of supporters.
Obama pointed out that McCain “said the best way for us to address the fact that millions of Americans are losing their homes is to just sit back and watch it happen. In his entire speech yesterday, he offered not one policy, not one idea, not one bit of relief to the nearly 35,000 North Carolinians who are forced to foreclose on their dreams in the last three months.”
North Carolina holds its primary May 6 with 115 delegates at stake.
“John McCain may call helping struggling homeowners pandering, but I don’t think the families in North Carolina who are losing their homes would see it that way,” said Obama, who is due to give what aides are billing as a major economic speech Thursday in New York.
In response, McCain said he clearly is in favor of doing more for homeowners.
“I’ll do whatever’s necessary to help the homeowner, the legitimate homeowner, and we may have to do more,” McCain told reporters in California. “But raise taxes as Senator Obama wants to do or some kind of massive bailout that is a needless expenditure of taxpayer dollars is obviously something that I don’t support.”
In California on Tuesday, McCain said he wants to leave the door open to an array of proposals to address the problems and seemed to suggest he might even be open to solutions that stray from the GOP line.
“I will not play election-year politics with the housing crisis,” he said, adding he would evaluate all proposals. “I will not allow dogma to override commonsense.”
But the small-government advocate and four-term Arizona senator also put restrictions on how far he was willing to go, saying: “it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.”
In Greensboro, Obama used a question about his Christianity to again address the incendiary comments made by his former Chicago pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
“We can’t afford to be distracted … every time somebody somewhere says something stupid that everybody gets up in arms and we forget about the war in Iraq and we forget about the economy,” Obama said.
Many in the crowd Wednesday were college students, in a town where students once played a defining role in U.S. history. In 1960, a year before Obama was born, black students staged sit-ins at a whites-only lunch counter at a Woolworth’s five-and-dime in downtown Greensboro, an act of civil disobedience that spread throughout the South.
I wonder how much sympathy the 1,000,000 legitimate homeowners have for those 35.000 who acted irresponsibly.
Enough to raise taxes to bail them out?
Looks to me like McCain has the numbers so keep it up Obama!
Once again, the Tax and Spend cards are clearly labled and on the table. Big government, new taxes, social welfar programs, all of which will be paid out of our pockets. Easy for a millionair who received a 40,000 dollar tax refund and spent Easter in the Carribean (not in church like the good Christain he claims to be….because he is not Orthodox Christain who celebrate Easter in April, after the Jewish Passover). It is the middle class who is going to pay for all of this reducing the amount of income we have to pay our bills, buy gas, fuel oil for our homes, grocery money, medicines for our children and elderly. He is going to tax this nation into deep recession.
hillary just came out with an economic plan, I’m sure obama will copy it, but just tweak it a bit so he could call it his own, just like he parroted her in the debates.
Change? Change? How is the same tired; raise taxes to throw money at a problem that isn’t something that federal dollars are meant to finance, Change? Does Obama hear himself talk? I suppose somebody somewhere will say I’m wrong, but the mantra of Democrat “tax and spend” isn’t change. It is going to force taxpayers to bail out the idiots who weren’t smart enough to read the fine print or to just simply compare the mortgage and insurance payments against their income. DUH!!! DUH!!! DUH!!! I need to have the government pay my mortgage because I’m a freakin’ moron!!! DUH!!! DUH!!! DUH!!! McCain is the man. Obama is just a junior Democrat that needs to grow up a little more before he plays with the grown ups.
Mr. Obama with no strategic plan for any issue impacting America and the world , who has lots of second-hand speech making and “flower-power” words, can attack either McCain or Clinton on these issues. Ludicrous!
Congress has a very low approval rating because they have been sitting back and Obama is one of them. Who is looking out for the people with fixed incomes relying on certificate of deposit interest rates that have dropped as a result of Fed action? Will the government freeze the rates at the higher levels when it is time for renewal?
What a bunch of crap! The economy is in trouble! The housing market is in trouble!
What’s next the sky if falling?
Folks why is it when 95% of the people in America are employed we have an unemployment problem?
Why is it when 95% of us that own homes are paying our mortgage on time is there a housing or mortgage crisis?
The problem is too many people want to have instant gratification! They can’t wait! They have to have it now! Even if that means going in debt and putting it on plastic at an interest rate of 17 percent! How crazy is that?
Jihn McCain is right and Obama/Clinton are wrong! We should sit back and wait and see how things shake out. Why not let the housing market correct itself? If anybody feels the need to do something they should be encouraging our government to go after those companies and CEOs that were greedy and caused this mess with the sub prime loans!
It’s time the greedy people suffered the consquences of their greed! The government is not obligated to spend the tax payers money to bail those who are either stupid or greedy or both!
No more bail outs and No more hand outs!
Hearing Obama lecture McCain on anything is like listening to a third-grader try to correct a college professor.
Mcain is old , have a temper, he said before , he dont understand economics , he is playing on fair factor , he wants more wars,he will stay in iraq for 100 years, being an iraqui ,Mcain should understand , we need you out , at least in Sadams era we have food , and electricity , stop fooling people with your service in the other centry , we need a president who is dynamic , and i dont see it on your face sir , and yes i have lived in arizona for 20 years , and never voted for you , and never will , time for a change……………………
everytime obama opens his mouth, he sticks his big lying mouth in it. the part about his speech in north carolina about “stupid” comments distracting us fro the issues is ridiculous. he has been trying in a vain attempt to distract america from him and his racist pastor. is it just a coincidence that the obamas and the good pastor were both vacationing in the caribbean very recently ? obama was in the virgin islands, wright in puerto rico. pretty close as the crow flies, wouldnt you agree ? the truth be known, they met and discussed how they could get out of this scandal. the pictures of the rev. are permantly etched into the minds of the american people. and its not going away no matter what obama dreams up to change it.