Obama Pitches Strict Regulations, Clinton Stresses Job Training in Dueling Economic Plans
March 27: Barack Obama speaks in the Great Hall of New York's Cooper Union school. (AP Photo)
The Democratic candidates offered competing plans to lift the sagging economy Thursday, with Barack Obama calling for taxpayer relief and tougher government regulations and Hillary Clinton calling for a sweeping government-backed job training program.
Clinton, speaking at a community college in Raleigh, N.C., bashed GOP nominee-in-waiting John McCain, saying the Arizona senator is unable to handle an economic emergency.
“The phone is ringing, and he would just let it ring and ring,” Clinton said, echoing the “3 a.m. phone call” TV ad she used earlier to suggest she was more qualified than Obama to handle a national security crisis. This time, she chastised McCain for opposing government intervention in the nation’s credit and mortgage crisis.
In her plan, she proposes $2.5 billion per year to help workers train for new jobs and improve skills for existing jobs.
“We may be competing in a new global economy, but our policies to equip American workers for the 21st century are stuck back in the 20th century,” she said.
Meanwhile, Obama said in New York City that the government must revive the economy by tightening regulations and reforming its own agencies to adjust to the realities of modern finance.
In a speech billed as a major address, the Illinois senator said most experts agree the U.S. economy is in a recession.
“To renew our economy — and to ensure that we are not doomed to repeat a cycle of bubble and bust again and again — we need to address not only the immediate crisis in the housing market; we also need to create a 21st century regulatory framework, and pursue a bold opportunity agenda for the American people,” Obama said.
“We do American business — and the American people — no favors when we turn a blind eye to excessive leverage and dangerous risks,” he added.
The presidential candidate spoke not far from Wall Street, hard hit by the mortgage meltdown and credit problems.
To fix the economy, Obama proposed relief for homeowners and an additional $30 billion stimulus package to address the nation’s economic woes. He also called for a $1,000 tax cut for “working families.” Working families received tax cuts under the 2001 and 2003 cuts proposed by President Bush and passed by Congress. Those are scheduled to expire in 2011.
“If we can extend a hand to banks on Wall Street, we can extend a hand to Americans who are struggling,” he said.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the almost candidate, introduced Obama but stopped short of an endorsement.
In bemoaning the nation’s economic woes, Obama too dismissed McCain’s approach as too hands-off.
On Tuesday, McCain derided government intervention to save and reward banks or small borrowers who behave irresponsibly. Obama said McCain’s plan “amounts to little more than watching this crisis happen.”
McCain fired back even before Obama took the stage, saying he has proposed reforms to prevent systemic risks and a repeat of the credit crisis.
“However, what is not necessary is a multi-billion dollar bailout for big banks and speculators, as Senators Clinton and Obama have proposed. There is a tendency for liberals to seek big government programs that sock it to American taxpayers while failing to solve the very real problems we face,” McCain said.
Obama said the next president should:
–Expand oversight to any institution that borrows from the government.
–Toughen capital requirements for complex financial instruments like mortgage securities.
–Streamline regulatory agencies to end overlap and competition among regulators.
Clinton is offering her own prescription for economic reforms. The Universal Worker Adjustment Assistance plan she pitched would help those who have lost jobs to get trained and find a new job. Her Preemptive Training Initiative would help workers who are on the verge of losing factory jobs that move overseas. The New York senator also calls for more Pell Grants to help people attend college while working.
Clinton’s camp hit Obama for his plan, saying he “announced a series of broad, vague principles while offering no new concrete solutions to provide Americans with greater confidence in the market or keep them in their homes.”
The political debate comes as a new government report shows the economy nearly sputtered out at the end of the year and is probably faring even worse amid continuing housing, credit and financial crises. Nonetheless, jobless numbers out Thursday showed a decline this week, though analysts said they expect more losses this year.
Obama was speaking at The Cooper Union from the podium used by presidential aspirant Abraham Lincoln in 1860 when he delivered his “Right Makes Might” address, which helped him win the Republican presidential nomination.
FOX News’ Shushannah Walshe and Aaron Bruns and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Hey Mr “I’ll Save the World”,
If you want to impress me, get the gas prices down to a level that doesn’t require a quarter of my earnings!
We don’t need regulation, the oil industry does!
McCain is a little late. We are already bailing out the irresponsible mortgage and investment banks. Billions have already been sunk by the Fed and the European Central Banks into this venture. But if you listen to the radio, the mortgage lenders and brokers are already baiting Americans bigtime with the low interest rates and low fees and let’s start this thing all over again and so it is starting all over again. Individuals and institutions without resources are buying and investing beyond their means.
No. The American worker and consumer should not be bailing out speculators who are flipping properties in high ticket markets. The value of real estate was way overbloated and that’s why it fell. Newtons Law of Physics: Whatever goes up must come down. Unless you’re out of space, and then there’s no air to puff up.
But what specifics are Obama proposing that will stop this? He wants to stop the cycle but how when the prosperity of speculators, both citizens and public corporations thrive on it and everything looks good…until…..it’s too late.
Yeah, Barack, that’s exactly what we need more government regulation, or should I say intrusion, into the affairs of private citizens. The Federal Government has no constitutional right be involved in any transactions or doings of any business, much less continue to ensure that its members elite, rich friends stay elite and rich. I can see the first regulation now: “The government of the United States will, at all times, use taxpayer money to bail out corporations that have made bad investment and business decisions, even if those companies made billions defrauding and strong-arming lower and middle class individuals. Remember, we are all friends here at the top and we need to maintain our power and elitism at all costs.”
Of course, since you hate America so much, why even try to fix its economy? Isn’t it to be damned by God for its arrogance? Oh wait, you don’t believe in that and haven’t really listened to it for 2 decades.
There it is. Bigger government. Higher taxes. Erosion of individual freedom.
That’s not the American way.
For what country is he running for president? Just what the US economy and business need - more business regulation and larger government. That should make the economy boom and bring American industry home. With his typical lack of detail we are now seeing what should come out in the general election - the old left arguments. Nice guy! Bad judgement! Bad President!
agree or disagree with him, senator o displayed a grasp of eco-schematics which he put out there so that we the people, otherwise overstimulated by the high decibel bumper-sticker reductions of cable news, could see the trees and the forest made from their connections.
it’s probably too much to ask that we keep the necessary debate over the economy (and everything else for that matter), on the same thoughful level so that the issues can be framed and argument, for and against, made with civility and, of course, purpose.
Those of us “baby-boomers” old enough to remember are hearing this banter from the candidates as an echo from the past. It seems these same issues were headlined forty years ago; fix the economy, save jobs, get outta the war, retrain workers, stop jobs from leaving the country. They are taking on a cyclic tone of political give and take again. It’s as though one political party wants to take we Americans on a roller coaster ride until the other political party takes over and continues the roller coaster ride. When will we find a candidate, or political party for that matter, that wants to put America on a flat track with a head of steam and progressing toward continued independence and liberty? And to act as a world power not a third world sniveler like we’ve become. These three cohorts, all Senators, have yet to tell us what bills they have introduced on these issues in their time on their present job. It seems they are already in the perfect place to address these issues and they haven’t- none of them. But yet they all want us to believe their the best one to “make it all better” when they become president. Well, from an old hippy I still don’t believe them, none of them, and I don’t trust them either.
No surprise here, a liberal socialist wanting more government control. Heaven help us should this socialist somehow win.
Obama needs to understand when you have a mortgage you are the one to pay for it. People have bought houses that were way to costly for their budget. Thanks Ernie Bell
Regulations, on top of regulations, on top of still more regulations, which means still more big government…..you can’t regulate stupidity, or greed. And yet, the Democrats keep trying.