McCain the Economist
Looks like the Democrats and Republicans are trading punches again as politics has impacted the bail-out plan. The republicans are against excessive spending and McCain said he was needed in Washington. Bush invited both candidates to the white house where they talked about the process. It’s not easy to say if this was consequential in the final plan because the talks were heavily politicized. Democratic leaders in the Senate including Obama aren’t giving McCain any credit for his part in the process. We are suffering to maintain our jobs, getting hammered by high gas prices, and still don’t have any answer for the energy shortage.
Which candidate is going to balance these concerns with foreign affairs with more skill and good judgment?
Top lawmakers in Washington disagreed Sunday about the role Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama played in reaching an agreement on the government’s $700 billion bailout proposal.
Did Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama help or hurt bailout negotiations?
“I actually think Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama were one of the catalysts of this effort,” Republican Sen. Judd Gregg told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Sunday. “Having them here in Washington highlighted dramatically for the American people just how dangerous this situation was to folks on Main Street.”
Not everyone is in agreement with Gregg. Also appearing on CNN, Sen. Chris Dodd echoed a line from many of his Democratic colleagues, saying their presence had the opposite effect.
“Will all due respect,” Dodd said, the candidates’ presence “delayed and slowed down this process. I think we would have gotten closer to an agreement” had they not come “parachuting in.”
He added, “Respectfully, John McCain did not help. In my view, that was a political stunt.”
McCain, who suspended his presidential campaign last week to focus on the financial crisis, said Sunday he was not looking for credit. He said Congress and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson are the ones who deserve all the credit for the bailout negotiations.
“I’m never going to not get engaged when the taxpayers and middle class of America are in danger of losing everything, literally, that they’ve worked all their lives for,” McCain told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. Adding, “I won’t claim a bit of credit.”
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McCain was definitely looking for political gain with the bailout. It does seem that the public nearly as a whole hates the plan, and so he tried to play the populist by opposing the plan put forth by Paulson.
McCain proposal of only loaning out money and insuring bad assets is more free market and would allow for more deserved wall street pain. But it would also be less likely to work. It would avoid a great depression, but it wouldn’t avoid what could be a pretty bad recession including further falling of real estate prices. Congress would not be content with this and would end up trying to do more anyways (like pointless, myopic stimulus checks). The $700 billion buying of mortgages would unfreeze the credit market (assuming it’s not just a myth perpetrated by wall street) allowing for more money to be pumped and moved around in the market allowing the economy to function (and causing further, even more intense inflation). I think this is what the average american idiot would want and they wouldn’t be willing to go through pain right now for genuine prosperity 5-10 years from now.