On September 17, 2007, Barack Obama went to Wall Street and said that our capital markets could not function without the confidence and trust of the public. Nearly one year later, a wave of economic crises has sapped the public's trust and led us into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The turmoil in our financial markets threatens our economy's ability to create good-paying jobs, help working Americans pay their bills and mortgage payments, and achieve the American Dream. Barack Obama believes that America's workers and our free market system have always been the engine of America's economic progress. Yet that progress has come only because we have made choices to invest in our people and guide the market's invisible hand with rules of the road that help both Main Street and Wall Street. Over the past several years, we have abandoned these rules in favor of a governing philosophy intent on shredding consumer protections, loosening oversight and regulation, and encouraging outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans. President Bush and John McCain share this reflexive anti-regulatory approach and have been asleep at the switch as our economy has spiraled downward.
-First paragraph of Barack Obama's response to the market meltdown, "Restoring Confidence In Our Markets And Changing Our Economic Course" [PDF].
We’re going to need a 9/11 Commission to find out what happened and what needs to be fixed.
-John McCain's response on ABC's Good Morning America
A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll asked respondents, "Regardless of who you may support, who do you trust more to handle an unexpected major crisis: Obama or McCain?" 37% thought Barack Obama would do a better job, compared with 54% who thought John McCain would do better. Judging from the reactions above, it's hard to imagine how these respondents could've been more wrong.
While Obama reacts to the crisis with a detailed plan to deal with it, McCain proposes we study the problem with a blue ribbon panel who -- you assume -- would come up with a detailed plan to deal with it. The 9/11 commission was created in 2002. Its findings came out in 2004. I don't know about you, but I don't think we should let the market burn for two years before we have some idea how to put out the fire. We kind of have to deal with this now, not two years from now. In this crisis, at this time, John McCain is pretty useless.
Of course, I don't think this is what people had in mind when asked about an "unexpected major crisis." They probably thought of natural disasters or some sort of attack, but I guess that's the nature of the unexpected -- what you imagine it to be is wrong. Since it's unexpected, you can't prepare for it. And, since it's unexpected, you can't guess the reaction to it with any accuracy. The only way to find out which candidate would flinch is to take a swing...
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