In 'policy speech,' McCain slams Obama
Posted: Friday, September 19, 2008 11:32 AM by Carrie Dann
From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner and NBC's Carrie Dann
GREEN BAY, Wisc. -- In what was dubbed a ‘policy speech’ by the campaign, John McCain addressed members of the Green Bay Chamber of Commerce this morning, giving a distilled version of his plan for the economy that offered few new specifics but ample critiques of his opponent’s proposals to fix the nation’s money woes.
Video: Presidential candidate John McCain lays out his plan to reform the U.S. financial sector and its regulation, and also proposes tax cuts for workers.
In his remarks, McCain repeated his plan for the creation of a Mortgage and Financial Institutions trust, which he described as “an early intervention program” with the mission “to identify institutions that are weak and fix them before they become insolvent.”
“The underlying principle of the MFI or any approach considered by Congress should be to keep people in their homes and safe guard the life savings of all Americans by protecting our financial system and capital markets,” he said. “That has to be the fundamental principle.”
McCain did not identify how the MFI would fix these institutions, but he did differentiate it from the Resolution Trust Corporation, which McCain said acted reactively rather than proactively.
Turning to the economic proposals of his opponent, McCain described Barack Obama as a Washington insider immersed in the environment of negligence that created the current crisis. "We've heard a lot of words from Senator Obama over the course of this campaign," he said. "But maybe just this once he could spare us the lectures, and admit to his own poor judgment in contributing to these problems. The crisis on Wall Street started in the Washington culture of lobbying and influence peddling, and he was right square in the middle of it."
The GOP nominee stressed the ties of Jim Johnson and Frank Raines, who he calls advisors to the Obama campaign, to the mortgage giants many blame for spurring the current financial collapse (It's the same criticism also voiced in a series of television and web ads created by the McCain campaign in the last 48 hours.)
Offering a comparison of each candidate’s tax proposals, McCain also said that Obama has “continuously shifted his position on taxes.”
“Senator Obama has simply not given Americans good reason to trust him with your tax dollars,” he said.
