Dateline - New York City: March 26, 2008
McCain Rejects Broad U.S. Aid on Mortgages
By LARRY ROHTER and EDMUND L. ANDREWS

SANTA ANA, Calif. Drawing a sharp distinction between himself and the two Democratic presidential candidates, Senator John McCain of Arizona warned Tuesday against vigorous government action to solve the deepening mortgage crisis and the market turmoil it has caused, saying that "it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers."

Mr. McCain’s comments came a day after Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York called for direct federal intervention to help affected homeowners, including a $30 billion fund for states and communities to assist those at risk of foreclosure.

Mrs. Clinton’s Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, has similarly called for greater federal involvement, including creation of a $10 billion relief package to prevent foreclosures.

As the foreclosure crisis has rippled across the economy, it has thrust itself to the forefront of the presidential race, with Democrats seizing on the issue in urging forceful government steps to alleviate the crisis.

Mr. McCain’s remarks Tuesday, to a group of Hispanic businessmen here, signaled a sharpening divide between the two parties’ candidates, with the senator [McCain] warning against quick, costly government fixes to a crises (sic) rooted in the private sector.

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"It sounds remarkably like Herbert Hoover, and I don’t think that’s good economic policy," Mrs. Clinton told reporters in Greensburg, Pa. "The government has a number of tools at its disposal." "I think that inaction has contributed to the problems we face today, and I believe further inaction would exacerbate those problems."

In addition to urging $30 billion in federal aid to states to help homeowners, Mrs. Clinton on Monday also endorsed federal legislation to expand the government’s ability to guarantee restructured mortgages, which she believes would lead more banks and other private entities to buy and resell mortgages.

Mr. Obama’s plan emphasizes making it easier to convert subprime loans to fixed-rate, 30-year loans, while requiring that borrowers have access to better data on loan costs and requiring greater scrutiny of lenders. On Tuesday, he said, "It’s deeply troubling that John McCain is suggesting that the best way to address the housing crisis is to sit back and watch it happen."

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Mr. McCain spoke at some length about the problems caused by lenders and by Wall Street, which bundled mortgages into securities that were chopped into pieces and resold to investors in the United States and abroad. But he did not call for any kind of legislative or regulatory measures to fix those problems, other than to say that the government should eliminate obstacles to the ability of financial institutions to raise more capital.

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John McCain (McBush): wrong about everything since he learned to pander.

As I said above, He Was Against it Before He Was For It.

Labels: bail out, Clinton, crisis, george w. mccain, john mc bush, mccain, mortgage, obama, private sector, regulation