Barack Obama on Senator McCain’s Economics

Greensboro, North Carolina

“John McCain has said that he doesn’t understand the economy as well as he should, and yesterday he proved it in the speech he gave about the housing crisis…

“He said that the best way for us to address the fact that millions of Americans are losing their homes is to just sit back and watch it happen. In his entire speech, he offered not one policy, not one idea, not one bit of relief to the nearly 35,000 North Carolinians who were forced to foreclose on their dream over the last few months – not one.

“We’ve been down this road before. It’s the road that George Bush has taken for the last eight years. It’s the idea that government has no role at all in solving the challenges facing working families – that all we can do is hand out tax breaks for the wealthiest few and let the chips fall where they may. And whether the rest of America is struggling with rising tuition or skyrocketing health care costs; plant closings or crumbling schools, the answer is always the same: “You’re on your own.”

“Well we can’t afford another four years of Bush economics. If there’s one thing this crisis has taught us, it’s that we can’t have a thriving Wall Street and a crumbling Main street, because we’re all connected. Our economy has to be the rising tide that lifts all boats, and that’s why I’ll take immediate action as President to help struggling homeowners. We’ll help families and lenders rework existing subprime loans into affordable long-term fixed loans and create a foreclosure prevention fund to help keep Americans in their homes. We’ll provide a mortgage tax credit to give homeowners relief, we’re going to crack down on mortgage fraud and predatory lenders so that this doesn’t happen again.

John McCain may call helping struggling homeowners pandering, but I don’t think the families in North Carolina who are losing their homes would see it that way. I think they expect their President to fight for them, and that’s what I intend to do when I am President of the United States of America.”