He also opened up about conversations he had last week with Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson about the economy.
Obama said he praised both men for seizing the initiative during the housing foreclosure crisis by shoring up struggling lending houses and, most recently, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
He also expressed concern that the government's financial moves to bolster the two struggling mortgage giants do not "end up being a big bailout for shareholders and managers at the expense of American taxpayers."
Later, speaking to a crowd of 1,300 during a town-hall meeting at the Titusville campus of Brevard Community College, Obama needled McCain over his plan to use more corporate tax breaks to contend with the nation's economic ills.
Obama repeated controversial quotes by McCain's recently departed top financial advisor, former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), suggesting that the nation's economic downturn is illusory.
"John McCain's chief financial advisor said this was just a 'mental recession,' " Obama said with a chuckle. "That all your fears of losing your jobs is just in your head. Well, I just want to ask you a simple question: Are you better off now than you were four or eight years ago?"
That was a paraphrase of the question Ronald Reagan famously asked in 1980, which was widely considered to have captured voter unhappiness with President Carter and congressional Democrats -- and helped elect the former California governor to the White House.
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stephen.braun@latimes.com
Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi in Washington contributed to this report.
