"If we can extend a hand to banks on Wall Street, we can extend a hand to Americans who are struggling through no fault of their own," he said.
The Illinois senator argued for a new system of financial regulation designed to prevent the kind of abuses that led to the housing bubble and current credit crunch.
"Our free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it," he said. "That is why we have put in place rules of the road to make competition fair and open and honest."
Pressing for better regulation of the financial sector, Obama noted that commercial banks and thrift institutions were subject to guidelines on sub-prime mortgages that did not apply to mortgage brokers. "It makes no sense for the Fed to tighten mortgage guidelines for banks when two-thirds of sub-prime mortgages don't originate from banks," he said.
Accompanied by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, he also called for a crackdown on "trading activity that crosses the line to market manipulation."
Obama criticized McCain, the expected Republican nominee, for taking a lackadaisical approach to the crisis. On Tuesday, McCain said 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."
"John McCain recently announced his own plan, and it amounts to little more than watching the crisis happen," Obama said. "While this is consistent with Sen. McCain's determination to run for George Bush's third term, it won't help families who are suffering, and it won't help lift our economy out of recession."
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Tying McCain to Bush
Clinton, who was campaigning in North Carolina, also criticized McCain, tying him to what she said was Bush's neglect of the economy and ridiculing McCain's comment that he didn't understand the economy as well as he should.
The Arizona senator did not step away from those comments Thursday, but told reporters during a brief news conference in the Salt Lake City airport that any aid should not go to speculators who intended to flip houses or to unscrupulous lenders.
"There are people who are sitting around the kitchen table, families today, that are saying: 'Are we going to have to take an extra job?' 'Are we going to have to dig into our savings?' 'Are we going to have to take extraordinary measures to remain in our homes?' " McCain said. "Those are the people that should be the object of our attention and our care."
