Democrats attack John McCain on economy
McCain defends his stance on economic fundamentals as Joe Biden, Barack Obama's running mate, argues that the Republican shares the blame for the collapse of major institutions.
TAMPA — Democrats today seized on Republican John McCain's statement that the "fundamentals of the economy are strong" and questioned whether his repeated pledge to veto earmarks would stem Wall Street's financial meltdown.
"How can John McCain fix the economy if he doesn't even know it's broken?" asked a new ad, called "Fundamentals," released by the Obama campaign today.
The McCain campaign fought back, arguing that the Arizona senator's statement yesterday on the economy was referring to the productivity of the American worker.
"I was talking about the fundamentals of America, which is the workers, their productivity, their innovation, their incredible performance for many, many years," McCain said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "And what I was saying is, and it's clear if you look at my remarks, and that is that Wall Street has betrayed us."
In a speech in Tampa today, McCain promised that if he and running mate Sarah Palin are elected, "in short order we will put an end to the reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed that have caused a crisis on Wall Street." Calling the excesses "disgraceful," McCain said, "On my watch, we are never going to let these kinds of abuses go unpunished."
But Obama, in a speech in Golden, Colo., said McCain's "outrage at Wall Street would be "more convincing if he wasn't offering them more tax cuts." Likewise, said Obama, McCain's call for fiscal responsibility "would be more believable if he wasn't for more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans." The Democratic candidate charged that McCain has repeatedly endorsed less regulation, not more.
"John McCain cannot be trusted to reestablish proper oversight of our financial markets for one simple reason," said Obama. "He has shown time and again that he does not believe in it."
Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, echoed the point on NBC's "Today," arguing that McCain shares some of the blame for the collapse of major U.S. financial institutions.
"What's caused this is the failure to have regulation," Biden said. "John talks about these CEOs getting these big bailout packages. Well, why didn't he support the legislation we have been proposing that says that if you're going to declare bankruptcy, you've got to throw the CEO in the mix as well as everybody else?"
Biden also questioned whether McCain's pledge to rein in government spending by stopping lawmakers' special-project earmarks would make much of a dent.
