Thread: McCain struggles to explain support for bailout

McCain struggles to explain support for bailout

By SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writer 43 minutes ago

DENVER - Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who insists he would veto any pork barrel bills to come across his desk as president, is struggling to explain his vote for the revised financial bailout plan that contained a number of those pet projects.
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In an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program Thursday, McCain said the extra sweeteners added to the financial bailout bill that passed Wednesday night in the Senate are "just the way the system is working in Washington, and the reason why it's got to be fixed and it's got to be changed."

McCain has made a career of railing against the concept of pork barrel projects, which are special funding requests that lawmakers tuck into larger bills, to benefit their own districts or states. He even agreed with his interviewer that those types of projects are contributing to the nation's financial crisis, and said "this bill is putting us on the brink of disaster."

Later in the day, he predicted the resurrected financial bailout bill will pass the House on its second try, but said the $700 billion rescue plan is still just a bandage and not a cure.

On the eve of the make-or-break second vote for the bailout package, McCain spoke to several hundred women voters at a town hall meeting in Denver. The night before, he voted for the revised bailout in the Senate.

"It's like a tourniquet — it will stop the bleeding, then we have to set about fixing the way we do business in Washington, D.C.," he said.

As President Bush and congressional leaders lobbied hard for the bill's passage on Thursday, McCain was also making calls to try and win over skeptics, his campaign said.

But he surprised some by not speaking about it on the floor of the Senate as the vote went down Wednesday; just a week earlier he announced he was suspending his campaign to rush to Washington to deal with the financial crisis.

The economy was a top concern for many in the audience at his town hall meeting Thursday evening. Questioners, all of them women, asked him about affording college, health care, jobs and keeping small businesses afloat.

McCain seized the opportunity to attack Democrat Barack Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, seeking to portray them as taxers and spenders whose policies will cause the country to hemorrhage jobs.

"This is about the Obama-Biden team that will kill jobs with higher taxes and the McCain-Palin team that's going to cut the second highest business tax in the world and create more jobs," McCain said.

While campaigning in Michigan earlier in the day, Obama hammered McCain on the same point, saying he's out of touch and doesn't understand the concerns of struggling Americans. Both candidates were focused on jobs ahead of the government's unemployment report due out Friday.

"Nine straight months of job loss," Obama said. "Yet, just the other week, John McCain said the fundamentals of the economy are strong. Well, I don't know what yardstick Sen. McCain uses, but where I come from, there's nothing more fundamental than a job."

Despite the focus on mostly economic issues at McCain's town hall meeting, the Republican candidate remarked that the gathering was "one of the more impactful and emotional town hall meetings I've ever had — maybe it's because it's a women's town hall meeting."

An Associated Press-GfK poll this week found that Obama has a big advantage among female likely voters, who support him 52 percent to McCain's 34 percent.

And in fact it was the women on Thursday who were urging McCain to toughen up. One audience member asked when he plans to "take the gloves off" against Obama.

The question drew a standing ovation and raucous cheers from the crowd.

Looking ahead to his next debate with Obama, a town hall style format, McCain said: "How about Tuesday night?"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081003/ap_ ... own_mccain

This probably just cinched the election for obama.

The corruption is wide spread in this financial crisis.. Political figures are involved and they are trying to protect the system that put them in place

well im thinking that obama has not come out and disclosed why he too supported the bailout

Obama is neck deep as well ... Americans just don't get it. The tracks are greased on this bailout by a majority of the politicians in DC. If the political elite get booted out of office they just join a lobbying firm to keep the money flowing

they are not afraid of you... if they don't get elected; fine... they have the bankers to pay they're way as a lobbyist ... you are so screwed America and you just don't get it

............and all that will be left of the goose that laid the golden eggs,....a pillow case stuffed with feathers!

The Soviets tried to force an economy for 70 yrs to no avail. They executed people when governmental economic models would not work.

Why the bailout?

Corruption?

Greed?

Or a gun to the head?

Or all of the above?

"In regard to economic policy, socialism and communism are identical." - Ludwig von Mises, Austrian economist

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