"It's the Economy ...." That's Issue One.

Recently, John McCain made a major speech on the nations economic problems. He spoke particularly to our housing and credit distress. McCain said he thinks it would be irresponsible for the government to help individual home owners who are losing their homes. He said it would be irresponsible for the government to crack down hard on money lenders who use high-pressure sales tactics to sell mortgage loans to people who will have great, long-term difficulty making payments.

In other economic areas, McCain opposes using federal money for retraining help to people who have lost their jobs. He wants to make Bush’s tax cuts that went almost entirely to rich tax payers permanent. He wants to maintain NAFTA and other free trade agreements which tend to be good for business, but have created unemployment at home.

Both Clinton and Obama have proposed some help for financially-strapped homeowners. Obama proposes a $10 billion fund to help people refinance homes in foreclosure. He says we can get the money from stiffer fines on fraudulent lenders. Clinton would temporally halt subprime foreclosures and freeze subprime interest rates.

Both Obama and Clinton want to renegotiate and modify NAFTA. Obama seems a little confused about exactly what he wants to do with NAFTA. On the campaign, he says it should be set aside, but one of his campaign officials seems to have told the Canadian government that he really does not mean to do away with NAFTA.

So basically, McCain says that if the economy has gotten you into a serious jam and you have lost your job or you home, “… its unfortunate, but keep struggling and maybe you can get yourself out of it. But if not tough break.”

Both Clinton and Obama want to help. They have some differences, but at least they have demonstrated a bit of compassion.

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