US rivals clash on banking crisis
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Obama |
Polls suggest voters trust Democrats more than Republicans on the
economy. Policy shift Commenting on the US government's $85bn (£47.2bn)
loan to AIG, Mr
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US
presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain have clashed
over their competing plans to deal with the US economic crisis.
In a TV advert, Republican nominee John McCain accused his
Democratic opponent of offering "only... talk and taxes". And in
a statement on the federal bailout of insurance giant AIG, Mr
Obama mocked Mr McCain's "eleventh hour conversion to the
language of reform". |
McCain appeared to shift his position during an interview on ABC's
Good Morning America.
On Tuesday, before the loan was made, the Republican hopeful had told
NBC: "I do not believe that the American taxpayer should be on the hook
for AIG." But in his ABC interview, after the news of the government's
intervention emerged, Mr McCain said: "I didn't want to do that, but
there are literally millions of people whose retirement, whose
investment, whose insurance were at risk here.
" Meanwhile, Mr Obama released a two-minute advert - four times the
length of most campaign commercials - in which he set out his plans to
deal with the financial crisis. He pledged to "give a $1,000 tax break
to the middle class... end the 'anything goes' culture on Wall Street
with real regulation... free [America] from our dependence on Mid-East
oil in 10 years... crack down on lobbyists... and... bring a responsible
end to this war in Iraq so we stop spending billions each month
rebuilding their country when we should be rebuilding ours".
Mr McCain, in his campaign ad, vowed to "reform Wall Street and fix
Washington", stressing that he had "taken on tougher guys than this
before".
Michael Dimock, associate director of the Pew Research Center, told
BBC News that the current economic situation could be beneficial for Mr
Obama by reinforcing the overwhelming public view that the US was "going
in the wrong direction".
-BBC |
