Obama will hold another press conference today at 11 am central time, and Politico is reporting there could be another one tomorrow. Gloria Berger is right, Obama is owning it:
Not only is there a team, but there's also a plan.
It's a stimulus package with a price tag that could total as much as $700 billion over the next two years. It's as much as Congress allowed for the Wall Street bailout, and more than we've spent in Iraq. The incoming administration is also sending clear signals that it could delay its promise to repeal President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. Some Republicans have predictably begun to grumble about the size of the stimulus package, but here's a question: What would you in the GOP do differently? Would you continue the deregulation that got us into this mess? And didn't you folks break the bank over the last couple of years? Aren't even some of the most conservative economists now advising spending as a way to get ourselves out of this hole?
So, when House Minority Leader John Boehner gripes, as he did Sunday in a same-old, same-old refrain that "the American people know that more Washington spending isn't the answer," the logical response is: OK, what do you suggest? Obama has already suggested tax cuts for the middle class, so you can't start with that. Got anything better to offer?
Truth is, there's no time for the old (and unproductive) political games. If the opposition party is smart, it will sit down around the table Obama is setting and become a part of fixing America's problems.
If you missed the videos: Paulson, Bush, McCain and Obama's video remarks are compiled here.
The events of the last few days have made it clear that we must take further bold and decisive action to shore up confidence in our financial markets and avoid a deepening economic crisis that could jeopardize the life savings and well-being of millions of Americans. I support the effort of Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke to work in a bipartisan spirit with the Congressional leadership to find a systemic solution to our deepening crisis, and I will closely examine the specifics of their effort and the opportunities for swift action. As I review the emerging details of Fed-Treasury proposal with my top economic advisors this morning I will be guided by four basic principles:
First, we cannot lose sight that we are in the midst of a broad economic crisis that also requires immediate action to create jobs and help support distressed homeowners and communities. For too long, this Administration has been willing to hit the fast forward button in helping distressed Wall Street firms while pressing pause when it comes to saving jobs or keeping families in their homes. Swift and unprecedented action to shore up Wall Street must come alongside equally swift and serious efforts to help struggling families on Main Street, create new jobs, and grow our middle-class once more.
Second, any taxpayer-funded support must have as its focus protecting our nation's long-term interest in a stable financial market and a growing economy rather than rewarding particular companies or the imprudent decisions of borrowers or lenders. These extraordinary steps must be designed with only the public good in mind, not to enhance the personal gain of CEOs and management at taxpayers’ expense.
Third, this plan must be temporary and coupled with tough new oversight and regulations of our financial institutions. There must be a clear process to wind down this plan and restore private sector assets into private sector hands after restoring stability to the system. Taxpayers must share in any upside benefit that such stability brings.
Finally, this plan should be part of a globally coordinated effort with our partners in the G-20. We are facing a global financial crisis and the United States can take a leadership role in coordinating a global response to the present crisis, as well as greater regulatory cooperation and alignment to prevent future crises.
As we move beyond immediate actions to stabilize financial markets, it is important that we build upon the ideas I have laid out over the last several years about how to modernize our financial regulation. Eliminating consumer protections and lax oversight contributed to the crisis we are in today, and establishing commonsense rules of the road for our financial system can help restore confidence in our financial system.
Given the gravity of this situation, and based on conversations I have had with both Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke, I have asked my economic team to refrain from presenting a more detailed blue-print of how an immediate plan might be structured until the Treasury and the Federal Reserve have had an opportunity to present their proposal. It is critical at this point that the markets and the public have confidence that their work will be unimpeded by partisan wrangling, and that leaders in both parties work in concert to solve the problem at hand.
Once again, Obama lays out the CLEAR differences between he and McCain, while McCain stumbles and fumbles around. (video below) Yesterday, McCain had to go back out and explain that he didn't really mean that the economy is fundamentally strong.
McCain offered up the oldest trick in the book -- pass it off to a commission to study, Obama said.
McCain did indeed say that, which proves he has no idea as to how the financial meltdown happened. It doesn't need studied. Isn't a study just more bureaucracy? How is that reform? Here's the meltdown in a sentence: Too many subprime mortgages for too many people who couldn't afford them compounded by a lack of oversight. End of story. Hire me!
McCain doesn't get it. Palin doesn't get it. We don't need some shakin' and fixin' -- what Palin offered yesterday. We don't need some average hockey mom with a down home way of talking. We need intelligence. We need brilliance. We need above average.
I'm sorry for all those people who equate intelligence with elitism. They're just wrong. That's what's been wrong with our leadership -- Bush lacks the wisdom, the intelligence and so he makes up for his incompetence with brashness and gut decisions. David Brooks said it best while writing about Palin. We need leadership to get us out of this mess, not a commission, Obama said. Obama's right. He's entirely right. He's so right that I can't believe that people can even consider McCain. Here's the text of the speech. I'll add video when it's up.
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
Confronting an Economic Crisis
As Prepared For Delivery
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
Golden, Colorado
Over the last few days, we have seen clearly what’s at stake in this election. The news from Wall Street has shaken the American people’s faith in our economy. The situation with Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions is the latest in a wave of crises that have generated tremendous uncertainty about the future of our financial markets. This is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for their future, and make their mortgage payments.
Since this turmoil began over a year ago, the housing market has collapsed. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had to be effectively taken over by the government. Three of America’s five largest investment banks failed or have been sold off in distress. Yesterday, Wall Street suffered its worst losses since just after 9/11. We are in the most serious financial crisis in generations. Yet Senator McCain stood up yesterday and said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong
A few hours later, his campaign sent him back out to clean up his remarks, and he tried to explain himself again this morning by saying that what he meant was that American workers are strong. But we know that Senator McCain meant what he said the first time, because he has said it over and over again throughout this campaign – no fewer than 16 times, according to one independent count.
First, if you’re a financial institution that can borrow from the government, you should be subject to government oversight and supervision. When the Federal Reserve steps in as a lender of last resort, it is providing an insurance policy underwritten by the American taxpayer. In return, taxpayers have every right to expect that financial institutions with access to that credit are not taking excessive risks.
Second, we must reform requirements on all regulated financial institutions. We must strengthen capital requirements, particularly for complex financial instruments like some of the mortgage securities and other derivatives at the center of our current crisis. We must develop and rigorously manage liquidity risk. We must investigate rating agencies and potential conflicts of interest with the people they are rating. And we must establish transparency requirements that demand full disclosure by financial institutions to shareholders and counterparties. As we reform our regulatory system at home, we must address the same problems abroad so that financial institutions around the world are subject to similar rules of the road.
Third, we need to streamline our regulatory agencies. Our overlapping and competing regulatory agencies cannot oversee the large and complex institutions that dominate the financial landscape. Different institutions compete in multiple markets - Washington should not pretend otherwise. A streamlined system will provide better oversight and reduce costs.
Fourth, we need to regulate institutions for what they do, not what they are. Over the last few years, commercial banks and thrift institutions were subject to guidelines on subprime mortgages that did not apply to mortgage brokers and companies. This regulatory framework failed to protect homeowners, and made no sense for our financial system. When it comes to protecting the American people, it should make no difference what kind of institution they are dealing with.
Fifth, we must crack down on trading activity that crosses the line to market manipulation. The last six months have shown that this remains a serious problem in many markets and becomes especially problematic during moments of great financial turmoil. We cannot embrace the administration's vision of turning over the protection of investors to the industries themselves. We need regulators that actually enforce the rules instead of overlooking them. The SEC should investigate and punish market manipulation, and report its conclusions to Congress.
Sixth, we must establish a process that identifies systemic risks to the financial system like the crisis that has overtaken our economy. Too often, we end up where we are today: dealing with threats to the financial system that weren't anticipated by regulators. We need a standing financial market advisory group to meet regularly and provide advice to the President, Congress, and regulators on the state of our financial markets and the risks they face. It’s time to anticipate risks before they erupt into a full-blown crisis.
These six principles should guide the legal reforms needed to establish a 21st century regulatory system. But the change we need goes beyond laws and regulation. Financial institutions must do a better job at managing risks. There is something wrong when boards of directors or senior managers don't understand the implications of the risks assumed by their own institutions. It's time to realign incentives and CEO compensation packages, so that both high level executives and employees better serve the interests of shareholders. Read the rest
The polls might not show it, but the large gap between the Obama and McCain campaigns was illustrated this week, when Obama was presidential, meeting soldiers and foreign leaders, and McCain was being attacked by applesauce and riding in a golf cart, with senior Bush.
Obama has cleared the high bar. Of course, it's been raised again. But Obama will jump over that too, with more details of his economic plan.
Meanwhile, McCain has barely cleared the bar where it was first set, but no one has called him on that. He is, after all, a military hero who has had little scrutiny about his ties and his policies. It's all been about Obama. How high can Obama jump? Looks like he can jump pretty high.
American Prospect: Watching the week's events, I was reminded of the 1990 U.S. Open, when John McEnroe, clearly past his prime and five years removed from his last Grand Slam final, made an improbable run to the semifinals. There he met 18-year-old Pete Sampras, whose cannon serve and freakishly precise ground strokes were so overwhelming that it seemed as though he were some kind of tennis-playing cyborg sent by an advanced race of aliens to humiliate human athletes. By the end of the match, it was clear McEnroe's career would soon be over.
The imbalance is more than just the two campaigns' relative talent at staging photo-ops. The fact is that in every aspect of campaigning, Obama's team is showing more skill and results than that of his more seasoned Republican opponent.
To say this is a reversal of recent history would be an understatement. Over the last few decades, we've gotten used to Republicans running circles around Democrats. In a book that was released in 2006, I note that the 2004 Bush campaign outperformed its opponents in field organizing, the one area at which Democrats had always excelled. As a consequence, the Democrats faced "an extraordinary realization: there is now not a single area of campaigning -- not organizing, not message development, not candidate recruitment and training, not fundraising, and certainly not ruthlessness -- at which Republicans are not demonstrably better than Democrats." read more
And this is interesting: What happened to the republicans? They became campaigners and forgot about governing.
Why was this the case? The most important reason may be that Republicans have almost no interest in governing. Freed from the burden of coming up with new ways to more effectively deliver services that will produce tangible benefits to the public, they put their finest minds to work on the messy business of getting elected and keeping their opponents on the defensive.
