Posted on 03/01/2010 5:02:38 AM PST by rabscuttle385
As the Republican presidential candidate in the fall of 2008, Arizona Sen. John McCain had more power than anyone to upend the Wall Street rescue package.
But McCain now feels duped by former Republican Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
“We were all misled,” McCain said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” speaking of Paulson. “What did he do? He started pumping money into the financial institutions. Now the financial institutions are fine — Wall Street’s doing great. Main Street is in deep trouble.”
Paulson and other former Bush administration officials told Congress at the time that the $700 billion lawmakers approved would be used to buy toxic debt from the real estate market.
Instead, the former Treasury secretary made direct injections into some of the biggest banks in the country.
And since then, the Obama administration has used the money to prop up major U.S. companies, like General Motors.
“Whoever thought when we passed that we would own General Motors and Chrysler, GMAC,” McCain said. “It’s beyond what anyone had anticipated.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Obama, McCain agree: Bailout essential
McCain, Obama, Lieberman: AYE! to the Bailout
McCain Warns of Economic ‘Disaster’ if Congress Fails to Act
McCain blasts Congress for blocking bailout plan
McCain Discusses GM's Situation [bailouts for GM]
"I hope GM does not require it, but if it looks like it is approaching that, everyone has to consider every option."
You're an idiot, McCain.
Again, he’s telling everyone how easily he can be duped. Is this a man to send to DC again?
Didn’t JUAN, a maverick, vote FOR these reforms?
IIRC McCain couldn’t wait to get to Washington so he could be seen putting in his 2 cents worth. It didn’t occur to him then that all that money was going to the banks and Wall Street? Thank the Lord we didn’t elect him. 20-20 hindsight is not the trait of a leader.
You are precisely right. What McCain is telling the people of Arizona is that he does not have the brains or the spine to figure out and stand up to stupid, destructive proposals.
McQueeg’s wife forgot to tell him about the kickback check that came in the mail.
vaudine
This is typical of business they don't follow a plan.
You stupid jackass! The American people were yelling and screaming at you a-holes in Washington to not do this but you insisted you knew better and did it anyway! Now you want to blame someone else??? Paulson deserves a lot of blame for his dishonesty and heavy handedness but YOU, John McCain were at the forefront insisting that this socialist monstrosity be awarded passage! You are responsible for your vote.
[“We were all misled,”]
Take those mice out of your pocket, mccain.
It is never McCains fault............very tiring.
If McCain had won, we would probably already have amnesty with chain migration, and cap n trade.
He continues to put a bad face on the Republican Party.
Definitions of stooge (n)
1. somebody exploited: somebody who is exploited by others, especially somebody used by criminals in committing their crimes
2. be taken advantage of: to be taken advantage of by another
McCain is a stooge... its not a good thing to admit. But he’s admitted he was “misled” and a stooge for the bailout. Wonder why he’s doing this?
Is he running in the wrong primary?
With any legislator, especially a US Senator, blame shifting is the never ending story. This is a perfect example of why I say that the Senate is where Presidential aspirations should go to die a well-deserved death. At the end of the day, whoever won between the two didn't matter. We were screwed either way.
The Oval Office is for administrators who have leadership training in their background. With few exceptions legislators, especially US Senators, do not have the skillset of trained leaders. They are trained negotiators. And all negotiation involves compromise to one degree or another. A legislative body is where this dynamic thrives. I does not belong in an administrative position and especially not in the Oval Office!
An administrator understands that ultimately he is responsible for decisions made by those under him, good or bad. A good administrator has had the blame-shift impulse trained out of him/her. That's not the case with a US Senator. Whatever happens is someone else's fault, and there are 99 possible targets for a good blame-shift.
All in all, it takes more than an election day victory to turn a trained negotiator/compromiser/blame-shifter into an effective leader.
McCain’s economic advisors cost him the Presidency and may cost him his Senate seat
Howard Richman, 2/26/2010
A February 22 interview with the Arizona Republic editorial staff (Sen. John McCain: I was misled on bailout) shows that Senator McCain still doesn’t understand that his economic advisors’ lack of common sense cost him the presidential election. They made four huge mistakes.
Mistake #1, The TARP Bailout
The American people have enough common sense to recognize a give-away to Wall Street lobbyists. Yet McCain voted for TARP, suggesting that his anti-lobbyist rhetoric was phony. Dick Morris and Eileen McGann noted at the time that McCain’s TARP position may have cost him the presidency.
But McCain still doesn’t understand his mistake. In his interview with the Arizona Republic editorial staff, he claimed that Paulson and Bernanke misled him about how the TARP money would be spent. But he again defended his vote, citing his economic advisors:
“Something had to be done because the world’s financial system was on the verge of collapse,” he said. “Any economist, liberal or conservative, would agree with that. The action they took, I don’t agree with.”
It is true that something had to be done. But McCain’s advisors failed to inform him that something had already been done. By the time that the vote on TARP occurred, the Federal Reserve had already restored liquidity to the U.S. economy. The TARP money was never spent as advertised, because it was never needed.
Now, McCain is trying to distance himself from the TARP vote because it has become a major issue in the primary election for his Senate seat:
Republican Senate primary challenger J.D. Hayworth is using the TARP vote as a bludgeon against McCain’s reputation as a fiscal hawk. Tea partyers point to it as the start of a new explosion of federal spending that has continued into the Obama administration.
Mistake #2. Cap and Trade
The American people have enough common sense to realize that recent winters and summers have been cooler than those a few years ago. But President McCain made cap-and-trade advocacy, to fight global warming, a centerpiece of his program. If he had been elected, his support for a cap-and-trade would have made sure that an economically-harmful bill passed.
Senator McCain should have switched to Sarah Palin’s common sense policy of encouraging drilling for inexpensive energy sources, including Bering Straight natural gas and Alaskan oil. Inexpensive energy reduces business costs, helps America’s trade deficit and enhances American incomes. In contrast, cap-and-trade would raise the costs to American businesses and make American products less competitive in the international market place.
Mistake #3. Neglecting Savings
Since October 2008, the United States has been in the midst of a financial crisis caused by excessive debt. The American people can no longer borrow more and more on their homes to pay for exports, without the equivalent income that would come from balanced imports. Common sense says that when you are in the midst of a debt crisis, you save. That common sense was tapped by Governor Palin in the Vice President’s debate. According to a Fox News focus group this was the moment when Governor Palin connected best with the American people. She said:
(L)et’s commit ourselves just every day American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars. We need to make sure that we demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings and we need also to not get ourselves in debt. Let’s do what our parents told us before we probably even got that first credit card. Don’t live outside of our means. We need to make sure that as individuals we’re taking personal responsibility through all of this. It’s not the American peoples fault that the economy is hurting like it is, but we have an opportunity to learn a heck of a lot of good lessons through this and say never again will we be taken advantage of.
Senator McCain should have jumped on this popular issue, which happened to have been the correct solution to a problem caused by too much debt. He should have started advocating tax changes, such as the FairTax, that would have encouraged American savings. Instead he completely ignored this huge issue.
Mistake #4. Unilateral Free Trade
The American people understand that it makes no sense for America to give away its industry to the Asian mercantilists, but President McCain’s advisors were clueless. In January 2008 McCain told Republican primary voters in Michigan that their “jobs aren’t coming back.” In late April, McCain stood before a shuttered Youngstown Ohio factory and asked voters to reject the “siren song of protectionism.” The following exchange about Asia was the moment when McCain lost the final presidential debate:
OBAMA: ... (W)e should enforce rules against China manipulating its currency to make our exports more expensive and their exports to us cheaper. And when it comes to South Korea, we’ve got a trade agreement up right now, they are sending hundreds of thousands of South Korean cars into the United States. That’s all good. We can only get 4,000 to 5,000 into South Korea. That is not free trade. We’ve got to have a president who is going to be advocating on behalf of American businesses and American workers and I make no apology for that.
SCHIEFFER: Senator?
MCCAIN: ... Now, on the subject of free trade agreements. I am a free trader. And I need — we need to have education and training programs for displaced workers that work, going to our community colleges.
Since becoming President, Obama has followed McCain’s unilateral free trade policy. But that doesn’t excuse McCain. He and his economic advisors failed to show any common sense whatsoever on this issue. Not only did this position cost McCain the midwest, but it was foolish from the standpoint of the American economy.
Our country desperately needs to stop the giveaways to lobbyists, to encourage the exploitation of inexpensive energy sources, to encourage domestic savings, and to demand balanced trade with China. Future Republican presidential candidates desperately need economic advisors with common sense.
http://www.idealtaxes.com/post3062.shtml
F.A.I.L.!
Why should we trust him on anything now?
Retire, John, and enjoy your Golden Years. Stop screwing with the rest of us.
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