"This is a result of excess and greed and corruption. And that's exactly what is plaguing Americans today. And we got to fix it and we've got to update our regulatory system."
This is what McCain said on Morning Joe this morning, but what should we expect from him?
Well, in his own words,
I am a fundamentally a deregulator. I'd like to see a lot of the unnecessary government regulations eliminated, not just a moratorium.
I've thought more on the area of deregulation rather than a moratorium.
The second quote is from an interview he gave to the Wall Street Journal on March 3 of this year.
When asked what he would do for the economy, he talked almost exclusively about tax cuts; however to show that he "gets it" he did say:
And I might even have a couple of fireside chats with the American people because of what we see in the confidence barometers.
I'm not an economist, but I'm not sure how Lehman Bros., Merill Lynch, and AIG AND all their investors would have benefitted from a folksy moment together.
Another notable part of the interview from March focused on McCain's views on Social Security Reform.
Q: In 2000, you campaigned for president on a plan to use a part of payroll taxes to create Social Security private accounts. Now your Web site talks about accounts as "supplements" to Social Security. Why the change?
A: Actually, I'm totally in favor of personal savings accounts and I think they are an important opportunity for young workers. I campaigned in support of President Bush's proposal and I campaigned with him, and I did town hall meetings with him.
Q: Your Web site says something different.
A: I'll correct any policy paper that I've put out that might intimate that personal savings accounts are not a very important factor. They allow young workers to provide for their retirement, and a much larger retirement over time.
I wanted to know if he had corrected it. I went to his website and looked at his economic plan. I didn't see it. I typed social security into the search function--lots of security, lots of social issues. Maybe I had to put it in quotes to get the "phrase." From the McCain website, here are my results. "No documents were found."
At times when the stock market is in turmoil, we need to know his plan. I found article from 2005 entitled "McCain Trumpets Bush Social Security Plan" from the news source that is CBN
There's another showing Tuesday of the good-cop, bad-cop routine featuring President Bush and Sen. John McCain, Bush's one-time presidential rival who has become a big booster of the president's Social Security plan.
The Arizona Republican accompanied Bush on Monday to the senator's home state and Colorado to try to help sell the public and Congress on the president's proposal for a major Social Security overhaul.
Snip. McCain, after jokes that had the audience howling and some unvarnished adoration of "the leadership of this man," had a little different message. Snip.
He also had what he called a "little straight talk" for AARP, the powerful lobby for older citizens that opposes Bush's plan to allow younger workers to divert a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into personal accounts that could be invested in the stock market in trade for reduced guaranteed benefits.
I wonder if he would give the AARP and younger voters the same "straight talk" today. We need to get the media to ask him.