bailout dead

McCain says Obama policies will deepen recession

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 1 hour, 23 minutes ago

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Lagging in the polls, Republican presidential candidate John McCain unleashed a blistering attack Monday on his Democratic rival, saying the race comes down to a simple question: "Country first or Obama first?"

In his first public appearance since Friday night's debate, McCain said Democrat Barack Obama advocates tax-and-spend policies that "will deepen our recession," and voted against funding for equipment needed by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"That is not putting the men and women of our military first," he said.

McCain stressed his own record of opposing Republicans on key issues, and said, "When it comes time to reach across the aisle and work with members of both parties to get things done for the American people " my opponent can't name a single occasion in which he fought against his party's leadership to get something done for the country. That is not putting the interests of the country first."

Obama's campaign issued a swift rebuttal that accused McCain of an "angry diatribe" that it said "won't make up for his erratic response to the greatest financial crisis of our time."

The Arizona senator spoke at a joint rally with running mate Sarah Palin, who said she is looking forward to this Thursday's debate with Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware.

"I've been hearing his speeches since I was in the second grade," the 44-year-old Alaska governor said of her counterpart, who is 65 and a veteran of more than 35 years in the Senate.

Then they should make separate bills and inject at least 100 billion now as a simple loan to banks to get us some liquidity while they figure out the details on a larger proposal. I don't think Main Street is really considering the consequences of the liquidity problem and how acute it already is.

I took over a the jobs of an entire department this month and the employees were only let go because their companies couldn't meet payroll. A whole department vanished and became Robert the offshore consultant, that's fine for me but horrible for the economy. I personally know of dozens and dozens of acquaintances who are unemployed right now because they worked at startups or fairly new companies (less than 10 years old) that can no longer get the credit they need to make payroll.

In some cases, those people own houses that they are going to foreclose on, and the situation is going to get a lot worse if unemployment goes up. And if no liquidity is forthcoming the unemployment rate is going to go up and make things worse.

The longer the payroll crunch continues, the bigger the problem is going to be. The longer the credit crunch continues the slower the economy will crawl. Banks are already offering high interest rates to attract deposits, and high interest rates are going to slow the economy even further.

If the mortgages and financial institutions are too hard for Main Street to figure out right now, then they should at least infuse the market with something to provide immediate liquidity relief.

John McCain is toast!