McCain’s delivering a big economic speech this morning, which I am attempting to work up the proper amount of excitement for. Meanwhile, Obama is taking kind of a risk in a response to the economic crisis that, at the very least, does not allow for a tedious side-by-side comparison of two plans:
“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.”
Yay!
UPDATE: Reading through McCain’s speech, I can only say that at least Obama told us he’d have no new plans. The only thing I don’t recognize immediately as being part of his already-proposed economic plan (PDF here) is this:
First, to deal with the immediate crisis, I will lead in the creation of the Mortgage and Financial Institutions trust — the MFI. The underlying principle of the MFI or any approach considered by Congress should be to keep people in their homes and safe guard the life savings of all Americans by protecting our financial system and capital markets. This trust will work with the private sector and regulators to identify institutions that are weak and fix them before they become insolvent. The MFI is an early intervention program to help financial institutions avoid bankruptcy, expensive bailouts and damage to their customers. This will get the Treasury and other financial regulatory authorities in a proactive position instead of reacting in a crisis mode to one situation after another.
Just for fun, let’s look at the active verbs in that passage: McCain will “lead.” The MFI will “work,” “identify” and “fix.” Yay, fixing!