McCain not sure how to 'pursue' predatory lenders David Edwards

Published: Tuesday April 1, 2008



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Print This Email This Lenders who took advantage of people should be held accountable, Sen. John McCain told Good Morning America this morning, but he's not sure exactly how. "People who cashed in hundreds of millions of dollars, I don't think they should be allowed to keep that money. I don't know how to pursue that," the Republican candidate told GMA. "I think it's disgraceful when things like that are going on. and American people deserve better." People who profited should not be rewarded, he said, but both lenders and borrowers need to agree on a new way of doing business. "There were people who were speculators we can't reward those," he said, suggesting that "lenders and borrowers sit down together." The industry not the government should be helping homeowners, he said, though he didn't rule out the possibility of government incentives. He expects to be rolling out a more specific plan over the next few days. No matter what the solution, the first priority is saving homeowners he said and making sure that similar problems are avoided in the future. McCain has consistently spoken out against government intervention saying he would rather see the market solve the problem. Any government assistance to alleviate the housing crisis must be temporary, he said, and should be accompanied by reforms that aim to make the system more transparent and accountable to prevent a repeat of the crisis. He said no assistance should be given to speculators, or people who bought houses to rent or as second homes. Both Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have criticized him for his position. Yesterday Clinton evoked one of her own campaign commercials in criticizing the Republican. "You know, Sen. McCain recently gave speech on the economy, and best I could determine his plan was not to have a plan. If he got the 3:00 am call on the economy, he would just let the phone ring and ring and ring," she said. Last week Obama said McCain would prefer to watch the economy meltdown rather than intervene. "(He) said the best way for us to address the fact that millions of Americans are losing their homes is to just sit back and watch it happen. In his entire speech yesterday, he offered not one policy, not one idea, not one bit of relief to the nearly 35,000 North Carolinians who are forced to foreclose on their dreams in the last three months," scolded Obama. With wire services.







