Tuesday, February 23, 2010

McCain blames everyone but himself for voting for the $850 billion bank bailout/pork support.

Some excerpts from the Arizona Republic article -

Under growing pressure from conservatives and "tea party" activists, Sen. John McCain of Arizona is having to defend his record of supporting the government's massive bailout of the financial system.

McCain stopped short of calling the TARP a mistake."Something had to be done because the world's financial system was on the verge of collapse," he said.

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.

In his new book "On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System," Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson belittles McCain's contribution to the response, noting that "when it came right down to it, (McCain) had little to say in the forum he himself had called." He also called McCain's decision to return to Washington, apparently without a plan, "impulsive and risky" and even "dangerous."

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