"The following is a transcript of an interview with Senator Barack Obama by John Harwood of The New York Times and CNBC." Read the full transcript.
HARWOOD: You've been briefed on this plan the Treasury is putting forward, working out with Congress. How confident are you that this is going to work?
Sen. OBAMA: Well, I don't think it's completely a plan yet. What we have is a request, a massive amount of money that the Treasury would have discretion over, and we know that it's going to potentially take a while to work this thing out. We haven't seen all the details. But we have to remember, first of all, how we got here. We had years of regulators looking the other way. We had, I believe, a economic theory that's failed, that says anything goes at the top and we're not going to worry about what's happening on Main Street. Regardless of how we got there, we now have a situation where people's jobs, people's savings, people's retirement accounts, their job security, all that is at risk. And so we've got to take some firm and decisive steps. I think that it has to be bold, and I am supportive of the need for quick action, but there's some principles that I think have to be included.
Number one, I think we have to have oversight. I don't think it can be a blank check. We can set up a system where there's an independent overseer, maybe the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank and the Democrats and the Republicans each appoint somebody to oversee the system. But we have to make sure that this is--there's some accountability mechanism in it.
A second principle that we have to have is that the taxpayers have to share in the upside of this process. If we are buying up assets and are eventually selling them, we want to make sure that it's structured in a way that taxpayers aren't left holding the bag and it ends up costing a lot more than it should.
Third principle is that we've got to have relief for the homeowners. The underlying problem in this whole situation is that home values are declining, foreclosures are going haywire. We've got to make sure that we're addressing that underlying problem and that relief flows to homeowners and it's not just a bailout for Wall Street.
And the fourth principle that I think is important is that as we increase liquidity in the system as we restore market confidence; that we're also making sure that CEOs and executives, large investors, that they are not walking away with billions of dollars in profits or added value. I think there's got to be some constraints on what they benefit in terms of making sure that the program works and the taxpayers aren't paying for multimillion dollar bonuses.
HARWOOD: It looks as if there's the bipartisan will to move this through quickly in Congress, and if that happens then the government will have just taken on $700 billion of obligations that you haven't planned on throughout your two-year campaign for president. So how do you adjust your agenda in light of that, whether it's the scale of your plans for spending on health care, energy or other issues, whether it's on the advisability of raising taxes on capital gains and dividends, even staffing your administration? Would you ask Hank Paulson, for example, to stay on as Treasury secretary?
Sen. OBAMA: Well, I'll take the last question first. I think that the transition from the current administration to the next one is going to be something we've got to pay a lot of attention to; not just because of the financial crisis, but also because we're in the middle of two wars and we are still vulnerable to terrorist attacks. So without saying specifically what we'll do, I think it's important to make sure that that transition is seamless and that we pass the baton effectively.
No comments:
Post a Comment