When Bush got in, all the neocons came out of the closet, but if Barack Obama wins, their divisive strategies will be challenged. The White House will no longer welcome or be a home to born-again bigots, torture apologists, habeas corpus revokers and the rest of the industriofascist entourage. I also expect that censored truth commissions, muzzled scientists, harassed librarians, bought appointees and coerced generals will cease to be an issue under Obama's leadership. As he extricates us from Iraq, perhaps he could deliver us and the Iraqis from the Shock and Awe strategists, Blackwater barbarians and Halliburton robber barons.
Nonsense in Nashville
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McCain: But you know, one of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. [T]hey're the ones that, with the encouragement of Sen. Obama and his cronies and his friends in Washington, that went out and made all these risky loans, gave them to people that could never afford to pay back.
Obama blamed deregulation of the banking industry:
Obama: Now, I've got to correct a little bit of Sen. McCain's history, not surprisingly. Let's, first of all, understand that the biggest problem in this whole process was the deregulation of the financial system.
We've been here before. McCain has in fact been in favor of financial deregulation, but President Bill Clinton signed, and a lot of other Democrats supported, much of that same deregulation. And while Democrats really did fight McCain-cosponsored regulations of the FMs, McCain himself signed on to the bill just two months before the housing bubble popped.
In fact, there's plenty of blame to go around. Experts have blamed everyone from home buyers to mortgage lenders to Alan Greenspan to both the Bush and Clinton administrations.
Furthermore, McCain misspoke when he said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "made all these risky loans, gave them to people that could never afford to pay back." Actually those organizations did not make "home loans directly with consumers." Rather, they "work[ed] with mortgage bankers, brokers, and other primary mortgage market partners" and supplied them with the funds to lend to home buyers at affordable rates, as described on their Web sites.
Dubious Health Care Savings
Obama said that his health care plan would cut premium costs substantially:
Obama: We're going to work with your employer to lower the cost of your premiums by up to $2,500 a year.
We contacted health experts about this claim before – when Obama was saying the $2,500 would be the savings per family "on average." Some were quite skeptical. M.I.T.'s Jonathan Gruber told us, "I know zero credible evidence to support that conclusion." Obama has also said on the campaign trail that more than half of the savings would come from the use of electronic health records, a major part of his plan to cut health costs. When we looked into that claim, experts told us it was wishful thinking.
Adoption of electronic medical records has been slow among doctors and hospitals. Obama could do much to speed it up, but it's not clear that he could bring about widespread adoption or reap such large savings from it. One of his advisers previously told us that the $2,500 figure included savings that would go to government and employers and that could, theoretically, result in lower taxes or higher wages for Americans. It remains to be seen whether savings could trickle down like that, even if Obama could gain the optimistic overall health care savings he touts.
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