The Economic Debate--NOT

Last night the American people anxiously were waiting for some well thought out ideas and initiatives to solve the credit crisis. At 9pm EST John McCain and Barack Obama met face to face for their first National Debate. It was a week of jockeying, fighting, cajoling, and political squabling about the Paulson Bailout Plan. Now we had the chance to listen to our next President tell us: what he thought the plan should look like; how the $700B Fund was going to effect fiscal policy; what is the near and long-term outlooks for the economy; how was Main Street America going to be affected. Instead we got a big yawn.

As we have been discussing all week, our country is in a major financial crisis and this bailout plan is only one piece to a very complicated puzzle to flush out the excesses of an overleveraged economy. America needs a strong leader for the next four years and one who has some definitive thoughts on how to get out of the mess we are in. There is no simple answer but it is important for the American people to feel like the next leader is smart and understands the problems.

Personally, I have not decided for whom to vote and I thought last night might sway me. However, the economic discussion seemed to be short on ideas and substance while the foreign policy discussion dominated the night. Don't get me wrong. We have huge issues around the world that need to be addressed but last night the American people were keenly interested in the $700B plan and how it affected them. I came away from the debate wondering whether either candidate understood the complexity of the situation and had any ideas focused on improving our financial system and nursing our economy back to health.