Candidates Decry Crisis, but Don't Change Plans

Though John McCain and Barack Obama are both on board with the White House's $700-billion scheme to bail out Wall Street, they're both still pushing economic plans crafted before the crisis, and likely to be scuttled by it, the Washington Post reports. Although the fiscal situation is, in the words of a former Clinton adviser, “dramatically deteriorated,” neither candidate is taking advantage of the chance to overhaul his plans.

Both campaigns take shelter in the hope that the crisis will pass quickly. "This is a major fiscal problem in the short run, but it doesn't alter the long-run fiscal picture," Obama's economic policy chief tells the Post. And McCain's counterpart: "In terms of the numbers, obviously the landscape has changed. In terms of the [underlying] challenge, no, I don't think there is much change." Meanwhile, they're each busy trying to link the other to the meltdown.
(More Barack Obama stories.)