The Candidates on the Financial Crisis

The candidates are commenting on the current financial crisis and making proposals as to what they would do about it. Of course, even when elected the winning candidate will not be able to act as president until January 20th, 2009.

More to the point, neither one knows much at the moment, compared to the spokespersons for the government. A Candidate has a few hundred policy people that he can draw on. The secretary of the Treasury has thousands. Not only is the Treasury Department there at his disposition, but he can draw on the State Department and its thousands of diplomats for information on foreign governments, the Commerce Department, not to mention the regulatory agencies. The federal government should have many more people, with enormous skills and resources working on the analysis that has lead to nearly a trillion dollars of initiatives. No candidate can match those resources.

It is interesting to hear how they approach the crisis in terms of evaluating their teams and fundamental approaches to governing, but it is not useful in coming to decisions on what the government should in fact do.