McCain calls for heads to roll for finance crisis (Obama attack dog Schumer responses)

Foxnews ^ | 091908 | Mosheh Oinounou

[Fred]

CEDAR RAPIDS, IA - John McCain is fed up and not going to take it any more.

At a Hawkeye State rally Thursday, he took his rhetoric up a notch and called for the firing of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Chris Cox.

“The Chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the President and in my view has betrayed the publics trust. If I were President today, I would fire him,” McCain said at the 5,000 person event, accusing the SEC of failing to adequately police the market.

“(The SEC) kept in place trading rules that let speculators and hedge funds turn our markets into a casino. They allowed naked short selling — which simply means that you can sell stock without ever owning it. They eliminated last year an important rule called the uptick rule that has protected investors for 70 years,” he added. “Speculators pounded the shares of even good companies into the ground.”

Cox, a former California GOP congressman, is currently in his third year at the SEC.

But during a briefing with reporters on Capitol Hill, Democratic Senators Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer said McCain’s call for new leadership will not stabilize the markets.

“At this time, calling for someone to be fired in the middle of this crisis might sound really nice, but it doesn’t do anything to help people and calm the markets,” Schumer said. “Instead of firing Cox, Senator McCain ought to explain how his policies will differ from George W. Bush…maybe he should ask that Bush be fired instead of Cox.”

That led Reid to sarcastically say, “maybe he wants Phil Gramm to serve on the SEC.”

[LS]

Ok, well if McCain is naming names, it won’t be long. They can’t ignore this stuff, esp. if he does so in the debates and if he turns Palin loose on it.