The following is a statement from Barack Obama on the Economy. It was featured on  was on his web site  today.

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The news coming from Wall Street today has confirmed
our fears that the financial fallout from the mortgage crisis would
spillover into the wider economy.  Months ago, I went to Wall Street
and said that our capital markets could not function without the
confidence and trust of the public.  I said that Wall Street could not
succeed while the rest of America struggled.  Now, as the Federal
Reserve does its best to bring stability to the market, we must focus
on what we can do to restore the public’s confidence in the market and
help the millions of Americans who are worried about their jobs, their
homes, and their financial future.  History will
not judge President Bush kindly for his failure to act in a way that
could’ve prevented or alleviated this economic crisis.  There have been
few Administrations so out of touch with the concerns and the struggles
of working Americans and so beholden to the lobbyists and special
interests who blocked any kind of regulatory oversight of the financial
sector.  Whether it was subprime lending, credit cards, or bankruptcy
laws, Washington has allowed these special interests to prevent
sensible policy that could have prevented the most serious effects of
the current predicament.  

Nowhere has the failure been more
pronounced than the President’s refusal to address the plight of
homeowners and Main Street businesses that lie at the heart of the
turmoil right now.  After months of inaction and half-measures, the
President traveled to New York last week to say that there is a danger
in doing too much and implied that doing nothing would be preferable. 
His principle policy to address the financial crunch that now threatens
millions of Americans with foreclosure and thousands of business with
bankruptcy is to extend his tax cuts for the wealthiest few.  It’s a
policy so divorced from the reality facing the American people and the
American economy that it would be laughable if it weren’t so
frightening.  

At this moment, we must come together and act
to address the housing crisis that set this downturn in motion and
continues to eat away at the public’s confidence in the market.  We
should pass the legislation I put forward with my colleague, Chris
Dodd, to create meaningful incentives for lenders to buy or refinance
existing mortgages so that Americans facing foreclosure can keep their
homes.  This is not a bailout for lenders or investors who gambled
recklessly, and it is not a windfall for borrowers.  It is a fair and
responsible way to help stem the foreclosure crisis.

Many
other steps will be required to reverse this downturn in the weeks to
come.  It will require the efforts of those in the financial community;
of the Federal Reserve; of Congress, and the White House.  And it will
also require a renewed confidence that we can meet this challenge.  We
are the United States of America, and each time we have faced moments
of adversity in the past – some much greater than this – we have
summoned a spirit of cooperation and innovation to emerge stronger and
more prosperous than we were before.  But it will take work, it will
take time, and it will take leadership that recognizes that we are all
part of the same economy, and that economy must work for every American
in order for America to prosper in the 21st century.