NEW YORK (AFP) — White House candidate John McCain said his fellow Republican, President George W. Bush had "failed" to prevent conditions which led to the Wall Street meltdown and debt crisis.
But Democratic hopeful Barack Obama made a fresh attempt to rebut his rival's calls for financial reform, saying he had been a leading proponent of deregulation in an industry which now needs a massive government bailout.
"I say the Bush administration has failed," McCain told CBS news magazine show "60 Minutes."
"I say the Congress has failed, Democrats and Republicans.
"So everybody's failed. And the cozy, old-boy, special interests that have prevailed in Washington have harmed the American people, frankly, in the most terrible fashion."
McCain said he was "enraged " by "greedy Wall Street people" and said everyday Americans were "hurting" after seeing their 401k pension funds and other savings plans plunge in value.
He also said he would chose Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who served in former president Bill Clinton's cabinet to take over the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after saying he would fire the current head Chris Cox.
The Republican vowed however that if elected president on November 4, he would not raise taxes to fund the bailout, and vowed to trim waste and overspending in the government.
He also rejected Obama's attempts to link him closely to Bush and arguments that a McCain presidency would offer four more years of "failed" policies.
He said he differed from Bush in spending, the conduct of the Iraq war, willingness to address climate change and treatment of foreign "war on terror" prisoners.
"There is a large number of issues that I have stood up to my party, not just the White House but to my party. Senator Obama has never once done that."
Obama however, in an interview with the same show, dismissed McCain's anti-Wall Street rhetoric, and said his rival had come to his vow to reform the finance industry too late.
"The difference is, I think, that I've got a track record of actually believing in this stuff," the Democratic candidate said.
"You know, Senator McCain, fairly recently, said, 'I'm a deregulator.'
"One of his top-- chief economic advisors was (former senator) Phil Gramm, who was one of the architects of deregulation in this sector.
"And he's always taken great pride in believing that we have to eliminate regulations."
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