Obama, McCain backers debate housing mess

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- The U.S. economy isn't finished with its downward spiral and its accompanying crisis in confidence, two former financial leaders said Sunday.

"People understand that they have lost protection of their retirement savings and other things, and that erodes confidence," New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, former chief executive of Goldman Sachs, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I think you are going to see rising levels of unemployment unfortunately, and ... that's a real problem as we go ahead in the months ahead."

While agreeing that there are crises in the financial market and in confidence, former Office of Management and Budget Director and former Ohio Rep. Rob Portman, said if "we move and move quickly, I think we can pull out of this and relatively quickly."

The financial markets' underlying issue -- the housing market -- is "one reason that Senator McCain has focused on this home resurgence plan which says, let's get these people out from under their mortgages," said Portman, a supporter of the Republican presidential nominee.

Corzine, who backs Democratic nominee Barack Obama, called McCain's plan for the government to buy bad mortgages and refinance them so homeowners could remain in them "a horrible idea."

"(Yes) we ought to be stabilizing housing prices," Corzine said. "I think actually we could even buy houses like they did back in the '30s under the RFC program, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation."