Schumer Presses for Nonpartisan Response to Fannie/Freddie Plan

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that both of the presidential campaigns are reacting responsibly to the government plan to rescue mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“Yes, I think Barack Obama and John McCain are saying pretty close to the same thing,” Schumer said on CNBC Monday. Schumer was responding to praise in the same interview by former Treasury Secretary John Snow for both presidential candidates, whom Snow sees as looking for a “real solution” to the crisis that won’t hurt taxpayers.

Schumer added: “They might, should each be president, have a different solution — somewhat different solution. But I think they realize and just about everybody realizes that the first job is to stabilize these markets.”

Schumer also said that the plan to stabilize markets will have broad congressional support.

“[Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulson went out over the weekend to reassure all of us that there is not some grand scheme as to what should be put in place after the markets are stabilized; that they were going to, if you will, punt that to the next administration,” he said.

Schumer also said that the first job of the government right now is “to prevent this recession from heading further south.”

“I think there’s a broad middle here,” he said. “There’ll be some on the far left who say, you know, ‘Just go after the high-ups,’ and there’ll be some on the far right who say, ‘Get the government out now to let things crash.’ Neither of those would serve us very well right now as a country, as a world, and as citizens, bond holders, mortgagers or taxpayers.”