ARLINGTON, Va. (Standard Newswire) - U.S. Senator John McCain today issued the following statement on the housing crisis: "On Tuesday, I addressed the housing crisis and its devastating impact on our financial markets and the household budgets of millions of hardworking Americans.

The fact is that there are about 4 million homeowners in danger of losing their homes. We have a responsibility to take action to help those among them who are deserving homeowners, and as I said this week, I am committed to considering any and all proposals to do so. Any action must further look to the future to make certain this never happens again.

"As I said on Tuesday, I believe the role of government is to help the truly needy, prevent systemic economic risk, and enact reforms that prevent the kind of crisis we are currently experiencing from ever happening again. Those reforms should focus on improving transparency and accountability in our capital markets -- both of which were lacking in the lead-up to the current situation. "However, what is not necessary is a multi-billion dollar bailout for big banks and speculators, as Senators Clinton and Obama have proposed. There is a tendency for liberals to seek big government programs that sock it to American taxpayers while failing to solve the very real problems we face.

"This is a complex problem that deserves a careful, balanced approach that helps the homeowners in trouble, not big banks and speculators that acted irresponsibly. I again call on our lending institutions, where possible, to step up and help Americans who are hurting in this crisis."

Jersey City, NJ – New Jersey conservative Republican leader Dr. Murray Sabrin, the Garden State’s strongest advocate of limited government and individual freedom and candidate for U.S. Senate, challenged his new Primary opponent, New York City nightclub owner Casal Andrew Unanue, to debate him before the upcoming Republican Conventions this week.
Dr. Murray Sabrin said, “Tom Wilson and the failed Republican Leadership are trying to hang on to their limited power by recruiting a slick Playboy Nightclub owner from New York City to run for the United States Senate. What’s next? The manager of the Bada-Bing Club to run for Governor.”
Sabrin continued, “New Jersey and our nation are facing serious problems and that is why I have proposed the Sabrin Solution to these issues. If he wants to run for the United States Senate he should be prepared to debate me on the issues this week. I am confident the voters will respond to my message of Legalizing Freedom.” Casal Andrew Unanue announced on Easter Sunday he was running for the United States Senate.
Sabrin Communications Director George Ajjan said, “It was inappropriate for Mr. Unanue to play politics on the holiest day of the year for millions of New Jersey Christians. We hope he shows more sensitivity in the future.”

Republican Members of the Assembly Budget Committee said on Tuesday they will focus their efforts during the budget process in the next three months on making significant spending reductions, but they said those reductions must be fair cuts targeted at wasteful and unnecessary spending.
“Our responsibility is to look at the budget the Governor has proposed and find ways to make it better,” said Assemblyman Joseph Malone, R-Burlington, Ocean, Monmouth and Mercer. “Our challenge is to make changes to this budget without doing anything to exacerbate our fiscal problems, and our goal should be to pass a budget this June that will actually help get our state back on the right fiscal course.”
The budget committee hearings opened on Tuesday with revenue forecasts from the non-partisan Office of Legislative Services (OLS) and the Treasurer. The revenue projections indicate that there may be $134 million less available for the FY2009 budget than was anticipated when Governor Corzine addressed the Legislature in February.
“Today’s revenue projections only reinforce why it is vital that we go beyond the level of cuts proposed by the governor and make even deeper cuts to this budget,” said Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose, R-Sussex, Morris and Hunterdon. “This means finding additional areas where we can eliminate spending, but it also may mean replacing some counterproductive cuts the governor has proposed with cuts that will have a real long-term impact on getting our budget under control.”
Assemblywoman Marcia Karrow said that she is concerned by the impact the Corzine budget will have on rural areas of New Jersey with cuts in aid to small towns, cuts to State Police coverage for rural municipalities, and the elimination of the Department of Agriculture.
“A serious effort at cutting spending would involve fair cuts across the entire state budget that ask everyone to share the burden equally,” said Assemblywoman Marcia Karrow, R-Hunterdon and Warren . “It is not acceptable to protect funding for unnecessary state programs and for large, inefficient urban municipalities while squeezing rural and suburban regions of the state for more money. All cuts must be fair and defensible. These are neither.”
Referring to reports that the Corzine administration moved $300 million in funding off-budget so that it wouldn’t be included in the $33 billion budget figure the governor announced in February, Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, R-Monmouth and Mercer, said that dealing with the budget problem will require an honest assessment of the problem.
“We are facing a very complex and difficult fiscal situation and the only way we can tackle this problem is by making significant spending cuts,” O’Scanlon said. “That means making real spending cuts, not playing games with the books to make the budget appear smaller than it actually will be next year.”

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama gave a heartfelt and politically correct speech about race today. For many this speech uplifted and talked to many who believe that the country can move beyond race to create “a more perfect union.”
But to the trained eye Obama’s speech did more than talk about race, uphold his friendship with the Rev. Wright but took targeted pot shots at those who questioned his ability to be friends with a racist pastor.
Throughout his speech Obama targeted political pundits, the media and implied that white men voting for Sen. John McCain would do so because they a trapped in old resentments.
Bull Hockey!!!!
Another commentator noted that Obama did more to widen the racial divide than close it. Using the speech’s statement “…..to wish away the resentments of white America, to label them as misguided or even racists, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns, this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.”
Really!.
Obama’s speech was well written, historical, moving and evoked emotion at given times, but who was he talking to. Who was listening? What message was he really trying to give or sell?
He turned the Wright controversy on a dime, by acknowledging the problem, and then making the problem a greater one by focusing on the needs of white middle-class Americans who might be angry regarding their circumstances and can easily blame affirmative-action, busing, and other sources of racial friction as the cause of their problems.
With this speech do we now denounce race as a campaign issue or do we take it on for more political rhetoric.