DAYTON, Ohio (AFP) - Barack Obama slammed John McCain’s “risky” plan to buy up 300 billion dollars in bad mortgages Thursday, and warned his White House rival was offering “erratic” leadership at a time of crisis.

The Democratic nominee laid into McCain at the start of a two-day bus tour through rust-belt Ohio designed to convince any wavering working class voters that he, and not Republican McCain, represents the best hope in tough times.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t be asked to pick up the tab for the very folks who helped create this crisis,” Obama said in a populist swipe at Wall Street finance firms, banks and “high rolling real estates speculators.”

“That’s the problem with Senator McCain’s risky idea,” Obama told a crowd in a minor league baseball stadium in Dayton, a gritty city in the state, home to crucial “swing” voters in the November 4 election.

“On Tuesday night, his campaign said that he would ask the banks to absorb some of the cost by selling the bad mortgages to the government at a discount.

“Then, by Wednesday morning, he’d changed his mind and was proposing to bail out banks and lenders with taxpayer money,” Obama said, arguing the government would have to assume the full cost of the program.

“Well, I don’t think we can afford that kind of erratic and uncertain leadership in these uncertain times.

“We need steady leadership in the White House. We need a president we can trust in times of crisis. And that’s why I am running for president of the United States of America.”

The Republican nominee unveiled the idea in his presidential debate clash with Obama Tuesday, in an attempt to change a trajectory of a race that seems to be sliding away four weeks before the election.

At the time, the Obama campaign said the plan was nothing new and argued the Democrat had already suggested something along similar lines.

But as more details emerged, the campaign hardened its stance.

The Democratic nominee said the government must be sure it is not overpaying for mortgages, give taxpayers a share of the benefit when the housing market recovers and should crack down on predatory lenders.

McCain said during the debate he would, as president, order the secretary of the treasury to “immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes, at the diminished value of those homes.”

The idea would enable struggling homeowners to meet their mortgage payments and stay in their homes, he said.

“Is it expensive? Yes,” he said. “But we all know, my friends, that until we stabilize home values in America, we’re never going to start turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy.

The McCain “American Homeownership Resurgence Plan” would buy mortgages directly from homeowners and mortgage servicers, and replace them with fixed-rate loans to allow families to stay in homes that would otherwise be foreclosed.

Courtesy of: http://ca.news.yahoo.com