During today’s press briefing, White House press secretary Dana Perino suggested the Bush administration would oppose any effort to extend jobless benefits — a stance the White House has taken before. She explained their position by saying, “we want people to be able to return to the workplace as soon as possible.” The suggestion was that extending benefits somehow prevents people from returning to work.

She concluded by saying that “the best way to help” the economy and unemployed people is for unemployed people to simply “get back to work.” Watch it:

It is both insulting and naive to suggest that people aren’t working because jobless benefits are somehow too generous and they’re too lazy to look for work again. People aren’t working because Bushonomics have hemorrhaged jobs and slashed the safety nets for laid off workers:

– The Department of Labor reported last week that the country shed 159,000 jobs in September, and the unemployment rate has increased to its highest level in five years.

– The Washington Post reported yesterday that “unemployment claims are at a seven-year high, and factory orders are sharply down. … Small businesses can’t get financing.”

– According to a July survey by the National Conference of State Legislatures, states are being forced to slash spending and cut jobs “in order to close a projected $40 billion shortfall in the current fiscal year,” more than triple the size of the previous year’s.

– State jobless funds are drying out. According to the National Employment Law Project, at least 11 states are facing financial challenges paying their jobless benefits.

The Bush administration’s refusal to extend a helping hand to those punished by the economy it created is nothing new: Last month, the White House threatened to veto a second stimulus package over opposition to an expansion of food stamps benefits.

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Fox News’ political reporter Carl Cameron is on the trail with John McCain. Reporting from a live McCain rally this evening, he said:

You’ll hear the booing behind me. In recent days, when Barack Obama’s name has been mentioned, it has gone from boos and hissing to actual chants and calls of traitor, criminal, and even terrorist.

The McCain campaign says they don’t condone it, they don’t want to see it happen, but it’s happening more and more every day.

Watch it:

The crowd reaction may have something to do with the frequent charges from the McCain campaign that Obama “pals around with terrorists.”

This morning on MSNBC, Nicolle Wallace, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) senior campaign adviser, falsely claimed that McCain “isn’t for giving tax cuts to corporations,” adding that “John McCain is their worst nightmare.”

Far from being a corporate nightmare, the cornerstone of McCain’s economic plan — cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25 percent — makes him quite the corporate darling. In fact, McCain himself has regularly touted this aspect of his plan:

MCCAIN: I’m not sure how many Americans are aware that American corporations pay the second highest taxes of any nation in the world. [...] We need to cut the corporate tax rate in America. It’s not a very sexy kind of a thing you know, but it’s real.

Watch a compilation:

Not only is Wallace wrong in claiming that McCain does not favor cutting corporations’ taxes but she’s also way off the mark in saying he’s their “worst nightmare.” In fact, the richest 200 American corporations stand to benefit handsomely ($45 billion) from a McCain administration.

McCain’s plan would dole out $4 billion a year to Big Oil (despite the numerous campaign claims to the contrary), $2 billion to health insurance companies and $1.44 billion to the parent companies of mainstream media outlets. Eight companies — Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., Bank of America Corp., AT&T, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Microsoft Corp. — would each receive over $1 billion a year.

But if McCain is a corporation’s “worst nightmare,” then his campaign sure has everyone fooled, including the richest CEOs, who have given approximately 10 times as much to McCain as they have to Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL).

During the presidential debate last night, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) announced that, if elected President, he “would 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,” in order to enable troubled homeowners to stay in their homes:

I would 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 and let people be able to make those – be able to make those payments and stay in their homes.

Is it expensive? Yes. But we all know, my friends, until we stabilize home values in America, we’re never going to start turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy. And we’ve got to give some trust and confidence back to America.

McCain’s plan – the American Homeownership Resurgence Plan – is a good step because he recognizes what he failed to understand before: the mortgage crisis is at the root of the current financial trouble. As the Associated Press noted today, McCain’s plan is akin to one proposed by the Center for American Progress (CAP), which has “been pushing a similar idea for some time.”

In December, 2007, CAP’s Andrew Jakabovics proposed a plan modeled on FDR’s New Deal-era Home Owners Loan Corporation. Under the CAP proposal, the government “would issue new, fixed-rate mortgages to those borrowers ‘underwater’ and facing default or foreclosure,” while buying “the old adjustable-rate mortgages from lenders and investors” at current value.

McCain should be applauded for embracing the progressive goal of helping homeowners with decent credit, who are nevertheless burdened with bad mortgages. However, he wants to buy the mortgages at full face value, which means he “wants to give $100 billion of taxpayers’ money to America’s worst-behaving mortgage financiers.”

Here’s how McCain’s proposal works:

- If a homeowner bought a house for $300,000 – and the value then fell to $200,000 – McCain would have the government purchase the mortgage for $300,000, instead of forcing lenders to accept the loss and renegotiate the loan.

- The only way in which the government then makes a profit is if the house’s value rises above its original market value of $300,000, which is possible, but unlikely.

As Matthew Yglesias wrote, “instead of having the lenders take a haircut in order to avoid mass foreclosures, McCain wants the taxpayers to bare all the costs of doing so.”

Brad DeLong noted that McCain plans to “give a present of $100 billion to the bankers who made the loans,” and “acquire and regularize the mortgages of only two-thirds as many homeowners as could have been accomplished if the $300 billion were invested wisely.”

McCain’s idea to buy and restructure mortgages is a good one, but he can accomplish it without overpaying and rewarding bankers who made bad loans.

Cross-posted at The Wonk Room.