HUGH HEWITT: When you were at Bain Capital, the company that you founded, you had to finance a lot of acquisitions, and that meant the credit markets. The credit markets are in an upheaval right now on a macro scale, on a micro scale, people are losing their houses because they’ve got bad loans. What, if anything, should the government be doing about the credit market upheaval?

MITT ROMNEY: Well, the President has taken action that should calm a good portion of the market, which is he said look, these people who borrowed money from the sub-prime world with these reset provisions, where the payments go up in later months, and they were told by their mortgage banker in many cases don’t worry about that, we’ll refinance it when that time comes, well, now the mortgage banker’s gone, they can’t refinance it. And so he’s saying, the President’s saying let’s have the FHA refinance these mortgages. It’s not a bailout, but it is a setting which gives people stability, and will calm the markets to a certain degree. And then the Federal Reserve is also taking action to calm the markets to make sure that the crisis in the sub-prime mortgage market does not spread more broadly to the economy at large. And it’s already begun to spread, as you know, and that’s why the Fed is taking the action that they are.

HUGH HEWITT: What kind of danger does this pose to Wall Street and Main Street?

MITT ROMNEY: Well, Wall Street is always at risk for making bad investments, and that’s the way it ought to be. No one ought to bailout the big investors who put money in these sub-prime mortgage instruments, and thought they were going to make a killing. You know, they took a risk and now they’ve lost. And so you’re going to see some investors lose some money, and they’re going to be a little nervous, and they’re going to pull back a bit. And that’s what you’d expect. You wouldn’t expect, however, that this should effect the better credit markets, or people who were able to put their down payment down for a home. It shouldn’t effect those kinds of borrowers. And if it does, then the pullback has gone too far, and that’s why I think that the Fed is acting to increase the liquidity that’s available to lenders so they can get that money out to borrowers.

Questions for Mitt Romney from Hugh Hewitt on September 6, 2007

1. When do we get a Rudy-Mitt-Fred debate?
2. What is your reaction to Mccain going after your use of the word apparently.
3. What differentiates you from Thompson and Giuliani?
4. Should Clinton release the names of contributors delivered to her by Norman Hsu?
5. Are Clinton and Obama clueless?
6. What do you think about Schumer saying our troops have failed in Iraq?
7. What’s your position on the funding and expansion of the military?
8. What should the government do about the credit market upheaval?
9. What is your reaction to Michigan moving their election date?
10. What should the government do to help the automobile industry?