GREEN BAY — Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., outlined his plan to fix the Wall Street economic crisis in front of a crowd of nearly 10,000 supporters in Green Bay Thursday.

The Illinois senator called for greater oversight and full disclosure of Wall Street and mortgage institutions’ activities, adding the government should be more active in regulating companies to avoid a market plummet in the future.

Obama said he would limit the influence of lobbyist and special interest groups in his administration along with eliminating fraud and wasteful use of taxpayers’ dollars.

“We need to stop spending $3 billion a year to banks so that they can provide student loans that the government could provide for less,” he said.

Obama’s speech was preceded by addresses from Democratic leaders in Wisconsin, including Gov. Jim Doyle, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, U.S. Sens. Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, and U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen, D-Green Bay.

“I think it’s perfectly fitting that the next president of the United States will be decided by the great people of Wisconsin,” Doyle said. “We live by pretty basic values. We believe in hard work; people go to work every day; they word hard, (and) they don’t ask for much other than a chance to get ahead in life.”

Obama’s visit comes three days after Republican candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin rallied in the same convention center to gather supporters in efforts to guarantee a vote from Wisconsin — a swing state and political battleground that could define the outcome of November’s election.

McCain, who stated last week that the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are sound, said in NBC’s “Today” show Monday that this is America’s most serious crisis since World War II. He called for a greater oversight of the proposed plan to repair the financial markets and criticized the $700 billion plan being drafted by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

“Never before in the history of our nation has so much power and money been concentrated in the hands of one person. This arrangement makes me deeply uncomfortable,” McCain said at a rally in Scranton, Pa. “We will not solve a problem caused by poor oversight with a plan that has no oversight.” 

McCain also called for a bipartisan committee to supervise the bailout, and suggested former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a previous rival for the Republican nomination, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg take part in the group.

In an interview, University of Wisconsin real estate and urban land economics professor Stephen Malpezzi, who presented an hour-long lecture on the financial crisis at UW this week, criticized the presidential candidates for providing “sound bite” answers to what he called a problem with several parts. Most of the answers have been constructed poorly, and it will take more than a few steps to restructure Wall Street, he added.

“Some of the things that have come out, such as fire this person or quick fixes, are just not what’s going to get us ahead,” Malpezzi said.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report from Pennsylvania.