NASHVILLE — Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama fought over taxes and how to get America back on track during their second debate Tuesday night in Nashville.

Sen. McCain vowed to have the federal government step in, buy up “bad” home mortgages and renegotiate the terms in an effort to “give some trust and confidence back to America.”

“It’s my proposal; it’s not Sen. Obama’s proposal; it’s not President Bush’s proposal,” said U.S. Sen. McCain, R-Ariz. “But I know how to get America working again, restore our economy and take care of working Americans.”

Sen. Obama, meanwhile, said the current economic crisis, which he called the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s, is the “final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years.” He said those policies, “strongly promoted by President Bush and supported” by Sen. McCain, included stripping away consumer regulations while promoting efforts to “let the market run wild.”

He pledged to crack down on Wall Street CEOs and push tax cuts for middle-class Americans.

Sen. McCain charged that “nailing down Sen. Obama’s various tax proposals is like nailing Jell-O to the wall.”

The two candidates’ exchanges on these and other issues often were blunt in the 90-minute debate at Belmont University. But while the candidates questioned one another’s judgment, they largely avoided the personal attacks that have dominated the campaign since last weekend.

The town-hall style debate, moderated by NBC’s Tom Brokaw, featured questions on domestic and foreign policy posed largely by undecided Nashville area voters selected by the nonpartisan Gallup Organization. Some questions were fielded via the Internet.

The two presidential hopefuls are scheduled to debate one more time at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., on Oct. 15. Their first debate was on Oct. 7 in Oxford, Miss.

For complete details, see tomorrow’s Chattanooga Times Free Press.