McCain: N. Korea leader is "whacko,"

North Korea's latest threats must be stopped before they become a direct threat to the United States, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Thursday.

McCain told guest host Austin Hill on News/Talk 92-3 KTAR's "Ankarlo Mornings" that the world has let North Korea coast long enough.

"The days of accommodating this whacko Kim Jong Il and this most repressive and oppressive regime on earth -- 200,000 people in their prison system -- are over," McCain said. "They have nuclear weapons, they have missiles. It's a matter of time before they match a nuclear weapon with a missile, and that could pose a direct threat to the United States of America."

China is the only country which has significant influence over North Korea and it's time for China to exert some leadership, McCain said.

"The Chinese have to step up to the plate now," he said, adding that the Chinese never have "brought intense pressure" on North Korea.

McCain also said the Bush Administration made "a terrible mistake" in taking North Korea off the terrorist list. He said the United States should put North Korea back on the list, freeze its assets and restate that the U.S. will stop North Korean ships on the high seas if they are suspected of carrying nuclear weapons to other nations.

On another topic, McCain said the economic stimulus package pushed through Congress by President Barack Obama has "huge, wasteful aspects."

"It got loaded up," he said. "When the train started leaving the station, it was loaded with every conceivable earmarked project."

He said the current Congress "committed generational theft" by running up a debt of trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars.

McCain said the economy is showing some signs of recovery, but the big question is what happens after it recovers and how does the U.S. pay off the debt.

A lot of Americans are not aware that Republicans had an alternative stimulus package which would have cost about $400 billion, McCain said. He said the GOP proposal called for returning to an automatic path of a balanced budget, once the economy recovered.

"I worry about the long-term impact of this spending spree of unprecedented proportions," McCain said, adding that of very dollar the government is spending right now, 46-cents is borrowed money.

Asked if he believes Obama is trying to move the United States toward a socialist state, McCain said, "I don't know if he's trying to. He continues to state that he doesn't want to own automobile companies, manufacturing companies, he doesn't want to own banks. Well, the fact is, he does."

McCain said that months ago, he called for letting General Motors file for bankruptcy, have it prestructured so the automobile giant could come back and be viable. That idea was rejected, he said, and now after the government has put billions into GM, it apparently will end up filing for bankruptcy anyway.