This devastating analysis of John McCain's economic illiteracy should be a warning to all Americans. A key section of the article:
McCain wants to extend the Bush tax cuts, which he once opposed as a needless sop to the rich in a time of war. (I await David Brooks' inevitable explanation of how opposing taxes in a time of war in 2001 and 2003, when deficits were low, but supporting them in 2011, in a time of war and high deficits, is deeply moral and admirable.) But McCain wants to see Bush's tax relief and raise it some. McCain would slash the corporate-income-tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent (because corporate profits as a percentage of GDP didn't spike enough this decade?), and he'd abolish the Alternative Minimum Tax, which would be a welcome move for many upper-middle-class taxpayers. "In all, his tax-cutting proposals could cost about $400 billion a year, according to estimates of the impact of different tax cuts by CBO and the McCain campaign," the Wall Street Journal reported.
And how to make up for the lost revenues? Hmmm. McCain promises to cut earmarks; to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse; and to reduce the projected growth of Medicare; but he won't provide many numbers. As the WSJ deadpanned: "The cost will make it difficult for him to achieve his goal of balancing the budget by the end of his first term." That's perhaps the understatement of the year. The 2009 budget calls for a deficit of $407 billion on projected receipts of $2.7 trillion*, as this table shows. Essentially, McCain wants to cut revenues by about 15 percent from current levels, with nothing close to that in spending reductions, in a time when, even after spending excess Social Security payroll taxes, the deficit is running at more than $400 billion. Here's some straight talk: McCain's fiscal program is either a joke or a fantasy.
Yes indeed, a very bad joke or a very sick fantasy. This country is already teetering on the brink of economic disaster and McCain apparently wants to give it one big final shove over the cliff.
Every way you look at it, electing this man would be a disaster.
2 comments:
I was told by a fellow employee to read your blog, Interesting. A current fact for you in case you did not see the interviews with Warren Buffet and George Soros. Buffet backed Obama on his tax raises. These raises would be raising the dividend and capital gains tax between 20-25%. He did this from his stand point of a WEALTHY man. Soros stated that he believed that it would not effect the rich but could hurt the middle class. The reasons that he gave would be if you raise the dividend tax and capital gains tax it would drop the Stock Markets by his guess of at least 3-5%. Can the markets and people who are invested in it take another hit? Can our Baby Boomers, like yourself, live off of their investments? You may be opposed to making the "Bush Tax Cuts" permanent, but as we stand right now as an economic nation of investors, 80-85% of American families are invested in the markets in one form or another, we can not have another major dip that could last for 2-5 years.
The fact that the majority of Americans have some stock is misleading. The vast majority of stock is owned by a relative minority of investors.
Our country is bleeding economically. The piling up of debt must stop. The national debt of the U.S. will be $11 trillion by 2010. In 1980, it was less than 1 trillion. Three Republican presidents, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush the Lesser, have piled up 70% of all the national debt in American history. This Republican irresponsibility has to be stopped. We need to stop taxing our kids and grandkids and save our country by accepting a greater tax burden now.
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