Posted on 04/28/2008 9:38:03 AM PDT by The_Republican
As the designated political heir of a deeply unpopular president — according to Gallup, President Bush has the highest disapproval rating recorded in 70 years of polling — John McCain should have little hope of winning in November. In fact, however, current polls show him roughly tied with either Democrat.
In part this may reflect the Democrats’ problems. For the most part, however, it probably reflects the perception, eagerly propagated by Mr. McCain’s many admirers in the news media, that he’s very different from Mr. Bush — a responsible guy, a straight talker.
But is this perception at all true? During the 2000 campaign people said much the same thing about Mr. Bush; those of us who looked hard at his policy proposals, especially on taxes, saw the shape of things to come.
And a look at what Mr. McCain says about taxes shows the same combination of irresponsibility and double-talk that, back in 2000, foreshadowed the character of the Bush administration.
The McCain tax plan contains three main elements.
First, Mr. McCain proposes making almost all of the Bush tax cuts, which are currently scheduled to expire at the end of 2010, permanent. (He proposes reinstating the inheritance tax, albeit at a very low rate.)
Second, he wants to eliminate the alternative minimum tax, which was originally created to prevent the wealthy from exploiting tax loopholes, but has begun to hit the upper middle class.
Third, he wants to sharply reduce tax rates on corporate profits.
According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the overall effect of the McCain tax plan would be to reduce federal revenue by more than $5 trillion over 10 years. That’s a lot of revenue loss — enough to pose big problems for the government’s solvency.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Krugman barf alert.
So go vote for Obama and his toxic minister, Paul. You have my full blessing, you liberal twit.
What does an economist know of politics, or a politician of economics?
No McCain supporter here, but Krugman is stupid made permanent. There is no cure.
LOL!
Bears repeating, ad infinitum!
Cutting taxes without cutting spending is irresposible, especially when you are already running large deficits. The USA has national debt of $9 trillion, and it’s growing fast. That can not be sustained.
The high price of commodities is essentially a rolling devaluation of the US dollar caused by monetary inflation caused by, in part, the US governments inability to live within it’s budget.
If McCain doesn’t have the where with all to cut programs down to size to fix this then his tax cutting proposals are irresponsible, as Krugman suggests.
As a liberal Krugman expects that all government programs that exist will continue to exist and new ones will be added. That is the history of the USA since FDR. That has held true through all types of administrations: Nixon added the EPA, Bush added the TSA, Clinton formeed Americorp.
At some point leadership requires telling the American Children that we can’t have it all. We can’t have low taxes, the biggest military in the world, free healthcare and retirement in comfort at age 62.
I haven’t seen any hard medicine from McCain. Therefore his tax policy just looks like pandering to me.
Donks: “We’ll give you FREE healthcare” !!!!
Reps: “We’ll give you big tax cuts” !!!!
Neither one is dealing with reality, at all.
Cutting taxes without cutting spending is irresposible, especially when you are already running large deficits. The USA has national debt of $9 trillion, and it’s growing fast. That can not be sustained.
The high price of commodities is essentially a rolling devaluation of the US dollar caused by monetary inflation caused by, in part, the US governments inability to live within it’s budget.
If McCain doesn’t have the where with all to cut programs down to size to fix this then his tax cutting proposals are irresponsible, as Krugman suggests.
As a liberal Krugman expects that all government programs that exist will continue to exist and new ones will be added. That is the history of the USA since FDR. That has held true through all types of administrations: Nixon added the EPA, Bush added the TSA, Clinton formeed Americorp.
At some point leadership requires telling the American Children that we can’t have it all. We can’t have low taxes, the biggest military in the world, free healthcare and retirement in comfort at age 62.
I haven’t seen any hard medicine from McCain. Therefore his tax policy just looks like pandering to me.
Donks: “We’ll give you FREE healthcare” !!!!
Reps: “We’ll give you big tax cuts” !!!!
Neither one is dealing with reality, at all.
From the article: **But here’s the thing: the reason the Bush tax cuts are set to expire is that the Bush administration engaged in a game of deception. It put an expiration date on the tax cuts, which it never intended to honor, as a way to hide those tax cuts’ true cost.***
Duh!
Like my dumb Democrat neighbor whining about the rebate “how irresponsible - giving all that money out”. I told her she could just give it back to the Gubmint to which her response was: “No, why should I - everyone else is keeping theirs”
Leftists have been pushing the “Bush is evil, stupid, Hitler, war criminal, etc.” narrative for the last eight years. But after Bush leaves office, that narrative won’t be of much use to them. So with Bush stepping aside next year, the left has to start vilifying McCain the same way to establish a similar narrative for him. The fastest, easiest way to do that is to paint McCain as Bush, which Krugman does here. And Obama will certainly do the same after he gets the nod.
The irony of all this is that McCain has proven he can bash Bush with the best of them.
Ah yes, no difference between parties so freepers don't should bother to vote --sounds like the latest troll line. Look, there was a big difference between Reagan's tax-cuts and Carters hikes and there's been a big difference between Bush's tax cuts and Gore's global warming. Don't believe this garbage,
From the horse's mouth, letting the people KEEP their money is just flat irresponsible.
Just more reasons to get out the vote for McCain!
Sadly neither party is dedicated to fixing the completely out of control US government.
At no point did I advise people not to vote, or how to vote in my posting. I merely pointed out the facts that neither McCain nor Obama has anyplan to fix the most serious, longterm, systemic problems facing the USA.
McCain’s tax cutting ideas are irresponsible given the badly underfunded government he is going to run. It would be nice if people paid as much attention to the serious budgetary problems of the USA as they do to Obama’s bowling skills or McCain’s choice in air-trasport.
Failure to understand those things isn’t going to make an iota of difference to my kids. Failure to deal with the government created financial mess is going to make all our lives much worse.
Its sad that people like you are so invested in the team-spirit driven process of the election that you are willing to overlook these serious problems.
I assure you I am not a troll, having been posting here for a decade now. (Nov is my anniversary.)
I can imagine one of the two major party’s loosing everything after the economy and dollar crash. They will be as popular as Woodrow Wilson was after 1929. That party will spend decades in the wilderness, as the GOP starting in 1932.
Is it really worth it to elect McCain so that the GOP can take the blame for things like SSI collapsing, raising taxes, and the failling dollar? Might it not be strategically more sound to let the Donks own the collapse of the programs they created?
I don’t know. I know there are other important issues at stake, like the Supreme Court. And that McCain is arguably better on that.
But he’s not a real conservative, but you can bet when the SHTF it will be “conservatism” that is held to blame and ridiculed as a failed ideology. Not “maverick liberalism with a populist veneer”.
McCain will NEVER get my vote. All three candidates are sell outs.
McCain wasn’t even my third choice. But when it dawned on me what an Obama Presidency would really be like, the difference could not be more stark. Obama is not just a liberal. He’s a marxist that wants revenge. He’s dangerous. With him there may be no coming back.
I think McCain would not be so bad as some fear. In fact, on key issues for me, he’s on point.
For starters: He gets it with regard to the war, and terrorism in general. He is willing to pull the trigger when the trigger needs pulled. Obama is clearly unwilling to EVER pull the trigger. I cannot understate how dangerous this is. He is the weak horse. He will signal to Al Queda that they can beat us. The carnage will be unprecedented.
McCain is also good on taxes. You’ve been around long enough to know that lower taxes do in fact ~raise~ revenues. Obama will jerk taxes higher than perhaps they’ve ever been. Don’t forget the 60+% liberal congress he’ll have. They’ll skyrocket taxes, lower revenues, and create whole new crushing entitlements. Not a prescription for a stronger dollar there.
It’s ain’t worth it. I wish we had a more conservative nominee. But we don’t. They lost. But the alternative isn’t just a little bit worse. It truly is a whole lot worse.
What did the Tax Policy Center predict would be the result of Bush’s tax cuts?
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