Posted on 04/15/2008 9:18:38 AM PDT by BJClinton
PITTSBURGH - John McCain called Tuesday for the federal government to free people from paying gasoline taxes this summer and ensure that college students can secure loans this fall, proposals aimed at stemming the public's pain now from the troubled economy.
In the longer-term, the certain Republican presidential nominee said he would double the tax exemption for dependent children and offer people the option of choosing a simpler tax system.
"We know from experience that no serious reform of the current tax code will come out of Congress, so now it is time to turn the decision over to the people," McCain said in a sweeping economic speech at Carnegie Mellon University a week before Pennsylvania's primaries.
To help people weather the downturn immediately, McCain urged Congress to institute a "gas-tax holiday" by suspending the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day. He also renewed his call for the United States to stop adding to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and thus lessen to some extent the worldwide demand for oil.
Combined, he said, the two proposals would reduce gas prices, which would have a trickle-down effect, and "help to spread relief across the American economy."
Addressing the feared fallout of the ongoing credit crunch, McCain also said the Education Department should work with the country's governors to make sure that each state's guarantee agency — nonprofits that traditionally back student loans issued by banks — has both the means and the manpower to be the lender-of-last-resort for student loans.
Lawmakers, students and financial experts are worried that the credit crisis might make it more difficult for students and their families to find loans. Nearly two dozen lenders have dropped out of the federally backed student loan program.
Students, McCain said, "should not be denied an education because the recklessness of others has made credit too hard to obtain."
Among other proposals, McCain said he would:
_Require more affluent people — couples making more than $160,000 — enrolled in Medicare to pay a higher premium for their prescription drugs than less-wealthy people.
_Raise the tax exemption for each dependent child from $3,500 to $7,000.
_Offer people the option of choosing a simpler tax system with two tax rates and a standard deduction instead of sticking with the current system.
_Suspend for one year all increases in discretionary spending for agencies other than those that cover the military and veterans while launching an expansive review of the effectiveness of federal programs.
Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said McCain's proposals offer "no change from George Bush's failed policies by going full speed ahead with fiscally irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans," and amount to "a gift basket of new tax cuts for corporate America at a time when some CEOs are making more in a day than some workers make in a year."
The four-term Arizona senator packaged the fresh proposals with long-standing positions in a wide-ranging economic speech on Tax Day in which he faulted not only Democrats but also fellow Republicans for failing to practice prudent spending and fix pricey entitlement programs.
"In so many ways, we need to make a clean break from the worst excesses of both political parties," McCain said, adding "somewhere along the way, too many Republicans in Congress became indistinguishable from the big-spending Democrats they used to oppose."
He also argued that Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton would impose the single largest tax increase since World War II by allowing tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 — and that McCain voted against but now wants to make permanent — to expire.
"Both promise big 'change.' And a trillion dollars in new taxes over the next decade would certainly fit that description," McCain said. Playing on the title of an Obama book, McCain added: "All these tax increases are the fine print under the slogan of 'hope:' They're going to raise your taxes by thousands of dollars per year — and they have the audacity to hope you don't mind."
The speech was part of McCain's ongoing effort to counter the notion — fueled by his own previous comments — that he's not as strong on the economy as he is on other issues. He also sought to fend off criticism from Democrats, including Obama and Clinton, that his small-government, free-market stances don't mesh with people feeling the pinch — particularly those hurting now.
He made his remarks a day after he said he believes the country has already entered a recession, a label the Bush administration has resisted even as a credit crisis, a housing slump, soaring energy costs and rising layoffs combined to soften the economy.
The speech also came the same morning the Labor Department reported another worrisome sign for the economy: Inflation at the wholesale level soared in March at nearly triple the rate that had been expected as the costs of energy and food both climbed rapidly. Oil prices hit a new high, rising over $112 a barrel for the first time.
More social(ist) engineering nonsense.
Laughing too hard to comment
The first one, yes. But the per-child deduction increase is a substantial tax cut. We need to replace the tax code but this is an improvement.
These proposals will play well in Peoria.
Words are insufficient to describe the extent of his projection. He’s nuts. He doesn't call or vote for pork but just damn! He - is - nuts.
John McCain should advocate drilling in ANWR, drilling offshore, drilling inland, building refineries and building nuclear plants. Then he should tell the foreigners to keep their oil.
Suspending the gas tax is actually a pretty good political proposal. The Al Gore wing of the left would oppose it on “global warming” principals alone. It would help to split them off from the working stiffs.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Ah... suspending the gas tax, making gasoline cheaper, distorting the supply/demand/price trio.
This guy is TRULY CLUELESS.
What happens to demand when price decreases?
Ah, then the supply goes down, and the price goes back to where it was.
I don’t like the idea at all:
1) the gas tax is the only really fair tax we have — it’s a consumption tax that is used, largely, to build and sustain the very highways on which the fuel is spent;
2) when the other shoe drops, and the tax is re-instated, it will have a very negative shock-effect.
I’m curious. . .Which of the proposals in this article is ticking you off and why?
That point is true. You pay for what you use. Still, the government is skimming far too much from the efforts of the oil companies while taking no risk. The government doesn't even properly apply the revenues to building and maintaining the road infrastructure.
Suspend the stinking medicare tax. It is nothing but wealth redistribution. The gainfully employed are saddled with funding subsidized healthcare for the elderly.
I love the per-child deduction increase idea; I have 4 children!
Those who drive electric cars or use vegetable oil in their cars and pay no gas taxes will complain the loudest.
Given that those earning that much in retirement probably maxed out the contributions during their wage earning years - how much more progressive can it get? The principle should be some pro rata share - since it would be hard to imagine that those retirees who are in households withe $160K+ incomes have some greater propensity to need prescription drugs than those with $159,999.17 in annual household income. McCain needs to get a clue on economics and soon.
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