(cross posted at Watership Down)
"I'm a Teddy Roosevelt Republican,'' John McCain says again and again, but clearly he is not. What did Theodore Roosevelt actually think about taxes (h/t rweba):
"I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective: a graduated inheritance tax increasing rapidly with the size of the estate," he said in 1910. Three years later, the modern income tax was created, initially structured so that it affected only the richest 5 percent of Americans.
But now, McCain, rallying the rube-Republicans, abandons his Teddy Roosevelt credentials, in order to pander to the people's paranoia of higher-taxes, calling Obama's repeal of the Bush tax cuts on the top 5 percent as "far left" and bringing up the non-existent ghost of socialist-activist-judges:
L. KING: Do you -- you don't believe Barack Obama is a socialist, do you?
MCCAIN: No. But I do believe -- I do believe that he's been in the far
left of American politics. He has stated time after time that he
believes in quote, "spreading the wealth around." He's talked about
courts that would redistribute the wealth.
McCain doesn't believe Obama is a socialist, but has no problem busing "Joe the Dumber" and Sarah "oildigger" Palin around the country, paid with public-financed money,to spread the fear of socialism. Do you have no shame McCain? Will you ever stop pandering to the peoples' paranoia in order to get elected?
On Larry King McCain cried about Obama breaking a promise about calling his opponent, John McCain, to discuss accepting public-financing. Well McCain wasn't going to accept public financing, until he need it:
John McCain, a longtime advocate of limiting the influence of money in
political campaigns, will opt out of the post-Watergate presidential
public financing system unless the Democratic nominee agrees to
campaign under the same financial restrictions, his campaign said
Thursday.
But Obama didn't opt out and McCain still accepted public money because he needed it: Republicans weren't enthusiastic enough about his candidacy to contribute. Now realizing he needs the Republican's base, he panders to the wealthy (just as he's pandering the the religious right he once derided as intolerant by flip-flopping on abortion) by promising to make Bush's tax-cuts permanent, tax-cuts he once criticized.
Actual Corporate Taxes paid, far lower than the 35% on paper:
But of the 275 Fortune 500 companies that made a profit each year from 2001
to 2003 and for which adequate information to draw conclusions is publicly
available, only a small proportion paid federal income taxes anywhere near
that statutory 35 percent tax rate. The vast majority paid considerably less.
Over the three-year period, the average effective rate for all 275 companies
dropped by a fifth, from 21.4 percent in 2001 to 17.2 percent in 2002-2003.
And McCain wants to lower their taxes even more, by 10%, while denouncing corporate greed like some populist? What a two-faced panderer. Sarah Palin should know that her constant claims that America has the second-highest corporate-tax rate are bullshit, she is after all, experienced in evading taxes herself:
Sarah Palin apparently forgot to claim nearly $61,000 in income on her
2007 federal income taxes, according to Lee Sheppard, a contributing
tax editor at Falls Church-based Tax Analysts. The Palins only recently released their 2006 & 2007 income tax returns.