Did you enjoy your little government check back in May? Is it gone already? Do you need a real tax break? Well, it's very simple to get one, actually, but first you have to join Cynthia McCain in the ranks of the mega-rich.

I'll explain after the flip.

John McCain, while pretending to perpetuate the image of a "maverick", steadfastly hews to the economic orthodoxy of the Republican Party. In fact, he often skews further to the right (at least when it is politically expedient, as it has been during this primary season) on issues of tax cuts, namely the permanent codification into law of George W. Bush's 2003 tax cuts.

Watch this awesome clip from Obama's speech in Raleigh, NC yesterday, in which he ties Bush and McCain together and destroys johnny on the economy all at the same time.

There are some great quotes in this,

The centerpiece of John McCain's economic plan amounts to a full-throated endorsement of George W. Bush's policies.

It is brilliant how Obama begins this section of the speech. He acknowledges McCain's so called "maverick" image by acknowledging his stances on earmarks and the environment and then he just brushes it aside. The effect is to say he may be a "maverick" on those things but on the things that really matter, like the economy, he is McBush.

This is all great but IMO the most effective part of the speech is the line. "We've been there once. We're not going back."  It evokes images of a McCain presidency moving in lockstep with Bush policies.

Move forward with me below the fold.  

On Monday, John McCain repackaged his previous economic proposals in a mystifying document simply called "Jobs for America."  More notable for what it lacked than what it included, McCain's latest rehash unsurprisingly left out his past admissions of ignorance on matters economic, his vision of eBay as Americans' economic future or his belief that the U.S. recession was merely "psychological."  But in returning to a previously abandoned promise to magically balance the budget by the end of his first term, John McCain is depending on a 21st century "peace dividend" and unspecified reforms of entitlement programs.  Call it McCain's Immaculate Deception.

"Kerry says McCain lacks judgement" - CNN

Last week I wanted more from Wes Clark. This week I want less from Kerry, for 2 reasons:  

1.  Clark has more credibility - he served a president that had no military experience and they turned the Balkan's religious war into soccer clashes.

2.  Kerry is a blast from an ignomonious past.  Kerry's military experience is as old as McCain's and less heroic - and he's tainted.

Without doubt, McCain's military judgement should be put into question.  The question is, who is the best surrogate for that role?  Clark or Webb can stay on message and still stay fresh - I have yet to hear either use tired old lines like 'Bush's 3rd term'.

As evidence of the verbal mastery, Clark's 'getting shot down' response wasn't overly sensitive, but it is a convincing and memorable argument.  Furthermore, Clark is more a military than political figure, so he has the liberty of digging hard while being dispassionately analytical.  Voters expect our Generals to be tough.  

Back in 2000, Democratic strategist and political writer Cliff Schecter contributed $20 to the presidential campaign of Arizona Republican Senator John McCain.  An admirer of McCain's independent streak then in opposing Republican orthodoxy on supply-side tax cuts and overturning Roe v Wade, Schecter admitted, "I trusted him."  Eight years and seemingly endless McCain flip-flops later, Cliff Schecter wants his money back.

I am struggling financially.
From what I have read, a lot of Americans are in the same boat.

When people about tax relief, I think of one thing first:

Where will the money do the most good?  Where will the tax relief make the most marginal impact for the recipients?  

I believe that $500 will make a bigger marginal impact for a poor family than it will in the lives of millionaires.

http://www.dailykos.com/...

FYI from Daily Kos Diary by Kagro X about Sen Reid:  Consumer Confidence is at an all time low?

I am deeply afraid of what the next few months will be like economically.

Recently I who am a member of a group on Democrats.org was like other members subjected to a series of emails designed to garner support for a Hillary write in campaign, and barring that threaten us and the Party with switching their vote to McCain. While I have little time for these threats, I do feel that they must be answered.

This question is a simple one: How will John McCain pay for all of his policies?

Sen. Obama has told us that he has a plan to do so and it entails many steps:

1. Let the Bush tax cuts expire

2. Raise taxes on those making millions of dollars a year

3. Cap-and-trade energy sytem

4. Cut the pork!

5. Electronic Healthcare system

6. And a possible windfall profits tax.

John McCain needs to explain how he will pay for all of these projects.

Follow Below...

Via Pandagon, I see that supply-side guru Arthur Laffer is once again touting the mystical powers of tax cuts. Upon reading this, an obvious question occured to me. If tax cuts are a cure all, why on earth would a GOP candidate ever pay some "expert" for economic advice?

I mean, couldn't a magic 8 ball provide the exact same advice for a fraction of the cost?

I decided to find out...

Reuters polled Wall Street top level insiders for their "Opinion" about who would be a best for the economy and determined that that would be John McCain, apparently due to the enormous tax cuts that McCain wants to give them, in addition to making permanent Bush's temporary ones.  This bizarre conclusion comes about, apparently, because the highest paid Wall Street executives confuse themselves with the whole economy:

"My personal opinion is I would argue that McCain is probably the better candidate for the economy and that is more or less because of his tax policies," James Caron, head of global rates research at investment bank Morgan Stanley in New York, said at the Reuters Summit this week.

"In this environment that we're in right now, the last thing you want to have is higher taxes and taking money out of the consumers' pockets," he added.  [My emphasis]

This despite the fact that most consumers live below the $250K annual level, and will be receiving tax cuts, not increases.  Maybe the writer should have shared this info with the respondents; you know, where they provide some information and ask the question again?

Sometimes people - experts even - make pronouncements that seem so out of line with reality that I've got to double take.

I was reading this article in the New York Times today, which summed up the opinions coming out of Reuter's Investment Outlook Summit this week. Here's the lead sentence:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain's tax policies have given him an edge as the better man for the economy, various Wall Street experts said at this week's Reuters Investment Outlook Summit.

I guess that's not so surprising. Wall Street likes tax cuts, for sure. But aren't we now in a current economic crisis AFTER massive tax cuts were given by the Bush administration? I know the reasons for our current economic struggles are complex and that tax cuts by themselves were not necessarily the cause. But it sure doesn't seem like our economy has done better because of them, does it?

So I've got to wonder, how do supposedly smart people expect to do the same old thing (tax cuts) and get different results (better economy)?

More puzzlement of mine below.

A few days ago I went to McCain's campaign website to check some facts.  While I was there I took a look around.  I was very surprised at what I saw.  (Actually, I was speechless!)

Warren Buffett, ranked by Forbes magazine as 2008’s "Richest Man in the World", gravely observed: "If there is a Class War in America, my side is winning."  The populist "Oracle of Omaha" pleaded with the Senate Finance Committee last November to drop the wildly disproportionate tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 that Bush and the Republican Congress gave to his already wealthy kith and kin, and enact a fairer and more progressive tax program that would narrow – not widen – the existing chasm separating the haves from the have-nots:

During this election cycle you can bet we'll hear Republicans yet again try to convince us that if we would just lower taxes, then government revenues are guaranteed to go up.

Well, swallowing Republican logic like that it follows that if we simply eliminated all taxes, the government would then be guaranteed of having an infinite amount of money.

Just a short diary....Hillary Clinton supporters are STILL lying.

Diane Feinstein is on ABC This Week, advocating for Hillary for VP.  She is repeating the lie "Certainly she won the popular vote in this primary."

And, Lindsey Graham is on the same show and when asked how McCain and Bush are different on economy, Graham responds "What's important is how McCain and Obama are different."  Then he gave a laundry list of McCain's economic policies, all of which are Bush policies.

ok, just had an interesting debate with a repub friend of mine.  He was arguing that the Bush Tax Cuts are beneficial and used the following Heritage Foundation article to back him up.

After being pilloried by Barack Obama and the press for his erroneous assertion that "we have drawn down to pre-surge" troop levels in Iraq, John McCain once again resorted to grammatical sleight of hand to extricate himself.  Speaking about possible future events as if they happened in the past, McCain claimed credit in the present.  But as his jaw-dropping "2013" speech earlier this month revealed, that rhetorical device isn't merely a defensive tactic, but an essential campaign strategy.  Call it McCain's Future Perfect Presidency.

After repeatedly delaying the release of his medical records, John McCain has a received clean bill of health, at least according to the AP.  Given that the McCain campaign provided a tightly restricted pool of reporters only three hours to pore over almost 1200 pages of material covering the past 8 years, reviewers focused almost exclusively on the skin cancer history of the man who routinely proclaims himself "older than dirt."

But those strict time constraints and prohibitions on copying McCain's voluminous records mean that a broad investigation of the 71 year old candidate's health was not possible this morning.  Here, then, are five things still to look for in John McCain's medical records: