You'll even hear some presidential candidates claiming to understand the finer nuances of markets and management. In fact, success has nothing to do with fancy theory.
-John McCain, October 9th, 2007
Repeat after me: John McCain will crash the economy, leave millions of people in poverty, grant large sums of money to corporations, cut taxes for the rich and drown the government in a bathtub.
Further: John McCain is not a maverick. John McCain is not a reformer. He is a partisan conservative with Bush Republican economic philosophy.
John McCain's plan for a Weaker America
I will not let the Democrats roll back the Bush tax cuts. I believe we should protect the American family against partisan tax increases by requiring a three-fifths majority in Congress to raise taxes. But that is just a start.
Our tax code is so complicated it extracts one thousand dollars for every American family, a total of over $140 billion in extra costs every year. It's offensive that six out of every ten taxpayers have to pay someone else just to figure out how to pay the government.
Step one: Ban all accountants. Accountants are offensive, vulgar blights to our society. Who the heck goes to school just to learn how to manage money? In John McCain's America, nobody will need to know how to handle money, because he'll get rid of it. That's how we get rid of offensive accountants. Gradually, we'll do that to bankers too, and then you won't have to worry about the banking crisis.
Two words summarize my remarks about the American Economy: Freedom works.
The current weakness is largely the fallout from market excesses. Housing speculators felt that prices would always rise and took out risky mortgages. Investors that bought those mortgages seemingly believed that the rate of return was the result of clever financial engineering; not the ability of home-buyers to make their payments. Similar attitudes infected the corporate market, where rapid gains in profits could not go on forever.
Step Two: Freedom works, even if it doesn't. And even if it doesn't work, it's not freedom's fault, it's the government's fault. But let's not stop there.
Tough times can breed fear, and the Democrats are using those fears to push an agenda that is tired and dangerous. Once again they want the government to make our choices for us - not respect our dreams, and trust our decisions on how best to seize our opportunities. They are threatening to grow the government and use the American economy to serve their political ends - not your aspirations. They will tax, spend, regulate, and dictate for the benefit of special interests and partisan objectives, and they are helping to cause a rising tide of economic isolationism that threatens our prosperity and the stability of friendly nations. The pattern of reckless government spending has caused Americans to lose trust in their government.
Step Three: Even if it is the government's fault that everything is going to shit, remember, the Democrats were the ones who caused Americans to lose trust in their government. Remember, we didn't have anything to do with it - it's not like we were in charge of government for the last eight years or anything.
Budgetary Reform To Give Tax Cuts A Fair Chance
Congress Has Unfairly Stacked The Deck To Spend More And Raise Taxes. If a spending program is on the books, budgets assume that it is on the books forever -- and continues to grow -- even if the law says it expires. If low taxes are on the books, budgets don't assume that they last forever. When they expire, those taxes are automatically raised. John McCain will reform budgeting to treat equally spending and taxes and to stop damaging tax hikes.
Step Four: All I'm asking is for you to give tax cuts a chance.
All right. I'll stop here with the snark. I think you guys get the point that McCain's economic rhetoric is a parody of itself. This guy has no idea how to run an economy - and we're headed for clusterf*ck:
Reward Saving, Investment and Risk-Taking: Low taxes on dividends and capital gains promote saving, channel investment dollars to innovative, high-value uses and not wasteful financial planning. John McCain will keep the current rates on dividends and capital gains and fight anti-growth efforts by Democrats.
Lowering taxes on dividends and capital gains. Let me think... how did that one turn out... Oooh!
A group of Federal Reserve Board economists concludes that the tax cut, which slashed the dividend-income tax on stocks to 15% from about 30%-38%, was a dud when it came to boosting the stock market when it was announced and passed in 2003 -- a time period, they say, that the stock market should have reacted most strongly.
So Capital Gains and Dividends, which were lowered to half of their percentage taxing, did nothing for the stock market. And John McCain thinks lowering them is the solution.
The above is what I found on John McCain's website. The trouble is - this guy is an empty suit. The detailed versions of Clinton and Obama's economic policy plans are a few pages long each, with at least 20+ citations of different sources and economists and pretty good numbers. I can criticize McCain on his economic policy - except there's nothing to criticize him on. His entire economic policy is literally a collection of platitudes and promises, that's it.
John McCain's isn't even a page, and cites six sources - two are the U.S. treasury and two are from some kook who wants to completely overhaul the tax code and eliminate a progressive income tax.
But it gets even worse - this guy doesn't even know where to begin.
"I don’t believe we’re headed into a recession," he said, "I believe the fundamentals of this economy are strong and I believe they will remain strong."
The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.
h/t Think Progress
I've got Greenspan's book.
h/t boston.com
I cannot put this in any starker terms: John McCain will clusterf*ck this economy into oblivion. He will take money from you and give it to corporations. He will deregulate markets so that robber barons can take from the poor and give to themselves.
This in an interview with the Wall Street Journal:
With oil prices soaring and housing prices dropping, what should the federal government do to ease economic problems?
Sen. John McCain: I'd obviously like to see lower interest rates. I would go very public in advocating that the tax cuts be made permanent.
And I might even have a couple of fireside chats with the American people because of what we see in the confidence barometers.
This guy believes that the problem with the economy is that people just don't believe in it. I kid you not. No. Frakkin' Clue.
I'm glad whenever they cut interest rates, I wish interest rates were zero.
h/t Matthew Yglesias and 1 20 2009 in comments.
I'm always for less regulation. But I am aware of the view that there is a need for government oversight. I think we found this in the subprime lending crisis -- that there are people that game the system and if not outright broke the law, they certainly engaged in unethical conduct which made this problem worse. So I do believe that there is role for oversight.
As far as a need for additional regulations are concerned, I think that depends on the legislative agenda and what the Congress does to some degree, but I am a fundamentally a deregulator. I'd like to see a lot of the unnecessary government regulations eliminated, not just a moratorium.
I've thought more on the area of deregulation rather than a moratorium.
-John Sydney McCain
So according to McCain: The problem with the housing crisis was that "people were gaming the system". The solution is to deregulate markets. Sure, he's "aware" of the view that we need oversight, but he wants deregulation anyway. He will pay lip service to regulation, but when it comes time to act, he will not do anything.
To Recap: The McCain Plan:
- Cut taxes on corporations from 35% to 25%.
- Lower taxes on capital gains and dividends from 15%
- All interest rates at zero.
- Fix the economy by telling people it's good. Give fireside pep talks.
- Deregulate and abolish Sarbanes-Oxley
- Check in Greenspan's book
- Lower interest rates, and destroy the standing of the dollar
- Ban Accountants. They are offensive.
- Blame the last eight years on Democrats
- Freedom Works
What does the above show? That a John McCain president will have no compromise. John McCain is not a moderate. McCain is a partisan conservative Republican.
The above is part of my ongoing diary series, Taking Daily Kos back, one anti-McCain diary at a time. Everyone is invited to participate.