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McCain To Pitch Tax Cuts, Hit Obama's "Audacity" Of Tax Increases
John McCain will give a speech today on tax cuts and the economy, in which he will call upon the Republican Party to embrace fiscal restraint, and lambaste the Democrats -- especially Barack Obama -- as the party of big tax hikes. It should be an interesting look at how the GOP shifts gears into the general election and takes on Obama, now that the widespread assumption is that he will be their opponent.
"All these tax increases are the fine print under the slogan of 'hope,'" McCain will say. "They're going to raise your taxes by thousands of dollars per year -- and they have the audacity to hope you don't mind."
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The Obama campaign should respond, "John McCain's wrong on this issue, and he wants to protect the wealthiest Americans from actually having to pay taxes. He's working to keep the Bush tax cuts in place, which has driven up our national deficit. We need to repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in order to fund our schools, our nursing programs for the sick and elderly, and invest in green jobs for millions of Americans."
April 15, 2008 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not going to work that well given Obama is talking about middle class tax cuts and an only increases for the rich. Somehow I don't think Americans are going to respond that viscerally to the plight of the rich people who have been living it up for the last 8 years.
April 15, 2008 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well at least he is attacking on issues. I guess he doesn't need to attack anything else since HilClin is doing it for him.
April 15, 2008 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's the same old line of attack. Red meat for the faithful. Independent, middle class voters usually know better. Let him follow in the footsteps of W Bush, 28 percent approval ratings should tell him something but he's showing me his political instincts aren't very good atm.
April 15, 2008 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Would that be the "same old line of attack" that has won the presidency for the GOP since 1972, except for the Clintons' victories? You're right, that strategy will obviously get McCain nowhere.
April 15, 2008 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
To be fair, that line of attack has worked because the Republicans could point to relative economic security.
The Nation is involved in a war, an occupation and a recession.
...and McCain wants to point to more of the same?
I think I'll try something from the other menu please.
I guess it's OK for McCain to misrrepresent Obama's stance on taxes, he's got no other cards to play that *might* resonate with Dems.
April 15, 2008 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
People are more worried about losing their jobs and endless wars from John "less jobs and more wars" McCain.
Going after taxes at this point is just crazytalk. Who the hell cares except for rich people these days anyway?
April 15, 2008 9:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
McBush is in the house. Tell us again Poppa McBush how the magical Tax Cut Fairy saved America from yet another crisis....
April 15, 2008 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
The incredulity of Joe Scarborough this morning on "Morning Joe" as he listened to Mitt Romney spin McCain's promises to revolutionize the economy with his tax-cutting promises was truly amusing. Talk about being out of touch - you gotta wonder when fellow Republicans have to remind their own candidate that we've already cut taxes and indebted ourselves into oblivion with the Bank of China...
April 15, 2008 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
LIES, always lies.
April 15, 2008 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
He just wants to live up to the Regan Legacy of out of control defecit spending. He dosen't offer to pay for a single one of his tax breaks. He also wants to cut the corporate tax to 15%. This is while we are spending a crazy amount of money in Iraq.
April 15, 2008 10:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
So you'd agree I was right in pointing out that the independent, middle class voters DON'T usually disagree with that approach by the GOP? I mean, they keep winning with it.
I am one of those voters, and I would definitely agree that if the Democrats can't win THIS election year, they had better do some serious soul-searching. The '76 election was custom made-to-order for almost ANYONE to beat poor hapless Gerry Ford, but this '08 election is probably even MORE so. The Democrats will obviously try to [mis-]represent McCain as being Bush III. But btw, Obama isn't doing too bad a job himself of misrepresenting McCain. He's no angel either.
April 15, 2008 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're right McCitizen. The Republicans have been selling us this crap for years, and we keep buying it. They've got people believing that the gummint just takes our money and puts it through a shredder. Meanwhile they keep cutting taxes to "stimulate" the economy and put that debt on the national credit card. The Republican Party owns $7 trillion of our $9 trillion national debt.
Government spending is not a drag on the US economy; it's a vital part of the economy. Just ask Halliburton and KBR.
At least when the Democrats spend our money, it's more likely to be spent here. The Republicans have taken us into foreign adventures that sends a lot of that money out of the country. Contractors in Iraq - whether US-based, foreign-based or multinational - hire cheap foreign labor so some of that money goes to Pakistan, the Philippines and other far-flung lands with desperate labor forces. Kuwaiti and other middlemen are making out nicely, too.
Empires are expensive to run and need to pay off to the Motherland. The British Empire was a success for many years because of its mercenary bent.
Our empire succeeded as long as it focused on Latin America and the other former Spanish lands we took in 1898. When we overshot and went for southeast Asia, and now the Middle East, on mostly ideological grounds rather than for commercial reasons, we failed. No payoff to the Motherland, no reason to die for the Motherland.
And that, brothers and sisters, is why you should read Mark Twain. Not the Mississippi writings (those too, though), but his anti-imperialist works.
April 15, 2008 9:33 PM | Reply | Permalink