McCain-Palin Campaign Conference Call On Barack Obama's Tax-And-Spend Economic Plan

"In an election when jobs and the economy is the top issue, he has held a tax position which is bad for jobs. It increases taxes at a time when we should not. At a time when he is claiming to cut taxes, he has promised $860 billion in new spending, even prior to the bailout bill expenses which have come along in the past couple of weeks. And number three, he has held these positions despite a record that shows no interest in cutting taxes. Instead, shows 94 votes for higher taxes in the U.S. Senate." -- Doug Holtz-Eakin

Today, McCain-Palin 2008 held a press conference call with McCain-Palin senior policy advisers, Doug Holtz-Eakin and Nancy Pfotenhauer to discuss Barack Obama's tax plan, which includes nearly a trillion dollars of new spending and increased tax credits for Americans that do not pay income taxes in the first place:

Doug Holtz-Eakin: "In a campaign where Barack Obama has taken multiple positions on individual issues, things like claiming to take public financing and then not, holding town halls with John McCain and then not, filibustering the FISA Bill and then not, withdrawing from NAFTA and then claiming to be a free trader, he has displayed an especially adept verbal flexibility on the issue of tax policy. And in the process, he has sustained three great contradictions. In an election when jobs and the economy is the top issue, he has held a tax position which is bad for jobs. It increases taxes at a time when we should not. At a time when he is claiming to cut taxes, he has promised $860 billion in new spending, even prior to the bailout bill expenses which have come along in the past couple of weeks. And number three, he has held these positions despite a record that shows no interest in cutting taxes. Instead, shows 94 votes for higher taxes in the U.S. Senate.

"Now, how has he done this? Well number one, he is a good talker, we can stipulate that. But number two, he has tried to divert attention at every time. Indeed he has taken most recent to simply attacking John McCain's health plan, the very same health plan his advisor Jason Furman designed and advocated for, as a tax increase. And then in another ad has described our health insurance plan as something that sends money straight to insurance companies, despite the fact that he has the identical policy called a Hope Credit and he sends money straight to schools and universities. So, changing the subject has been a great tactic for Barack Obama. It now appears that the house of cards is simply falling apart.

"As people begin to pay attention, the issue of whether you should or should not raise taxes when the obvious economic answer is you should not, Barack Obama cannot seemingly pick a single position. This past June, he told CNBC's John Harwood that he might possibly defer some of his tax increases based on the economic situation, and then immediately told reporters that he didn't say that. In September, he implied he'd defer his tax hikes to George Stephanopoulos and then in a more recent interview said, 'You know, I have no plans to change my tax increases.' But then, we saw just two days ago, announcing a tax cut for job creation in American businesses, a policy that quite frankly is just too little, too late. Too small to offset the damage that his own policies would do, whether it's the higher taxes on individual marginal rates, dividends, capital gains or an onerous health mandate that will be damaging to the possibility of any employer trying t o add someone to the payroll. So, he has clearly never figured out exactly what he means although he claims to be in favor of jobs, his policies go the other way.

"The most interesting place now where people have caught on to Barack Obama is in the area of a quote 'tax-cut for 95 percent of the American people', despite the fact that just under 50 percent literally pay no income tax. Now, how can this be done? Barack Obama has labeled mailing checks to individuals a tax-cut. His policy includes a refundable making work pay credit of up to $500, a refundable universal mortgage credit of 10 percent of mortgage interest, three different extensions of the earned income tax credit, a refundability of the child and dependent care tax credit in increasing its size, a savers credit which is refundable and is increased in size, and a larger Hope Credit, a 100 percent match of college expenses up to $4000. This array of credits amounts to sending checks to individuals, many of whom might not even be working and those which certainly do not have a tax liability. In 2009 there would be checks to 57 million households in the United States. What is this?

"Well, The Wall Street Journal calls these numerous refundable credits 'tens of billions of dollars in government handouts'. And points out that because his tax credits are phased out as incomes rise, they impose huge marginal tax rates. The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan group that the Obama campaign likes to cite as a foundation for the tax plan, issued a report that showed that effective marginal tax rates, the foundation of incentives to work, to save, are higher nearly across the board under Barack Obama than John McCain, one of the reasons why Barack Obama is bad for growth and John McCain is good for growth. The New York Post said that Obama's tax cuts amount to just a sizeable expansion of welfare. Even The Washington Post said that his tax proposals are poorly crafted, lavishing tax boons where they are not needed.

"The reality is not that Barack Obama has a tax cut, or even a plan to create jobs. The reality is that he has a plan that is riddled with bad incentives, full of targeted hand outs, and fundamentally based on redistribution of wealth. And stands in sharp contrast to John McCain's approach. which is to build the financial valuation of families on the job, to use the time honored tradition of giving that job the hope for a more prosperous future, saving for college, saving for a home, saving for retirement and creating the jobs that Americans desperately need in this weak economy. I'll turn it over to Nancy Pfotenhauer."

Nancy Pfotenhauer: "Well, there's not a lot to add there because I think Doug make the point so well. Let me just, from a macro level, emphasize that Barack Obama's overall economic policy, I think, can be characterized as kind of a Europeanization of the American economy, because it is effectively a high--tax high-spending protectionist approach, and it doesn't work, whether it's tried here or in other countries, and all you need to do is look at the economies, say in Germany or France, where you've got, even in our tough economic times that we're in right now, you have unemployment rates that are significantly higher, growth rates that are significantly lower, and a quality of life -- or living, that is about a third lower than in the United States.

"If, that is his prescription for our economy at a time when we're already ailing, I cannot think of any type of medicine that could be worse. The cure is worse than the disease, if you will. And it just almost beggars description that he has not been called on this. This is not a Republican, this is not a Democratic issue, this is pure basic economics, what works and what doesn't. And, we know the recipe for prosperity, that's what undergirds all of Sen. McCain's economic policies and is the antithesis of what Sen. Obama is advocating."

Listen To The Conference Call
---
www.FayetteFrontPage.com
Fayette Front Page
Community News You Can Use
Fayetteville, Peachtree City, Tyrone
www.GeorgiaFrontPage.com
www.ArtsAcrossGeorgia.com
---