"The plan, as everyone thought we knew it was, if you made less than $250,000 a year, you get a tax cut. That was the promise, even though that promise was at odds with his promises to spend trillions of dollars in other things. Then, we found out on Saturday that they released an ad saying, literally in Barack Obama's own words, if you make less than $200,000 a year you'll get a tax cut. Yesterday in Scranton, Vice-Presidential Candidate Joe Biden said that only those making less than $150,000 would get a tax cut. And today they are out clarifying, saying their new plan is that those making between $150,000 and $250,000 will not see a tax cut or a tax increase. I think the bottom line is it's clear that the Obama-Biden ticket wants to raise taxes." -- Doug Holtz-Eakin
Today, McCain-Palin 2008 former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp, Virginia Delegate Chris Saxman and McCain-Palin senior policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin held a press conference call to discuss John McCain's economic plan and Barack Obama's visit to Virginia:
Virginia Delegate Chris Saxman: "My name is Chris Saxman co-chair of the McCain campaign here in Virginia and I'm also calling here from the offices of my family business here in Staunton. And as I look at the tax proposals from the candidates, I can't help but wonder how Barack Obama intends for this economy to grow if he's going to burden small businesses and small business owners with more taxes. As a matter of fact after this call, I'm going to go in to the office next to me, and we're making allocation decisions for capital. We're making buying decisions as far as looking at other companies and not having that capital and that cash to grow our business to hire more employees to increase their health care benefits. These are big decisions that hit the people who work in our offices and our plants every day. John McCain's economic policies embrace small owners and entrepreneurs and I think we've got the right economic plan to get America going again."
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Jack Kemp: "First of all, I am not an economist. I have just been in this city for almost 40 years now, Member of Congress, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Bush '41. But I'm a student of economics and I don't know of an economist on the globe, and I don't know of an economic theory that I've ever heard, left, right or center, that allows for a tax increase during a recession, as Chris pointed out. To raise the capital gain tax rate by 33%, to raise taxes on dividends, to raise taxes on corporate income, to raise taxes on personal income. Even though Senator Obama talks about doing it only for people ... well it used to be $250,000 and above, now it's somewhere between $150,000 and $250,000, we don't know what the latest iteration is. But irrespective of what he said in Virginia today, or what Joe Biden said in Scranton last night or what they're going to say tomorrow, John McCain has called on Barack Obama to call fo r a moratorium on raising taxes in a recession. We are clearly in a recession. Unemployment is up, the economy is down, stock prices are down, the prices and value of housing is down, home values are down.
"And to address that, John has clearly, as Chris Saxman pointed out, identified the fact that we want to keep the tax rate on capital gains and dividends and want to lower the corporate income tax rate from 35 to 25. It's the highest in the world, maybe second only to Japan. And it is a disgrace to call for America to be competitive in the global economy and then turn around and tax corporations in Virginia or Michigan at over 35%. So John clearly, as Chris pointed out, has a plan on taxation, and plus giving a tax credit to people to buy their own health insurance which over time would mean more to the middle class than anything that Barack Obama. This is not a battle over tax cuts. It's a battle over how to keep this economy from going further into recession and how to get a restoration of the American dream, and clearly John is on the right track in terms of not raising taxes, but lowering the tax rates on the productive sector of the American ec onomy i.e. work, savings, investment, and entrepreneurship. Secondly, everybody in this country -- left, right and center -- knows that one of the biggest problems in this whole recovery package is trying to stop the hemorrhaging and the value of housing and homeownership and John has come up with a plan that is consistent with the so called $700 billion bailout plan -- I hate the world bailout -- the recovery plan, where FDIC, the treasury and FHA could help renegotiate the mortgages of people who are in default are threatened to default.
"And clearly we consent that mortgage and the term limit on that mortgage to benefit the ability of keeping the homeowner in the home. We see what happened on the front page of The Washington Post this morning about a neighborhood in which homes had gone into default or vandals and criminals and negligence had taken over. It hurts the value of other people's property and I think John McCain is absolutely correct in suggesting that part of this $700 billion recovery package be used to help renegotiate home mortgages to keep people in their homes."
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Doug Holtz-Eakin: "Let me start simply by, you know, catching up on the bidding for those who haven't followed the daily shifts in the Obama tax plan. The plan, as everyone thought we knew it was, if you made less than $250,000 a year, you get a tax cut. That was the promise, even though that promise was at odds with his promises to spend trillions of dollars in other things. Then, we found out on Saturday that they released an ad saying, literally in Barack Obama's own words, if you make less than $200,000 a year you'll get a tax cut. Yesterday in Scranton, Vice-Presidential Candidate Joe Biden said that only those making less than $150,000 would get a tax cut. And today they are out clarifying, saying their new plan is that those making between $150,000 and $250,000 will not see a tax cut or a tax increase.
"I think the bottom line is it's clear that the Obama-Biden ticket wants to raise taxes. Why do they want to do that? Well, they're very interested in redistribution, even though it outweighs the consequences. We've seen in recent weeks a variety of the unintended consequences of the Obama tax plan. We found out recently that it would raise taxes on those who use special needs trusts to cover the costs of disabilities. We know that the Obama tax plan would restore the marriage penalty in the United States. The recent evidence is that the unintended consequence of the Obama tax plan is to drain the Social Security trust fund, at a time when it needs to be protected and restored for the future.
"But most importantly, the Obama tax plan comes at the expense of growth and the creation of wealth and opportunity for Americans. This is bad policy and this is a bad time to have that policy. As Secretary Kemp mentioned, John McCain is not going to go down that route. He's going to keep taxes low. He's going to take care of small businesses, keep jobs in America with the corporate rate cut, and he's going to take care of the American homeowner.
"Housing was the start of this financial crisis. It was the mortgage origination on the ground, in America, in Virginia and other states, that was at the root of this problem. John McCain wants to take these scarce taxpayers dollars, go to the root of the problem, take the existing mortgages and honor their prepayment clauses. Get them out of the hands of the homeowners, refinance them into a mortgage they can handle, so they can also pay their other bills and keep the economy going. And replace that very questionable asset with cash on the balance sheets of banks. Allow them to get back to the business of lending to the car dealers and dry cleaners of America, so we can get this economy moving in the right direction."
Listen To The Conference Call
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