Posted by
Toddy Littman on Tuesday, November 04, 2008 8:00:00 AM
John McCain has been on the side of the middle-class for a very long time, taken from a February 2000 New York Times Article:
"MR. McCAIN'S tax-cut plan is valued at $238 billion over five years
and $500 billion over 10 years. Its centerpiece is an expansion of the
lowest income tax bracket, 15 percent, to cover higher incomes.
"Under
the plan, the ceiling for the 15 percent bracket would rise to $70,000
from $43,050 for married couples filing jointly, and to $35,000 from
$25,750 for single taxpayers. The effect would be to give a $3,504 tax
cut to a couple with taxable income of $70,000 or more.
"Mr.
McCain's plan would also double the child tax credit to $1,000 a year,
expand tax incentives for savings and investment, reduce the tax on
large estates and reduce the marriage penalty for some people by
increasing the standard deduction for couples. Mr. McCain would offset
a portion of the tax cuts by closing corporate tax loopholes.
"His
pitch is that the plan is modest enough in size that it leaves plenty
of money from the surplus tax revenues to deal with other needs. By
expanding the 15 percent bracket to cover millions of additional
taxpayers, he says, his plan amounts to a start on creating a system of
flatter tax rates. And he argues that his plan gives much less of its
benefits to the wealthy than Mr. Bush's plan does.
''I want a
balanced approach,'' Mr. McCain said in the South Carolina debate.
''The difference between Governor Bush's proposal and mine is that I
put a whole lot of money into Social Security, Medicare and paying down
the debt. He puts a whole lot of money into tax cuts.''
"An
analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice found that only 1.8 percent of the
benefits of the McCain plan would go to the wealthiest 1 percent of
taxpayers. Most of his proposed tax cuts would go to a broadly defined
middle class: more than 52 percent to taxpayers making $65,000 to
$130,000, and 21 percent to taxpayers making $39,000 to $65,000.
"Mr. McCain's plan, however, would do almost nothing for taxpayers with
incomes below $39,000. Mr. Bush asserts that Mr. McCain's plan would
leave too much of the surplus in Washington, where, Mr. Bush says, it
would inevitably be spent not on Social Security but instead on bigger
government and wasteful programs. And Mr. Bush regularly criticizes Mr.
McCain's plan, contending that it would not help the working poor."
What I find really good here is that this problem they found with
McCain's plan in 2000 he fixed this time around, by adding to his
proposal what Bill Bradley suggested in 2000:
"As a former member of the Senate Finance Committee and one of the
fathers of the 1986 overhaul of the tax code, Mr. Bradley arguably has
more experience with tax policy than any of the other candidates...
"....The only specific tax cuts he backs are tax breaks on
health insurance payments, an expansion of the earned-income tax credit
for the working poor and an expansion of the child care credit in a way
that would help low-income people."
Senator McCain also incorporated an issue from Al Gore regarding Research and Development:
"Mr. Gore has proposed allocating $250 billion to $300 billion to tax
cuts over the next decade for specific goals. In particular, he
supports expanded tax incentives for education and retirement
savings....a permanent extension of the tax credit for corporate
research and
development."
The entire article is located here:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9404E7DC1F30F934A15751C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
Additionally John McCain promises a ban on Internet taxes and Cell phone taxes, from his website:
"
Ban Internet Taxes: John McCain believes we must make a farsighted, robust, and fervent commitment to
innovation and new technologies to sustain our global competitiveness, meet our national security
challenges, achieve less costly and more effective health care, reduce dangerous dependence on foreign
sources of oil, and raise the quality of education in the United States. John McCain has been a leader in
keeping the Internet free of taxes. As President, he will seek a permanent ban on taxes that threaten this
engine of economic growth and prosperity.
Ban New Cell Phone Taxes: John McCain understands that the same people that would tax e-mail will tax
every text message - and even 911 calls. John McCain will prohibit new cellular telephone taxes."
The main thing missing right now is the raising of the income the
lowest tax bracket, and I believe that's probably a good thing since,
we have quite a bit of government debt to afford right now.
The point of this is to show that John McCain learns from his past, he
does pay attention to the American People, that with all this talk of
corporate lobbyists, there remains this man who only had a corporate
tax benefits even 8 years ago of 1.9% to corporations. Admittedly 8
years ago our corporate tax rates were competitive, they no longer
are. Look at how aggressively McCain's 2000 tax plan pursued getting
the lower tax rate into the lower and upper middle-class incomes
(70,000 a year) in 2000. I am certain that once our economy recovers
John McCain will pursue raising the income level that the 15% tax
covers, to "start on creating a system of
flatter tax rates."
And McCain will do this without creating the corporate tax shelters that Obama does:
"
One other thing
I didn't mention, for small business people, I'm going to eliminate the
capital gains taxes. So what it means is if your business succeeds, and
let's say you take it from a $250,000 business to a $500,000 business,
that capital gains you get, we're not going to tax you on it, because I
want you to grow more. So you're actually gonna get some...you may end
up, I'd have to look at your particular business, but you might end up
paying lower taxes under my plan and my approach than under John
McCain's plan. I can't guarantee that because I'd have to take a
look a it. Alright? Thanks for your...thanks for the question though, I
appreciate it." (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ilwk_wmsQk Obama says this at almost the end of the conversation.)
McCain is keeping the 15% capital gains tax in place, while phasing out the alternative minimum tax.
So the question boils down to: Is 500 or 1000 dollar checks
(essentially an economic stimulus) the answer to our economy, or,
providing a framework of growth by generating wealth for decades into
the future? The answer to this is clear to me, John McCain.
Thank you for reading.