Why is John McCain pushing tax policies he once opposed?

The Associated Press

Was he wrong then and right now? Or is it the other way around?

Featured Topic | Posted 17 weeks 6 days ago

Why is John McCain pushing tax policies he once opposed?

Back in 2001, Sen. John McCain famously refused to support President Bush's package of tax cuts. Now that he is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, however, McCain is marching straight down the party line. The economic package he has laid out embraces many of the tax policies he once decried: extending Bush's tax cuts he voted against, offering investment tax breaks he once believed would have little economic benefit and granting the long-held wishes of tax lobbyists he has often mocked. Why has McCain changed his approach?

Ben likes: McCain and taxes

Wall Street Journal

John McCain, the Republican nominee for President, has proposed extending the Bush tax cuts. So as morning follows night this week, Democratic news analysis has been pouring forth to proclaim that his tax ideas are a threat to the republic because they'll explode the budget deficit. The Senator needs to understand that he can't win this election by playing on this economic turf.

The subtext of the criticism of the McCain tax plan is that it would somehow "starve" the government of revenue. The figures being tossed around for the "cost" of the McCain tax plan have been estimated at $2 trillion by the liberal Center for American Progress, while the Brookings Institution estimates $5.7 trillion.

Senator McCain doesn't need a doctorate in economics to understand this debate. As a Member of Congress and Presidential candidate, he has listened endlessly to Democrats mau-mau their opponents with rhetoric about "fairness" and the "deficit" and, best of all, the "investment needs" of the government, aka, spending.

The past week's criticisms are intended to bait Mr. McCain into debating his tax cuts on these liberal terms. He can only win this debate, and the election, by breaking free of that mindset and making his own personal case for lower taxes and the prosperity they help to create.

Joel likes: McCainomics

Marie Cocco/Truthdig

Fittingly, and with dreadful predictability, John McCain used April 15—tax day—as the day to release his economic plan. Fittingly, and with dreadful predictability, it offers more of the same.

But more of the same what?

Is it Bushonomics? This is the more debilitating version of Reaganomics we have had for the past seven years. It has been more damaging, because neither President Bush nor the Republicans who controlled Congress through most of his tenure gave a whit about cutting spending, which Reagan, from time to time, tried to do. So one of Bush’s parting gifts when he leaves the Oval Office is going to be an overhang of debt.

The straight-talk candidate’s economic plan offers a ticket straight back to the same old story: tax cuts that go to individuals and businesses, which Congress (especially a Democratic Congress) will in all likelihood balk at offsetting with deep spending cuts, and which will in all likelihood end up obliterating any glimmer of hope for a bipartisan deal on the future of entitlement programs.

Been there, done that. Don’t really want to go back to that future.