With the Presidential conventions less than a month away, there are new stories about the Presidential candidates’ tax and economic policies almost every day. Although these stories may be a lot to read, it is important to be educated on the candidates’ views when you head into the voting booth this election. To help the readers of our blog, we collected some of the recent news articles and blog entries on this topic. Please enjoy the quotes below, and click on the links below the quotes to read the full versions.
“Conservative critics are accusing John McCain of a flip-flop on taxes. But it would be more accurate to say the Republican presidential nominee is trying to persuade Americans that he can rescue Social Security without actually telling them how. Mr. McCain likes to tell voters that he's the presidential candidate who wants to cut taxes.
‘Senator Obama will raise your taxes. I won't,’ he often declares. Or: ‘If you want to raise taxes, then don't vote for me.’ Except there is one tax Mr. McCain might be prepared to raise. When asked in an interview Sunday whether he was prepared to raise payroll taxes to correct social security's funding shortfall, he replied: ‘There is nothing that's off the table. I have my positions, and I'll articulate them. But nothing's off the table. I don't want tax increases. But that doesn't mean that anything is off the table.’
To Read More: Why McCain's tax wobble unnerves the right
“Earlier this year, the Tax Foundation was bombarded with questions about a bogus e-mail that had been floating around (also on message boards, blogs, etc.) comparing taxes under Bush to Clinton. The e-mail had many problems, which we documented here. Since then, we've also gotten questions about our corrected figures, claiming they were wrong. They are not, and it largely stems from a misunderstanding of how comparisons must take into account the fact that parameters in the tax code are adjusted for inflation each year, even with no direct policy change (i.e. that is the current law baseline).”
To Read More: More Bogus E-mails About Obama and Taxes
“There remains some confusion over my Monday story about the fiscal plans of the two presidential candidates. At the top of the story, I quoted John McCain's top policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin saying "I stand corrected" about his prior belief that Barack Obama would raise taxes over 10 years. The McCain campaign pushed back against this quote by telling Marc Ambinder that this comment was little more than a tongue-in-cheek response to the contention that Obama's tax plan offers a cut. Since then the economist/media-scold Brad DeLong, who calls me a ‘stenographer,’ has uncritically picked up this line, suggesting that I may have misunderstood what Holtz-Eakin was saying.”
To Read More: Why Obama Offers A Net Tax Cut
“A ballooning federal deficit will complicate tax and spending plans by the two presidential candidates, experts said Tuesday, though more in the long term than in the short term.
‘It's going to be very difficult to leap into a new administration with a big new agenda,’ said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group that advocates responsible fiscal policies. "The agenda's going to be constrained by the deficit.’
On Monday, the White House estimated that the fiscal year 2009 budget deficit would total $482 billion, a record. Meanwhile, this year's deficit will widen to $389 billion, the White House's data show. The $482 billion is $74 billion higher than estimated in February.”
To Read More: Deficit projections complicate candidates' plans
“What if I told you that a prominent global political figure in recent months has proposed: abrogating key features of his government's contracts with energy companies; unilaterally renegotiating his country's international economic treaties; dramatically raising marginal tax rates on the "rich" to levels not seen in his country in three decades (which would make them among the highest in the world); and changing his country's social insurance system into explicit welfare by severing the link between taxes and benefits?”
To Read More: Obamanomics Is a Recipe for Recession
“Republican John McCain said today that more domestic oil drilling is a solution to both high energy prices and a sluggish economy, as Democrat Barack Obama accused his opponent of offering ideas that have been tried and failed.
The presidential candidates visited election battleground states Colorado and Missouri today to promote their proposals for the economy, which has become the top issue for voters hit by record oil prices and the deepest housing slump since the Depression.”
To Read More: McCain, Obama spar over methods to spur economy