McCain's economic plan: older than McCain himself

The McCain campaign, depending on which McCain campaign person you ask may or may not be poised to announce his economic plan today, and if the details that have been leaked are true, there’s little ‘new’ stuff in it.

McCain campaign manager Denis Holtz-Eakin said McCain's proposal is “targeted at people who have been hurt by the recent financial crisis — seniors, savers, workers, people who are trying to get to college.”

Really? McCain wants to help people in the middle-class, I’m skeptical, but I’m listening… what are the proposals?

“…a 50 per cent reduction in the capital gains tax on stock profits, from the current 15 per cent to 7.5 per cent, for a period of two years, at an estimated cost of $10 billion; an acceleration in the tax write-off for stock losses, allowing Americans to deduct $15,000 in losses a year for the tax years 2008 and 2009.”

A 50% reduction in… in capital gains… really? That’s McCain’s big economic plan, reducing capital gains… this plan isn't new… in fact it’s almost as old as McCain.

And I don’t mean to nitpick but what capital gains are McCain speaking of? Before you can get capital gains don’t you have to have, you know, capital? And with the markets down 30% and more over the past year, the only people to recoup capital gains taxes would be those that have been holding large blocks of stock for years and... ohhh now I get it.

This is one of the oldest tricks in the republican playbook: cynically manipulate a crisis to push through the most radical of measures.

According to the Wonk Room’s James Kvaal, the impact of cutting capital gains would look like this; “Households earning less than $50,000 a year collected a mere 2.5 percent of capital gains in 2005, according to the Tax Policy Center. Families earning more than $1 million a year collected 59 percent of capital gains. Moreover, most middle-class families with capital gains hold their investments in retirement accounts shielded against capital gains taxes.”

For someone that’s already promising massive tax cuts for corporations and a staggering $4 billion in tax cuts for for oil companies, handing out a new tax cut for millionaires and calling it a “Pension And Family Security” with the beard of helping people that are “hurting the most” is insulting to everyone with a brain.

And how will McCain pay for these tax cuts? One would think a presidential candidate would be able to tell the voters how he would pay for something this massive (as Obama did yesterday with his economic plan), but the McCain campaign apparently doesn’t.

At the least spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer is stumped about how much those new tax cuts would cost and how McCain plan to pay for them, saying; “Obviously…it’s going to cost some amount of money,”

Well DUHHHHHHH… thanks for that brilliant insight Nancy… to get that kind of insight usually you need to slide a quarter into some kind of slot and wait for a mechanical fortune teller to tell you what your future holds.

I can see clearly that a future with a McPalin administration would be a disaster on epic proportions, not unlike the last eight years with commander cuckoo-bananas in charge.

The Only possiBle candidAte to vote for is pretty daMn clear if you Ask me… and Because of thIs, we neeD to gEt out and vote on ElectioN Day…

UPDATE: Apparently some of McCain’s advisers are unsure if McCain was scheduled to unveil his economic plan today. If people within his own campaign don’t know what the hell the campaign is doing, how the hell would the country look after four years of him?

Give me a break...

Riiiiiiight…

In an election campaign notable for its surprises, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice- presidential candidate, may be about to spring a new one — the wedding of her pregnant teenage daughter to her ice-hockey-playing fiancé before the November 4 election.

Inside John McCain’s campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. "It would be fantastic," said a McCain insider. "You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week."

Well… isn’t that special.

Give me an effin break...

Per ThinkProgress, the Daily Mississippian is reporting that the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan plan to appear at the University of Mississippi for tonight's debate.

All together now; clas-sy!

I knew it…

When Sen. McCain decided to suspended his presidential campaign earlier in the week, he said that he was doing it so he could go back to DC and help broker a deal on a financial bailout, saying “I am calling on the President to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself. It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem.”

Well, a solution didn’t happen… the debate is going to go on with McCain… and McCain left DC in a hurry.

Lost in the dust is this gem from Rep. Roy Blunt (r-MO); “I do think that John McCain was very helpful in what he did. I saw him this morning, we’ve been talking with his staff. Clearly, yesterday, his position in that discussion yesterday was one that stopped a deal from, uh, finalizing that no House Republican, in my view, would’ve been for. Which means it probably wouldn’t have passed the House.”

Well, if I’m reading this correctly, and I like to think I am… Blunt is blaming McCain’s presence for screwing up the bipartisan agreement. Turns out a deal WAS close yesterday but then a group of House republicans, egged on and supported by McCain, proposed a plan that wouldn’t create bi-partisan support.

So McCain told the world he was suspending his campaign to help broker a deal, then promptly fucked that up because it was too bipartisan.

And he wants to lead?

Give me a break.

John McCain’s ‘Al Gore Moment’?

We all know how fervidly the republicans screamed in 1999 when Al Gore said (read: implied) he invented the internet (McCain himself made fun of Al Gore back then).… well, Sen. McCain’s done it this time, implying that he invented WiFi, the Cell Phone, and the Blackberry.

No lie.

Yesterday McCain told scienceblogs.com; “Under my guiding hand, Congress developed a wireless spectrum policy that spurred the rapid rise of mobile phones and Wi-Fi technology that enables Americans to surf the web while sitting at a coffee shop, airport lounge, or public park.”

Uh-huh…

Consider these examples of McCain’s ‘guiding hand’ from Daily Kos’ Devilstower, the emphasis’ are my own;

With the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Senate passed the first major revision to telecommunications law in 62 years which provided the foundation for much of the cell phone and Internet regulation over the next decade. The bill passed 81-18 and was signed into law by President Clinton. McCain voted against the act.

In 2002, McCain authored the "Consumer Broadband Deregulation Act of 2002" which eliminated the requirement of the 1996 law that telecommunication companies provide access to competitors. It didn't pass.

In 2003, the Internet Tax Freedom Act was passed, putting in place a moratorium on taxes for activities on the Internet. The bill had 11 cosponsors – McCain wasn't one of them. He did vote for the bill, but since it passed 97-3, that's definitely "guiding" with a small 'g.' Granted, this wasn't directly a bill about wireless, but since McCain doesn't seem to have authored any law on wireless technology, I'm having to search for connections.

Of pending legislation, McCain is not a sponsor of the "Connect the Nation Act" – though Senator Obama is. McCain is not a sponsor of Senator Rockefeller's call for a universal next generation broadband by 2015 – though Senator Obama is. And of course, McCain isn't a sponsor of the "Internet Freedom Act" that would ensure net neutrality – though Senator Obama is. That last is no surprise. McCain has repeatedly opposed net neutrality, saying that companies have a right to restrict speed or even limit access to sites "when you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment."

So, McCain's "guiding hand" seems to consist of opposing the legislation that laid the groundwork for the communications we have today, and authoring failed legislation designed to benefit big carriers. Of course, we should probably be glad that John McCain really didn't invent the cell phone or WiFi, otherwise we'd all be getting our wireless services from one monolithic company free to restrict our access to only the pages that pay for the privilege. And we'd all be using "Jitterbugs."

So his ‘guiding hand’ consisted of being one of 97 total votes for the Internet Tax Freedom Act that put a moratorium on taxes for activities on the Internet.

While we try and wrap our minds around how that constitutes helping to create WiFi, consider this from McCain’s top economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin. While holding his Blackberry up in the air, Holtz-Eakin said; “He did this. […] Telecommunications of the United States is a premier innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce committee so you’re looking at the miracle John McCain helped create and that’s what he did.”

Wow! A United States Senator is responsible for helping to create a product born in Canada… created in Canada... and founded using Canadian technology… now that’s talent and we should ALL be grateful to Sen. McCain for not only lending his ‘guiding hand’ in helping to create WiFi, the Blackberry and cell phones… lest we all be using cell phones the size of a small dog.

It’s so hard to express sarcasm in the written form.

Former FCC chairman Reed Hundt sees McCain’s contribution to society differently, telling ThinkProgress; “John McCain is so out of touch with America his economics adviser says he deserves credit for creating the Canadian company that invented the Blackberry. Message to Republicans: it’s American entrepreneurship our President is supposed to encourage.”

So… McCain doesn’t know how to use technology…admittedly doesn’t like technology… has to have his wife use technology for him… but he’s now taking credit for a bit of technology that changed our lives forever.

Interesting isn’t it that when Gore said that about the internet, the traditional media went agog and crucified him mercilessly…

I’ll be waiting for that to happen to McCain.