MUST READ: “McCain Offers Tax Policies He Once Opposed”
April 25, 2008
A report in today's Washington Post highlights how far John McCain is willing to go to get elected. According to the Post, "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."
In 2001, McCain was just one of only two Republicans who voted against Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut, yet now he has made renewing those budget-busting tax cuts a central component of his economic plan. The American people simply can't afford a third Bush economic term with John McCain.
The following are excerpts from the story:
McCain Offers Tax Policies He Once Opposed
Washington Post
By Jonathan WeismanApril 25, 2008
"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...
"In 2001, just days before Bush's first tax cut passed, McCain lamented on ABC's "This Week" that, "I'd like to see much more of this tax cut shared by working Americans. . . . I think it still devotes too much of it to the wealthiest Americans." Almost exactly two years later, Bush was back for more: $350 billion in tax cuts, which accelerated the first round and added deep cuts to the tax rates on dividends and capital gains. "Most of the economists view this as primarily benefiting wealthier Americans," McCain said on CNBC at the time...
"Yet in Pittsburgh last week, in the face of a projected budget deficit of $400 billion and a sixth year of war, McCain proposed extending Bush's tax cuts, including the dividends and capital gains tax cuts, lowering the corporate income tax, allowing businesses to write off the cost of new equipment and technology, banning Internet and new cellphone taxes, and permanently extending the business tax credit for research and development. By McCain's accounting, his tax proposals would cost the Treasury $200 billion a year.
For the full text of the article click here.
