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Go Home No Surprises--and No Logic--in Mccain's Big Tax Speech

THE PLANK APRIL 15, 2008

No Surprises--and No Logic--in Mccain's Big Tax Speech

John McCain's speech today had few surprises. It
continued the strange combination of tough talk about “corporate welfare” and
$1.7 trillion in corporate tax cuts, complete with massive new corporate
loophole. As we predicted this morning on TNR, McCain finally did offer a tax cut that benefits actual families, the doubling
of the dependent exemption.  But the measure remains true to form: It is
enormously expensive ($65 billion per year, per the WSJ), and it is more
regressive than similar proposals from Bush.  Bush doubled the child tax credit,
providing $500 to every taxpayer with any at least that much tax liability. By doubling an
exemption rather than a credit, McCain provides far more to taxpayers in higher
tax brackets. His proposal provides more than twice the benefit for his CEO
advisors ($1,225 per child) than their secretaries with average incomes ($525 per
child). Low-income families will get little or nothing. McCain also suggested
a temporary gas tax holiday, to expire before he could become president, that
would save drivers some money but drain $11 billion from job-creating
investments in crumbling bridges and roads.

Today's speech also continued McCain's drift from
straight talk to free lunch. McCain is now up to about $280 billion per year in
tax cuts, far more than the Bush tax cuts in their first 10 years. (His
campaign gets a lower number only by claiming that his corporate expensing
proposal costs nothing over the long term. This is not a serious argument. A
CBO report signed by McCain advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin shows otherwise.) Against these $280 billion in costs, McCain has still proposed to cut not a
single specific discretionary program and not a single specific tax
expenditure. His ballyhooed plan to hike prescription drug premiums will save
$1 billion per year, again according to CBO. Just $279 billion to
go.

As Human Events has reminded us, there used to be a
guy named John McCain who worried about tax fairness and fiscal responsibility. We're sorry to see him go. You can read more of our take on McCain's plan
here (PDF) and here.

 Related: Why McCain Needed A Tax Cuts Do-Over

--Robert Gordon and James Kvaal

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11 comments

McCain proposes "temporarily" cutting the federal gas tax to zero. But his proposal calls for the cut to expire, and the tax to be reimposed on Labor Day. (Nice touch, that.)

So by the logic McCain now applies to all other tax questions, doesn't that make the expiration of the gas-tax cut a massive tax increase? So I say, let's run with the right's crazy-ass logic and tell it like it is: John McCain has just proposed the biggest gas-tax increase in American history. That's 18 cents per gallon, and 24 cents per gallon on diesel, that John McCain wants to raise in taxes.

Who's ready to start a 527 to nail McCain on his proposal to raise the gas tax by a quarter a gallon?

- rhubarbs

April 15, 2008 at 1:43pm

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This will go over like a lead balloon, right now he is getting a free ride since Obama and Clinton are tearing each other apart, but promises of doubling down on Bush's disastrous handling of the economy will collapse come the summer. Saying Bush did not go far enough to help the rich is so ludicrous on its face I am sure he is just doing it to pacify the right wing so when he drifts left he will say to them he doesn't really mean it, and point to this garbage as evidence.

- blackton

April 15, 2008 at 1:50pm

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Wow, listening to that speech, shocking.

I dare ANYONE to go listen to that speech and come back here and state that McCain has even the very first clue of what the hell is going on.

- mmathog

April 15, 2008 at 2:00pm

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He just wants to be president that badly - Say anything!

- jemerk

April 15, 2008 at 2:55pm

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Possible new McCain campaign songs:

"Baby Got Tax Cuts"

"Light My Tax Cuts"

"Norwegian Tax Cuts (This Surplus Has Flown)"

"I Heard It Through the Tax Cuts"

"I Still Haven't Found What Tax Cuts I'm Looking For"

"My Favorite Tax Cuts"

"Silver Tax Cuts and Golden Parachutes"

"Tax Cuts On My Mind"

"(I Can't Get No) Tax Cuts"

"Will You Still Cut My Taxes Tomorrow?"

"Do You Feel Tax Cuts Like We Do?"

"In-A-Gadda-Da-Tax-Cuts"

"Something In the Way She Cuts Taxes"

"Banana Tax Cut Song (Pay? No!)"

"Born to Be Cutting Taxes"

"Tax Cutting in the Street"

"Tax Cutting in the U.S.A."

"Tax Cutting and Peppermint"

"There Is Nothin' Like a Tax Cut"

"Don't It Make My Tax Cuts Blue"

"Sunshine of Your Tax Cuts"

[Happy April 15, y'all!  Or, to paraphrase George, there's one for you, nineteen for them...]

- williamyard

April 15, 2008 at 3:03pm

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Despite the polls showing McCain running dead-even with Obama, I'd bet anything he gets hammered in November. He has no plan. He complains about pork, lectures his peers about victory and is condescending about his experience, but he has no plan. Obama is labeled the empty suit, but listen to McCain's ideas about foreign policy and economics and tell me if he's talking in anything more than platitudes. It's empty rhetoric and poorly cobbled together ideas from Grover Norquist and Neil Bortz. It's a joke.

- mpatrickhendri

April 15, 2008 at 3:06pm

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Actual this speech is a wonderful piece of political theater. McCain knows this will go NOWHERE with the Democratic House and Senate. As a result, he can promise the moon to get Republicans to pull the trigger for him, and then when he cannot deliver, simply blame the Democrats. Brilliant! He's a one termer anyway.

BSD

- bsdespain

April 15, 2008 at 3:07pm

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"He's a one termer anyway."

Pardon the strength of my language here, but don't say shit like that. That's what pretty much everyone -- even some hardcore Republicans I know -- said in 2001. You need to knock on a wooden salt-shaker or something after saying that.

- rhubarbs

April 15, 2008 at 4:26pm

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but BSD is dead on about his being a one termer, and also that McCain knows that with the Dems in power he will govern as a Conservative Democrat in order to get anything done. I just disagree that he can run as a Republican in the fall. Get used to hearing "Independent" John McCain. But if he tries to run on what he said, he will get hammered.

- blackton

April 15, 2008 at 8:54pm

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I wonder how much of this is due to Phil Graham's advice (influence).  Does Mccain have any economic advisors who understand budget deficits -> greater government borrowing -> further weakening of U.S. Dollar -> increasing oil prices by sellers who want their prices pegged to a stable currency like the Euro?

- mikekasky

April 16, 2008 at 8:49am

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Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee fill in some of the details of Barack Obama's tax plan in their

- Anonymous

August 14, 2008 at 1:10pm

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