McCain Defends Gas Tax Holiday, Health Care Plan

(CBS)

From CBS News' Andante Higgins:


John McCain continues his push for a "gas-tax holiday" as he concludes his weeklong "Call for Action" healthcare tour. "I want to talk to you about a modest proposal that I had that seems to have created a firestorm, particularly among the special interests that ride around in chauffeured limos inside the beltway," he said to a town hall audience in Denver. McCain explained his plan for the suspension of gas taxes between Labor Day and Memorial Day this summer. "Why don't we give American working men and women a little break this summer," he said. "It's not the end of western civilization as we know it."

Her also elaborated on the difference between his health care plan and those of his democratic rivals. He strongly opposes a nationalized government health care plan, as well as any mandates for coverage. "I believe that if you adopt the program and proposals of Senator Clinton or Senator Obama, you will have a wasteful, inefficient, costly system replaced by a more inefficient, wasteful costly system, because that's what's happened in countries where they have adopted universal health care," he said.

His plan relies on choice and competition of the market. He proposes providing each family with a $5000 tax credit and individuals with $2500 to purchase an insurance plan that they choose instead of their employer or the government. McCain insists that putting the power in the hands of the families will serve them best.

The plan has been met with mixed reaction. Democrats charge that it does not address the 47 million people who need health insurance, and warn that the privatization of health care puts power into the hands of insurance companies, not families. McCain's camp points out that Republican think tanks support McCain's plan. "This was a solutions-based tour that was incredibly successful because for the first time Americans heard the responsible and effective approach to providing coverage and affordable care that they've been waiting for," said McCain's spokesperson Tucker Bounds.

[giantrobot2]

*** BREAKING NEWS ***

Transcript 345.02

Those close to the McCain camp have indicated Mitt Romney is officially out of the VP race as a potential candidate.

The beef between John McCain and Mitt Romney has a history%u2014it''s almost 8 years old, a lifetime in politics. In 2000, McCain blasted "preposterous" pork-barrel spending on the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, which Romney headed.

"McCain is a die-hard anti-pork barrel spending champion. And because of his deep reservations in this type of spending, the McCain team has decided to cross Mitt Romney off the VP potential ticket."

They ask the McCain camp, couldn''t he overlook that aspect?

"I don''t think John McCain can win the elections this year if Romney is on the ticket. The Democrats would pounce on him saying he says one thing and does the other if he picked Romney, regarding pork barrel spending."

Can you tell us who are the top three VP candidates?

"Well, I''m not at liberty to say, but I can assure you one thing, he''s going to choose someone who runs a lean ship when it comes to spending."

Are you referring to Governor Huckabee, who ran a very lean campaign to finish 2nd in the presidental race?

"...pause.. you sure like to pry this out of me don''t you? Well, let''s just say Governor Huckabee has an outstanding record when it comes to running a lean campaign, he''s perfected the art of running his ship financially lean while producing huge results."

End Transcript 345.02

[wikkidinsane]

John Mccain admits the War in Iraq was for oil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS97mwq3zvM

[javalation]

McCain is so out of touch with the way that health insurance works that he says that individual policies will eliminate the problem with pre-existing conditions. Apparently he doesn''t know that individual policies can wave coverage on conditions, rate the policy higher, or refuse coverage completely. But then, he''s never been faced with shopping the individual health market, having always been treated by docs who work for the govt.

[memekiller]

First, we needed to get rid of Iraq%u2019s WMD. Once we made sure the country was free of those, we needed to occupy the country to liberate them. Then we had to round up all the Iraqis to interrogate them so we could keep the peace. Once we destroyed the terrorist networks, we were the only thing keeping Al Qaeda out, and we couldn%u2019t just up and leave after that with Al Qaeda causing trouble everywhere.

Around this time, all hell had broken loose, and we were the glue holding everything together, and so many people had died we didn%u2019t want them to die in vain.

Remember, a civil war was possible, and once that crisis had passed, we found ourselves the only thing maintaining order during Baghdad%u2019s transition into ethnic enclaves, and we had a moral obligation to prevent an ethnic cleansing.

With so much at stake in such a vital region, it would be devastating to our national interests if we let things deteriorate. After all, we%u2019re the only thing preventing Iran from influencing the Iraqi government, but now that they appear to be backing the Iraqi coalition, we need to give the Iraqi government the breathing room to set up a government, and give the disbanded Iraqi army time to organize, so they can take over security without the country erupting into chaos.

So the only thing we have left to do before we withdraw is to continue fighting until we win the war, so we can maintain a military presence for the next 100 years.

[theantibush-2009]

McCain certainly is clueless about healthcare.
The competition he cites for healthcare is a competition for profits, as it is with any business.

For health care, thats simply wrong.

I worked as an IT developer in a large insurance administrator, and my job was to write algorithms to group costly policyholders by some factor other than their personally identifiable information, so that they could be %u201Crate-increased into oblivion%u201D.

Doing so made us more profitable, thus more competitive.

As for the gas-tax holiday...only an idiot would take more than three seconds to shoot it full of holes.

My question is this: out of a nation of over 300 million, are these three candidates really the best that America has to offer?

[sveeben]

A Modest Proposal, is it then? Perhaps Mr. McCain needs to read some Jonathan Swift.

[mattcat25]

There shouldn%u2019t be any reason for a gas tax holiday, nor a Health Care Industry overhaul.

The very people that have driven us to this situation want to continue to steer all of us right off the cliff.