Re-Launching Economic Plan, McCain Takes Swipe at Obama Over Taxes
(CBS)
(DENVER) John McCain will try to take back the issue of the economy this week, campaigning in swing states Colorado, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin – all states where currently trails Barack Obama. He kicks off his tour at noon today in Denver, but don’t expect any new policy positions. Instead, the campaign will work on “re-packaging” their economic ideas.
“We don't think we've made the case eloquently,” Doug Holtz-Eakin, the campaign's domestic policy director, told the Wall Street Journal. Most Americans seem to agree, saying that Obama has a better command of the economy, by a margin of 50% to 44%, according to a poll conducted last month by CNN.
One of the cornerstones of McCain’s plan is investment and tax breaks for small businesses, something he accuses his opponent of opposing.
“If you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer, Sen. Obama is going to raise your tax rates. If you have an investment for your child's education or own a mutual fund or a stock in a retirement plan, he is going to raise your taxes. He will raise estate taxes to 45%. I propose to cut them to 15%. His plan will hurt the American worker and family. It will hurt the economy and cost us jobs,” McCain will say today, according to excerpts released by the campaign. “At a time of increasing gas and food prices, American families need tax relief and I, not my opponent, will deliver it.”
He will also continue to try and distance himself from President Bush, accusing both him and Congress of wasteful spending.
“This Congress and this administration have failed to meet their responsibilities to manage the government. Government has grown by 60% in the last eight years. That is simply inexcusable,” McCain will say. “My opponent has a very different record on this issue. He has sought millions upon millions of dollars in earmarks since his election to the Senate. In 2007 alone, Senator Obama requested nearly $100 million for earmark projects. I have never asked for a single earmark in my entire career.”
The Democratic National Committee alleges these ideas are the same as the current president.
"Maybe John McCain should call his latest tour the 'Lipstick on a Pig' tour because no matter how many shades of lipstick he tries, in the end it's still a pig,” said DNC spokesman Damien LaVera. “America's working families simply cannot afford four more years of failed Bush-McCain policies that have shipped jobs overseas and left American families paying more for everything from gas to groceries."
