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Obama calls McCain tax plans outrageous
Barack Obama on Monday described John McCains proposed tax cuts as outrageous and said they would amount to $5,700bn over the next decade more than double the cost of George W. Bushs tax cuts. Mr Obama, whose speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, kicked off a 17-day economic tour of the key general election battleground states, also mocked Mr McCains policy of cutting back on earmarks specific spending items inserted by legislators for their districts to help pay for the tax cuts. Earmarks typically amount to between $20bn (12.7bn, £10bn) and $40bn a year, which is just a fraction of the overall federal budget. His suggestion that the earmark reforms . . . will somehow make up for his enormous tax giveaway indicates that John McCain was right when he said that he doesnt understand the economy as well as he should, said Mr Obama. Either that or hes hoping you just wont notice. The Democratic nominee, whose largest proposed spending items are a $1,000 tax giveaway for households earning below $150,000 and a $60bn to $70bn plan to create universal health insurance, reiterated his commitment to the pay-go system, where tax cuts or spending increases are paid for by concomitant spending cuts or tax increases. Mr McCain, whose tax proposals including a reduction in the US corporate tax rate to 25 per cent and steps to make Mr Bushs tax cuts permanent, has portrayed Mr Obama as a traditional tax and spend liberal. On Monday, Mr Obamas campaign sought to turn that around by stating that his opponent had not provided the back-up numbers to show how he would pay for his tax cuts. John McCain takes great pride in saying that hes a fiscal conservative, said Mr Obama. For all his talk of independence, the centrepiece of his economic plan amounts to a full-throated endorsement of George Bushs policies. Mondays speech marked an aggressive opening to Mr Obamas general election campaign in which the declining US economy looks likely to play a central role. Mr Obama also called for a new $50bn stimulus on top of the $170bn tax rebate pushed through Congress earlier this year given last Fridays 49,000 jump in unemployment. Obama officials said 58 per cent of Mr McCains tax cuts would go to the top 1 per cent of US taxpayers against 31 per cent of the proceeds from Mr Bushs 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Jason Furman, who on Monday started as the Obama campaigns director of economic policy, said: People like to say that John McCain would represent a third Bush term but that might be unfair to Mr Bush . . . John McCains tax policies are far more radical [than those of Mr Bush]. A spokesman for Mr McCains campaign disputed Mr Obamas calculations of the costs of the tax cuts and said the Republican nominees fiscal proposals would bring the US budget to balance by the end of his first term in 2013. Posted by: gorb 2008-06-10 |
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