McCainomics: What Can He Do? 13 comments
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Matt Cooper reports from St. Paul: If you didn't know anything about John McCain's economic views before the Republican convention, you may not know a lot more now that he's given his acceptance speech.
The convention was big on national service and reform and McCain's own compelling life story and that of his running mate, Sarah Palin. But the economic message was spare in the prime-time hours. Those of us in the hall or C-SPAN nerds at home, who sat through the lesser speakers, got to hear more. But the major speeches were sparing in the time they spent on economics, and that was true of the finale.
So ask yourself this question: If McCain wins in November, what can he get done with a Democratic congress? First, get set for a lot of vetoing. If there's one thing at the heart of McCain's governing philosophy, it's vetoing what he sees as pork. There are two problems with that. The first is that pork—the bridge to nowhere that Sarah Palin supported before she was against it—is not the major budgetary issue facing the country. Entitlements, interest on the debt, and defense are the big sources of government spending. The rest of it is small. Second, pork, as bad as it is, has been a lubricant of government for a long time. Besides, one man's pork is another's chateaubriand.
McCain promised to hold the line on taxes and he has new cuts poised, most notably an elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax and the doubling of the childcare tax credit. He'd keep the Bush tax cuts, the ones he voted against. I don't think he'll bend on the Bush tax cuts, but getting his new ones through Charlie Rangel's Ways and Means Committee seems like a pretty tough haul.
On energy, McCain's drill-baby-drill approach has a lot of momentum behind it and I suspect that he'd be able to push a Democratic congress on opening more land for drilling. On trade, I think he'd have a tough time passing new bilateral trade agreements just as President Bush has. (Bush, of course, went unmentioned in McCain's address.) On health care, I think McCain's plan is dead on arrival. Don't see congress going down the road of tax incentives and not doing anything on Medicare costs. A more bipartisan health care plan could emerge under McCain. He was there for the Patients' Bill of rights and the tobacco settlement and there's no reason he couldn't get something done on health care. I just don't think it will look like what McCain has proposed.
When it comes to the liquidity crisis, I'd look for McCain to be to the right of Bush. He was somnolent when the crisis began, and had a less activist plan than what Henry Paulson came up with. That could change but I think you'll have a less interventionist approach to the mortgage and liquidity messes, and more just letting the storm work it's way through the economy.
Somewhere in all of this is a McCain philosophy. It's a Reagan approach of lower taxes and less government. But it's not one that's totally government averse and in that sense McCain borrows a bit from Bush, not so much in things like the expansion of Medicare into a full-blown prescription drug benefit. But McCain is more than willing to take an interventionist line in the economy as we saw during his chairmanship of the Senate Commerce Committee where he oversaw major telecommunications legislation. His support of campaign finance reform was a kind of economic intervention against wealthy interests.
But that's all assuming McCain gets to be president. I think he can win. I think Barack Obama can too.
I'm not sure politically McCain helped himself tonight. It was a somnolent speech until it got to the parts about his Vietnam heroism, but it was laundry listy and less than poetic before that. Palin's address was much fiery and more appealing. Being in the hall, you couldn't help but notice that the reform lines were greeted by polite applause while the red-meat lines on abortion or union bosses got a more rousing reception. It shows where McCain's party is at even as it nominates someone who, in the past anyway, has taken it on.
On a day when the markets dropped over 300 points and there's still a feeling the economy could go off a cliff, it was a less economic and less business oriented speech than I would have guessed. But perhaps that's not surprising. These aren't the issues that drive McCain the way foreign policy or reform does. If he's just phoning it in on those parts of the speech it's not surprising that others would tune it out too.
Photo credit: NewsHour, under CreativeCommons license
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This article has 13 comments:
"...pork, as bad as it is, has been a lubricant of government for a long time. Besides, one man's pork is another's chateaubriand."
The "lubricant" in all reality is nothing more than a form of bribery and corruption.
Geeeez.........
Face it, both parties say whatever resonates best at the moment. None of this is new or unique.
You can find a professor or think tank expert to advocate everything from taxing super rich with estate taxes to taxing the poor with sales taxes or to tax no one or everyone.
It's clearly smoke and mirrors where even the nature of smoke and the properties of mirrors are in dispute.
Chateaubriand, er, Pork anyone?
Both parties are out of control spenders (fiscally irresponsible), have no policy on education (you call that a policy?), no policy on energy, both want bigger goverment, both want more governmental control, both want more politcal power, both do little for the environment, and both are war mongers.
Of course they don't say any of that outloud, they need to keep people believing they're different, sooo radically different from on another. However, last I heard actions speak louder than words.
So, to nail down, your options in November are actually no options. Third party anyone?
Bad pork or Chateaubriand smell equally bad and both leave a bad taste in ones mouth.
Anything that sounds to good to be true usually is.
Jimmy Carter destroyed confidence in America.
George Bush '' '' '' ''