UPDATED: see below. The lurching continues.
Lindsay Graham leaks the McCain strategy for the final weeks — more tax cuts for the rich!!
McCain surrogate Lindsey Graham said Sunday that the Republican nominee will unveil new proposals to “jump-start the nation’s economy” over the final three weeks of the presidential campaign.
“I think it goes along the lines of, now’s the time to lower tax rates for investors, capital gains tax, dividend tax rates, to make sure that we can get the economy jump-started,” the South Carolina senator said on CBS’s Face the Nation.
Boy, I sure hope that’s the McCain strategy. Nothing like promising an angry mob that you’re going to solve their problems by … cutting the capital gains tax? (Besides, with the markets down 20% or so in the last couple of weeks, not to mention 40% from a year ago, does anyone even have capital gains anymore?)
It’s hard to imagine an easier target for Obama/Biden in the last couple of weeks than a lame-brained proposal like that one. It fits right into the erratic, lurching, shoot-from-the-hip narrative that they’ve been working lately — with considerable success.
UPDATE: The McCain campaign appears to be in total disarray. Today’s NY Times reports that the campaign has no plans to release new economic proposals, and that it “did not know why” Graham said what he said. Good Lord. Here’s poor Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain’s policy chief, for whom one almost has to feel sorry these days: “I have no comment on anything, to anybody.”
late in the week. TP has a post about lowering corporate tax rates and making Bush’s tax cut for the wealthy permanent. They also note that McCain was not crazy about tax breaks for middle and lower income people.
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p>So basically, Bush’s financial policies are going to take us out of the mess created by Bush’s financial policies.
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p>Yup, that will sell well.
Seems like the McCain campaign is using this time as a sort of trial balloon period for proposals they will discuss during the debate on Wednesday. I would hope that Obama has a ready response (during the debate) to this proposal specifically, because it’s actually quite laughable for the reasons stated in the diary.
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p>What it really comes down to is this: Republicans are great at running campaigns during relatively slow news periods, because their party has gone from responsible adults providing a responsible articulation of a center-right agenda to a collection of idiotic, simplistic talking-point parrots. It’s easy to get away with that when things are calm. When the situation demands actual governance and good ideas, however, the modern-day Republicans have little to offer apart from recycled nonsense. Hence the calls for a capital gains cut during what appears to be a financial (and middle-class) meltdown.
Anyone who has capital gains to take (and there would at least be some) would immediately dump anything with a gain; I know I will if it happens. I don’t think we need any more incentives to sell in the current market!
At least he’s finally showing his real agenda- “straight talk”, if you will.
at least according to Politico. Seriously — have they gone insane? Isn’t this the exact agenda that Bush has been pushing for the last 8 years? Can they possibly be planning to allow Obama to say, in effect, “there you go again,” and tying McCain to Bush even more tightly?
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p>It’s totally bonkers.
i mean at this point, with a loose cannon vp and no way the please the wealthy goopers and the impecunious haters simultaneously, isn’t it just time to cut losses, kick back and sip some guava puree for god sakes?
appealing to Americans’ worst instincts and then sank the ship of state for good. I wonder if he senses this, on some level? Call it “subconsciously motivated political suicide” or something.
It’s good for what ails ya:
Overheated economy
Lethargic economy
Dollar too high
Dollar too low
Not enough Tax revenue
Too much tax revenue
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p>And, perhaps most importantly,…
Pitiful Poll Numbers.
First, his proposal to make lenders whole on mortgages and then turn around and discount principle and rates to borrowers:
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p>a) is a give-away to irresponsible lenders
b) in many cases will reward irresponsible borrowers
c) would likely lead to additional defaults as those currently making payments despite negative equity would have a lesser cost option, a slippery slope to more defaults
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p>And now the proposal to further decrease capital gains tax:
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p>a) additional tax break to rich
b) no value to those losing money
c) no value to those whose investments are 401K, IRA, etc., as they pay ordinary rates on their gains
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p>A fairer method to treat capital gains would be to give a 10% preferential rate, thereby tieing the benefit to the ordinary income tax bracket, 15% bracket gets 5% Cap Gain, 25% bracket gets 15% Cap Gain, 28% bracket gets 18% Cap Gain, 33% bracket gets 23% Cap Gain and 35% bracket gets 25% Cap Gain. And when the top bracket is raised, the Cap Gain rate for that bracket increases along with it.