3 posts tagged “break”

Senator John McCain and his advisors finally picked a subject to attack Senator Barack Obama with that actually helps his campaign.  Until now the topics Senator McCain’s camp has been addressing seem to only be targeted at getting approval from those who are already his strongest supporters already.

Senator McCain went before small business owners and said flat out that Senator Obama is bad for business.  As Senator Obama is speaking of tax breaks for the general population and increasing taxes on businesses (the latest example is big oil) Senator McCain is speaking to the businesses saying:  “Hey!  This means more taxes for you and less profit!”

This serves to make all of the rhetoric about how to fix he economy look a lot different to American business owners. 

Another smart benefit that Senator McCain gets from this ploy, is that while Senator Obama has been a campaign contribution machine that has been getting millions of dollars from lots of small contribution s from lots of donors this starts massaging the large donors that are largely untapped by the Obama campaign.  This says, “I am the candidate that will give you return on your investment in me” to the business owners.

This appears to finally be the real start to Senator McCain’s serious campaigning as much of the rest of what has transpired from his camp over the past few months seemed to be just killing time until real campaigning started.

There is however, another side to this coin.  There is the risk of appearing to be the “Same Old Washington” candidate who steals from the poor to buy support from the rich.

Senator Obama responded to Senator McCain’s accusations by discussing things like three-hundred billion dollar tax breaks and loopholes for big corporations and the wealthiest Americans to start to show this as the nest wave of media we will be hearing. 

I have to admit, that while I agree that we need businesses to stay open or there is no economy, I do have to wonder if it is not rewarding businesses and the rich while hanging the general population out to dry in the hopes of saving the economy.  Maybe, something in between the rhetoric of the two camps is much more realistic.

As I have repeatedly stated that I am not a big fan of either of these candidates much in terms of becoming our commander and chief.  The thing is, if I am going to end up casting my vote for the lesser evil, for lack of a better choice, I would like to know that there was a good campaign that dealt with real issues.  Like the ref before a boxing match I want to see a good clean fight.  I do not just want one candidate to just pummel the other one in the media and at the ballot boxes.

This is finally a good and sensible start to Senator McCain’s campaign against Senator Obama although it is very risky and may backfire.  I think it is also good that actual issues for right now have come to the surface for discussion. 

I hope to hear more about different sides of the issues (including both candidates’ strange voting records that seem to contradict their campaign rhetoric) and less about the candidate’s friends and distant acquaintances. 

Maybe the real campaign has finally has begun at last.

What is going on in the presidential race?  Democratic Senator Barack Obama went at republican Senator John McCain with both guns blazing in discussing the economy and I began to think:  “Finally, we will get to the real issues.” 

Boy oh boy was I mistaken.  I was all ready for Senator McCain (who is now known for being weak on matters of the economy at the worst time ever for that to be the case) to get with his advisors and start devising strong solutions for our economic woes.  Then I pictured this huge back and forth campaigning where two different plans that would both make some sense would be brought before the American people and we would all be thinking; “Wow, what great candidates.”

This however, was not what happened.  Senator McCain went back to that absolutely stupid “Gas Tax Holiday” idiocy that helped us all understand economy was not his strength.  Then Senator Hillary Clinton supported it also and some of the cooties of being economically illiterate seemed to get on her and her campaign.

I thought; “That’s it?  All of those campaign strategists and speechwriters and whoever else in his political entourage and that is it?”

But, no it was not.  Then he went back to this town hall meeting idea.  I admit it is a pretty cool idea, but seriously, one candidate is just going to dictate how another candidate is going to campaign for the entire summer and this other candidate is expected to just agree and go along with this?  (Is this one of those places where people on the internet us the letters “LOL?”

I personally believe that both candidates that are left from the two major parties have these gaping holes in their qualifications for president (particularly saying lots of things that neither of their voting records support), but if this is the best Senator McCain can come up with against a person with a gift for speaking and a charisma that attracts so many, Senator McCain will be reduced to a straw man for Senator Obama to knock over.

If there are any advisors to Senator McCain reading this, please gather some experts on the economy and draw up something substantial that will appeal to the public. Then spend some time educating Senator McCain on this plan.  Once that is done release him on the public with these fresh new ideas and a solution to a real problem in the here and now.  That will make him a solid candidate and definitely make the race more interesting.

I suppose Senator McCain may have such plans and be keeping them hidden is his grand plan to unleash this weapon of mass destruction on Senator Obama during these town hall meetings, but let’s face it, that is not going to happen.  An I am not sure if it were to happen that the results would be what Senator McCain expects.  I remember a debate between the Republicans that was televised on CNN that had an approval meter that was on the screen the whole time.  The relevant fact here is that almost every time Senator McCain spoke the meter shot down.  That went double when he got excited or agitated.

I think to win, Senator McCain better come up with more than the stuff he has put out there so far.

If Senator McCain does not retool his message, this will be one of those really boring elections where one candidate just sinks fast as soon as the votes start to be cast.  Today I was aghast at his lack of anything to say and found his whole message just plain boring.  

Today several respected economists came out publicly in opposition to the Gas Tax holiday proposed By Senator John McCain and later used by Senator Hillary Clinton to boost her campaign against Senator Barack Obama who opposes the idea.

Presidential hopefuls Senator John McCain and Senator Hillary Clinton have been pushing this Gas Tax Holiday in theory giving the American public a few month reprise from the High gasoline prices.  The plan involves eliminating the approximately nineteen cent federal gas tax and the approximately twenty-five cent diesel tax beginning Memorial Day all the way to Labor Day.

You may remember that when this idea was first proposed I posted a blog where I stated it was a bad idea.  I mention this because my view was not based on being an economist (because I am not one) but on simple common sense.  The truth is that if we come up with any idea that takes millions, billions, or trillions of dollars out of the national budget, the money has to come from somewhere to replace it (in this case we are talking about somewhere in the area of ten-billion dollars).  Nineteen cents is not worth some huge debt that shows up later to be paid for by taxing us.  The two dollars I would personally save a week is not enough for me to be willing to create a ten-billion dollar hole in the budget.

Today two-hundred top economists, four of which are Nobel prize winners, signed a letter completely rejecting this ridiculous idea.  This is the kiss of death for this stupid idea. 

Hillary Clinton has been trying to say she was the candidate most likely to turn the economy around and the polls have been growing in her favor in this area.  When I first heard her endorsement of this idea, I immediately knew she was not the economist she has been trying to sell herself as.  When she decided to put her stamp of approval on an idea about the economy that came from a candidate that states clearly that the economy is his weak point I realized she was capable of being just as ignorant as Senator Barack Obama was in associating with a certain Mr. Wright. 

Senator McCain has stated repeatedly that he is terrible with the economy (How can we take you seriously as a candidate at this point in history if this is the case?) so this is no surprise.  The surprise for me is that Sen. McCain and his campaign would decide that the place for him to come out of hiding and make his big stand was going to be on the battlefield of the economy.  I have to ask myself:  “Who though this would turn out well?”

Sen. McCain seems to end up in trouble every time he speaks publicly and the Republican party is sinking fast because of how unpopular the current presidency is.  If McCain is the current captain of the sinking Titanic why would Sen. Clinton jump on board the sinking ship. 

I do not give Sen. Obama as much credit as it would seem he should get for opposing the idea.  It would normally give us the idea that he is better in touch with the economy, but that is not the case. 

The truth is, the reason for his knowing this was a bad idea was because in the state that he represents currently, Illinois, they tried a similar idea and it failed miserably.  He simply knew it would fail because he was there the last time it failed. 

Again I say that I think that none of the three of these candidates is in fact a “good” choice.  I feel it is simply a matter of which one is the lesser of the evils.  In the case of the “Gas Tax Holiday” I score it this way:

Senator John McCain  -  Minus one-half point (only a half because I already knew he was terrible in terms of the economy)

Senator Hillary Clinton – Minus two points (this was such a stupid move on her part for so many reasons I think only taking two points away is being generous in trying to be fair)

Senator Barack Obama – Plus a half point - (he didn’t have any knowledge either way about the economy, he just got lucky)

As a side note, the Democrats, as a party, are working on drafting a proposal to help individual American’s at the pump without being such a stupid idea.