Tuesday, October 14, 2008

You want economic talk? McCain's gonna give it to ya.

He was, then he wasn't, then he was again. We're pretty sure John McCain is going to announce some actual economic thoughts today, perhaps even enunciating a policy or perhaps even a plan for dealing with the economy. Better late than never, I guess. What's in the plan?
Four specific new plans were mentioned in a McCain press release: a moratorium on taxation of unemployment benefits, a cut in the capital gains tax, tax cuts for senior citizens who withdraw money from their retirement accounts and an "accelerated tax write-off for those who suffered losses in the current market downturn". Obama endorsed the first of those four yesterday.
Aww yeah, capital gains cuts. They'll never let that one die. "Oh, there are giant flesh eating weevils devouring the brains of the masses? How about a capital gains cut and perhaps we try to get some traction of inheritance taxes." I'm not sure of the actual plan behind cutting capital gains taxes. Oh wait, I do get it, capital gains taxes almost solely benefit millionaires. Thanks for not letting economic realities of the middle class get in the way of tax breaks to the top 1%. Though, with the stock market has dropped about a million points and we're at where the stock market was at 10 years ago, if you had any gains in the last decade, they might have just been wiped out. But hey, John McCain is also against a capital loss tax.

He's also going to cling like grim death to his so-called Resurgence Plan in which he wants the government to buy up mortgages at face value. The problem being that this program is patently illegal, but that's not going to stop McCain. But at least we should applaud Diamond J for joining the conversation. Or should I say adding something on topic to the conversation, not just running in, dropping your pants and yelling "AYERS!". OK, so your plans are either the same old shit you always wanted to do or massively illegal, but hey, it's not like you are ever going to get a chance to implement them. Thank you, Obama was starting to get a little comfortable not having to address any actual McCain policies. Now he's probably going to have to change a whole paragraph in his stump speech. Advantage McCain.

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