Paul Krugman points to
the sad case of John McCain, part of whose lingering image as a maverick rests on his early opposition to the Bush tax cuts, which he declared excessive and too tilted toward the rich.
Since then the budget surpluses of the Clinton years have given way to persistent deficits, and income inequality has risen to new heights, vindicating his opposition.
But instead of pointing this out, Mr. McCain now promises to make those tax cuts permanent — and proposes further cuts that are, if anything, tilted even more toward the wealthy. And how is the loss of revenue to be made up? Mr. McCain hasn’t offered a realistic answer.
You can explain though not excuse Mr. McCain’s behavior by his need to shore up relations with the Republican base, which suspects him of being a closet moderate. But he’s not the only one seemingly trapped by the Bush fiscal legacy.
Barack Obama’s tax plan is more responsible than Mr. McCain’s: relative to current policy, the Tax Policy Center estimates, the Obama plan would raise revenue by $700 billion over the next decade, compared with a $600 billion loss for Mr. McCain.
The Obama plan is also far more progressive, sharply reducing after-tax incomes for the richest 1 percent of Americans while raising incomes for the bottom 80 percent.
[Click to read more of Paul Krugman – Fiscal Poison Pill – Bush’s Tax Cuts and the McCain and Obama Plans – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com]
But the die-hard Republicans, even the ones making less than $250,000, still believe that somehow Obama is going to find out their bank password, and rob their accounts at night, or otherwise steal money by ‘raising taxes’. Doesn’t matter what the facts are, doesn’t even matter what the candidates say, the viewers of Faux News think when a Democrat gets into power, all is ruin.