The Obama campaign has released a long, detailed memo thrashing McCain on the economy. Find the full, must read memo here.
Not only does McCain not personally understand economics, but he doesn't appear to have a team around him that does.
Consider this memo your official kickoff for the week ahead:
Over the course of the week, Senator Obama will discuss his plans to strengthen the economic security of families feeling the strain of the faltering economy.
Senator Obama will kickoff the week by hosting a discussion on economic security for American’s families in Charlotte, North Carolina. On Tuesday, he will host a town hall meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. After speaking to LULAC Wednesday in Washington D.C., Senator Obama will wrap up the week by campaigning in Virginia and Ohio.
The memo starts by highlighting three facts about McCain:
1. Senator McCain has no plan for immediate fiscal stimulus to help struggling families or jumpstart our economy...In a debate on January 10th, McCain said "I don’t believe we’re headed into a recession. I believe the fundamentals of this economy are strong, and I believe they will remain strong" and went on to argue that spending reductions were needed to help the economy.
Meanwhile, Obama was proposing this:
In contrast, Senator Obama first proposed a fiscal stimulus centered around sending checks to workers and senior citizens on January 13th. A plan along these lines was agreed to on a bipartisan basis and enacted in February. Obama’s original plan included a contingency that should the jobs situation deteriorate a second round of stimulus would be triggered. On June 9th Obama explicitly called for a second round of stimulus, including at least $50 billion for:
• An additional round of rebate checks for working families to help offset the impact of $4.00 a gallon gas and skyrocketing food, health and college costs;
• A $10 billion Foreclosure Prevention Fund to provide struggling homeowners with pre-foreclosure counseling and refinancing assistance to help them stay in their homes; and
• $10 billion in relief for state and local governments hardest hit by the housing crisis to prevent cuts in services such as health, education and infrastructure.
And that is just the start:
- The McCain tax cut plan completely leaves out 101 million households – including virtually all seniors – and provides only $125 in the first year to a family with two children. Eventually the McCain health plan would raise taxes on families. In contrast, Sen. Obama’s plan benefits 95 percent of workers, and provides the typical working family with at least $1,000 in tax cuts.
Perspective...100 million is 1/3 of the country. (update: deleted because MLDB is a bonehead. Thanks to comments pointing out the error. 100 million households would represent roughly half of all Americans) And where is Obama on this?
In contrast, Senator Obama has proposed broad middle class tax relief that would provide at least ten times the benefit for typical families in the first year of his plan. When the two plans are fully in effect, and ignoring the tax increases Senator McCain proposes to finance his health plan, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that the tax cuts under Obama’s plan are three times larger than the tax cuts under McCain’s plan for families in the middle quintile.
Some details worked out here:
Middle Class Tax Cuts Under the Obama and McCain Plans
Married couple without children making $60,000
Obama Plan: $1,500[includes $1000 Making Work Pay tax cut and $500 universal mortgage credit]
McCain Plan: $0
A 70 year-old widow making $35,000
Obama Plan: $1,900
McCain Plain: $0
Married Couple making $90,000
Obama Plan: $1,000
McCain Plan: $125
Married Couple making $60,000 with two children, one of whom is in college.
Obama Plan: $3,700 [includes $1000 Making Work Pay tax cut; $500 universal mortgage credit; and $4,000 college credit net of current college credits]
McCain Plan: $125
Source: Campaign calculations based on IRS Statistics of Income. Obama tax savings does not account for up to $500 in savings from expanded Savers Credit and the $2,500 in savings per family from the Obama healthcare plan.
Of course, McCain is not without his own tax cuts. The best characterization? Bush on steroids.
3. Senator McCain’s tax plan provides a $1.2 billion tax cut for Exxon-Mobil and additional tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that will drive up the deficit by the at least $200 billion to $300 billion per year.
Obama wants to end the chokehold the deficit has on our economy:
Barack Obama has made it a priority throughout this campaign to show how he would pay for all of his proposals without increasing the deficit. He will achieve this by ending the war in Iraq, reducing unnecessary and wasteful government spending, closing corporate and international tax loopholes, and repealing the Bush tax cuts for those making more than $250,000. Independent analyses like the Wall Street Journal has confirmed that Obama’s numbers add up – that his plan will generate enough revenue to pay for his middle class tax cuts, healthcare plan, and other key domestic investments while bringing down the deficit significantly from its current record levels.
One way John McCain is truly more of the same...his economic plan stands to keep making things worse.
Obama's plan serves more people and starts to right the ship.