New England Patriots Forums - PatsFans.com Patriots Fan Messageboard

New England Patriots Forums - PatsFans.com Patriots Fan Messageboard (http://www.patsfans.com/new-england-patriots/messageboard/)

- Political Discussion (http://www.patsfans.com/new-england-patriots/messageboard/12/political-discussion.html)

- - Taxes--Obama v. McCain (http://www.patsfans.com/new-england-patriots/messageboard/12/83850-taxes-obama-v-mccain.html)

Taxes--Obama v. McCain

Quote:

That bears repeating: Obama would cut taxes for ordinary people more than McCain would.
According to the Tax Policy Center's analysis of the two candidates' tax plans, 80% of taxpayers would get more from Obama's cuts than from McCain's. About 95% of taxpayers would pay less under Obama than under current law (which ends many of the tax breaks passed in the past decade).
You might not know this if you've been reading the business press or watching cable news. The coverage has tended to focus on Obama's plan to raise the tax on capital gains, rather than on his $500 across-the-board tax credit, or his proposal to extend the mortgage interest deduction to more taxpayers.
The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were tilted heavily toward the rich, who were supposed to return the favor by creating more jobs and investing in America's productive capacity. Unfortunately, the main impact of the tax cuts was to further widen the gap between the richest Americans and the rest of us. Job growth was extremely weak, as was capital spending.
Doing nothing on taxes isn't really an option for the next president and the Congress he'll work with. Most of the tax breaks passed in 2001 were designed to self-destruct over the next few years. If Congress and the president don't act, taxes will go up for almost everyone.
The question now is whether to just extend the earlier laws, or do something else.
A closer look at the proposals
McCain's proposed tax cuts would give the top 0.1% of taxpayers (those earning more than $2.8 million a year) a tax break averaging $678,000. Obama, by contrast, would raise taxes on that group by an average of $300,100. For the bottom 20% of taxpayers who make less than $19,740 a year, McCain would cut taxes by an average of $101, while Obama would cut their taxes by an average of $698.
Obama has not made taxes an issue so far, maybe because it isn't a big deal in Democratic primaries, or maybe it's because his views are too complicated to put on a bumper sticker, or maybe he fails to realize how much he has to gain from touting his plans.
Democrats have let Republicans walk all over them on taxes. Even when Democrats deliver lower taxes for working Americans, they let Republicans take the credit. That's just dumb, and it's probably a sign that even Democrats have bought into the Republicans' constant refrain that Democrats love to tax.
In 2001, Democrats in the Senate forced President Bush to accept bigger and quicker tax cuts for poor and middle-income taxpayers, but then the party threw away any goodwill it could have gained by demonizing the whole package as "the Bush tax cuts."
Obama could break that pattern by advertising himself as a tax-cutter. Of course, McCain is proposing to cut taxes even more than Obama is. Under Obama's plan, tax receipts would fall by $2.7 trillion over the next 10 years, while McCain would cut taxes by $3.7 trillion, compared with current law.
As a share of gross domestic product, tax receipts would fall from 18.8% currently to 18.5% by the end of his first term under Obama's plan, while McCain would lower receipts to 17.6% of GDP.
But Obama can't cut taxes too much, because there are many jobs he wants Washington to accomplish, such as universal health care, affordable college, and research on promising new energy sources.
If he doesn't want to be pigeon-holed as a tax-and-spender, Obama will have to start telling the story about his tax cuts. End of Story
Rex Nutting is Washington bureau chief of MarketWatch.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...96135323425%7D