Barack Obama and John McCain are now going toe-to-toe on
economics. Obama’s main challenge: to convince voters he is not a
classic tax-and-spend liberal. McCain’s is to convince voters he is
focused and determined to solve pocketbook issues.
McCain may have the tough time revealing his opponents’
underlying predispositions. Obama has been talking a very a good
game in the last few months. On taxes, for example, at the
Philadelphia Democratic debate in April he swore off tax increases
for the middle class, declaring, “Well, I not only have pledged not
to raise their taxes, I’ve been the first candidate in this race to
specifically say I would cut their taxes.” On The View he
likewise announced, “First of all, I don’t want higher taxes, I
have to pay taxes, and it’s no fun. You know I think sometimes
there’s this presumption that Democrats, we just love taxing
people. No, I would prefer to keep taxes as low as possible.”
That sounds fairly promising. But the reality is
different and McCain will need to bolster his communications effort
to make sure voters understand that Obama voted to raise taxes 94
times and specifically to raise income taxes on those making as
little as $31,850. Has Obama had a change or heart or is his voting
record a reliable indicator of how he would govern if elected
president?
Likewise on trade, Obama recently told a CNBC interviewer, “And
on trade deals, I believe in free trade. And as somebody who lived
overseas, who has family overseas, I’ve seen what’s happened in
terms of rising living standards around the globe. And that’s a
good thing for America, it’s good for our national security.” That
is a far cry from what Obama now admits was “overheated and
amplified” protectionist rhetoric he employed to beat Hillary
Clinton in the primary.
And will Obama really disappoint his Big Labor supporters who he
promised in a speech in April the following:
“But what I refuse to accept is that we have to sign
trade deals like the South Korea Agreement that are bad for
American workers. What I oppose — and what I have always opposed
— are trade deals that put the interests of multinational
corporations ahead of the interests of Americans workers — like
NAFTA, and CAFTA, and permanent normal trade relations with China.
And I’ll also oppose the Colombia Free Trade Agreement if President
Bush insists on sending it to Congress…”
This, after all is the candidate who declared “Well, I don’t think
NAFTA has been good for America — and I never have.”
And on fiscal restraint, Obama again sounds downright
responsible when he declares “We account for every single dollar
that we propose.” However, independent fact checkers point out that Obama
hasn’t come close to specifying the revenues he wants to raise and
the amounts he plans to spend. David Brooks explained that there is
just not enough money to pay for all his domestic wish list by
simply soaking the rich. Brooks wrote in April:
“Both [Obama and Clinton] promised to not raise taxes
on those making less than $200,000 or $250,000 a year. They both
just emasculated their domestic programs. Returning the rich to
their Clinton-era tax rates will yield, at best, $40 billion a year
in revenue. It’s impossible to fund a health care plan, let alone
anything else, with that kind of money. The consequences are clear:
if elected they will have to break their pledge, and thus destroy
their credibility, or run a minimalist
administration.”
Again, it will be up to the McCain camp to explain this to voters
who may be taken in by Obama’s reasonable, but fallacious,
rhetoric.
Obama has even been softening his language on corporate taxes.
He told the Wall Street Journal in June that he would be
open to reducing corporate tax rates. But it is unclear whether he
really means it. Just a couple of months ago he told Tim Russert on
Meet the Press that planned reductions for corporate taxes
were “the exact wrong prescription for America.”
It should come as no surprise that Obama is abandoning
ultraliberal positions on the economy. As on a host of other issues
from Iraq to the Second Amendment to campaign financing Obama is
shifting ground on pocketbook economic issues as he enters the
general election race. While conservatives may roll their eyes in
disbelief, the newer Obama who sounds more moderate on the economy
may present an attractive portrait, especially to key independent
voters.
It will be up to the McCain team to probe whether this newest
incarnation of Obama is merely a facade and to explain that Obama
did not gain his rating as the most liberal member of the U.S.
Senate by osmosis. How successful McCain is in bursting the bubble
of the new and improved Obama will, in large part, determine who
wins the election.
