McCain: Populist Message, Corporate Agenda
Senator John McCain will be making a campaign stop in the Milwaukee area on Wednesday. He is supposed to talk about the economy and hype his out of touch plans to treat what ails it. Yes, the man that admitted that he doesn’t really understand economics plans on lecturing the rest of us on economic solutions. If his recent pattern is any indication, he will be fully prepared to offer all kinds of rhetoric about the economic problems of the working class. Before people start lapping up his sales pitch, they might want to look at the details of his actual agenda. As the Washington Post recently observed, McCain is trying to send a populist message while offering little else than corporate tax cuts.
In Pittsburgh on Tuesday, McCain even took a few potshots at well deserved targets in the banking and lending industries. While he has been paying this lip service to the average worker, his economic plan has very little for them. The centerpiece of McCain’s economic plan is a massive tax cut for corporations. Some of the very corporations that he has recently criticized on the stump would be big time beneficiaries of his corporate giveaway plan.
Essentially, McCain would reduce corporate taxes from 35 percent to 25. In addition, he has vowed to make permanent the massive Bush tax cuts mainly benefiting the rich. The price tag on his planned giveaway to the most powerful and privileged would be in the trillions. Conveniently, in his stump speech, McCain has failed to explain just why working people should be jumping up and down because of such proposals. Further he has failed to explain how he plans on paying for such massive giveaways.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) recently sent Senator McCain a ‘Dear John’ letter offering their assistance in coming up with a real economic plan that puts working families first. He has not responded to the effort and one close look at his actual plan demonstrates the exact reason. McCain only offers significant relief to those that are struggling the least, at the expense of those that are working the hardest and struggling the most. No amount of populist rhetoric on the stump will change the reality of his plans for our economy. They go above and beyond even the Bush plan that has delivered hard times to the average American.