John McCain on Government Spending
February 25th, 2008 at 06:34am Mark Noonan
The Congressional GOP’s spending binge 2001-2006 played a large role in the GOP losing its majority status - and John McCain pledges to return the GOP to its fiscal conservative roots:
Year after year, powerful members of Congress divert taxpayer dollars to special interest pet projects with little or no national value. This practice is especially egregious during wartime, when any federal spending wasted on parochial programs to satisfy special interests represents a failure by the federal government to properly steward tax dollars. John McCain has steadfastly fought to reform this broken system and end the self-serving largesse that defines the current budget process.
As president, John McCain will oppose spending money on projects that siphon away tax dollars collected to fund these important commitments. Setting priorities, and keeping them, is a crucial step toward fiscal restraint and an important priority for a McCain presidency. Every dollar irresponsibly spent by Congress is a dollar diverted from pressing national priorities including lowering the tax burden on working Americans, supporting the men and women fighting the war on terror, making good on the nation’s financial commitments at home, including to senior citizens, and paying down the national debt.
With Obama and Hillary promising to spend whatever it takes to buy the loyalty of the American electorate, McCain’s stance for fiscal discipline is a tonic, and I think it might actually go over very well in fall debates. The Democrats are going to “feel our pain” and prescribe an endless series of spending initiatives to take care of all our ills - and this might have worked at other times, but right now I sense that the American people are going to tune out the promises, and tune in the man who takes a realistic approach to our finances and clearly states to the American people that there is no free lunch, and we have to get our financial house in order, and this means the government won’t be able to wave a magic wand and make everything all better. Democrats are essentially hoping that the American people are willing to fall back asleep and return them to power on the promise to not disturb the people with tricky issues of government - McCain and the GOP are promising the American people that realities will be lived up to, and desires measured against resources.
A lot of worry has been invested over the theory that smooth-talking Obama will glide past grumpy-old-man McCain - and this could end up being the case; but my bet is on the American people turning to the man who tells them the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about our finances and what we need to do to clean them up.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Republicans
8 Comments
1. DM | February 25th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Well this is interesting. This mornings new paper has an article titled “Budget Can’t Afford These Promises”. The paper states:
1.) Barack Obama – promises $4,000 credits to help pay college tuition.
2.) Hillary Clinton - backs $25 billion for home heating subsidies.
3.) John McCain – wants to not only extend President Bush’s tax cuts, but also eliminate the alternative minimum tax at a cost of about 2 trillion over 10 years.
The article then goes on to say – “Then there’s reality”.
First, how is extending the Bush’s tax cuts which are already in place and have shown significant upside not reality based?
Second, as I understand it the AMT was enacted in back in 1969 to ensure that the richest Americans were not able to avoid paying taxes. Because the AMT is not indexed for inflation, households making as little as $45,000 a year and individuals making as little as $33,750 a year would be subject to tax increases on their 2007 returns. Without law changes, this tax will continue to burden a greater percentage of middle class each and every year. There have been proposals in congress for legislative changes that would remove the ATM’s ill effects from the middle class. It appears this can be done without the of loss revenue by instituting a few fixes. For example, suggested changes would close loopholes that allow executives to accumulate large sums of tax-free investment returns by deferring their compensation to a later date. Further revenue-raising measures include delaying implementation of an expanded foreign tax credit and strengthening current laws to ensure that wealthy individuals are unable to avoid tax payment by renouncing U.S. citizenship.
These 2 items directly affect and resonate with a large portion of the voting public. They sure seem like worthy and winning campaign items.
On the other hand I’m guessing the proposals put forth by Obama and Clinton’s will impact a rather narrow group of the voting public and I’m not aware if they have also proposed ways to fund them.
This is where McCain’s knowledge and experience and should pay dividends. We shall see how this plays out when the 2 nominees debate one on one.
2. Magnum Serpentine | February 25th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Deleted - off topic.
3. Almiranta | February 25th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Oh, snakey, please do not keep insisting that “the desire of the citizens of the US (is) to have george impeached”.
That is YOUR desire, and that of your fellow BDS radicals, but even those citizens who bought into a small part of your lying smear campaign have not expressed a desire to impeach.
You, and others like you, are the reason the radical Left has no credibility. You have succeeded, through careful manipulation of news from and about Iraq, to convince some people that we either should not have gone in at all or that we should tuck our tails between our legs and scoot, but that is really the only victory you and your side have achieved. So you just INVENT other things to try to shore up your position.
And your Iraq strategy triumph is fleeting, as actual news comes out of Iraq, and as the successes unfold.
You also like to refer to the Bush tax plan as “tax CUTS” when in fact it is “tax RATE cuts”. When you constantly leave out that key word—RATES—of course it sounds as if taxes themselves have been cut, thereby misleading millions of people. An accident? I think not. Your leaders are far too intelligent to not understand the difference—but far too devious to pass up a chance to gain ground by misdirection.
I predict that as the Socialist Party candidate (still running under the identity of the Democrat Party) starts to unveil his or her agendas, which always involve getting the government deeper into our pockets and more in control of our lives, the intelligence of the average American will prevail.
Leaving you radicals on the curb, ginning up stories about election fraud and “disenfranchisement” and working on the next election cycle’s efforts to get government out of the hands of the people and into the grasp of the leftist elites.
4. jayhay | February 25th, 2008 at 11:16 am
McCain’s biggest problem now is he can’t weasel out of his legal, contractual commitment to public financing as hard as he is trying to - and he’s already spent the limit for a publicly financed campaign. Gonna be tough making it to November without access to all that lobbyist cash, and he doesn’t have a million loyal small donors. The math looks extremely bad for him, not to mention his party’s base can’t stand him. How he’ll handle rebuilding the trashed image of GOP “fiscal responsibility” is kind of moot…
5. Magnum Serpentine | February 25th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
“You also like to refer to the Bush tax plan as “tax CUTS” when in fact it is “tax RATE cuts”. When you constantly leave out that key word—RATES—of course it sounds as if taxes themselves have been cut, thereby misleading millions of people. An accident? I think not. Your leaders are far too intelligent to not understand the difference—but far too devious to pass up a chance to gain ground by misdirection.”
Where in the above post do I use this?
6. Pages tagged "john mccain&hellip | February 25th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
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7. Almiranta | February 25th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Cone on, snakey—I am clearly referring to the radical Left, the plural “you”, when I discuss radical Left tactics. I start off saying “you, and others like you”….do try to keep up. You were clever enough to specify “this post” so you know perfectly well that you—personal, singular, “you” have referred to “tax cuts” in the past.
Even conservatives, even I, use the shorthand term “tax cuts” sometimes, but when the issue is actually being discussed on its merits, we prefer the accuracy of “tax RATE cuts”. And it’s merely shorthand, not an effort to mislead.
As for McCain, I will be the first to admit that he is not my first choice as Republican candidate. Nor is he for many others.
But the hard cold fact that the Left is loathe to admit, or possibly has just not considered, is that for the vast majority of conservatives who vote Republican, it doesn’t take our best guy to be vastly superior to your candidate, no matter who it is, and therefore our guy will be getting our money.
I fought to get Mitt at the head of the pack, and there is a lot about McCain I am not happy with—but he could have many more issues with which I am not happy and still be infinitely better than the options. So I will support his candidacy, and that includes financial support.
Don’t be so quick to assume that Republicans, and conservatives who vote Republican, are the types to show how upset they are by poking themselves in the eye.
One characteristic of conservatives is pragmatism. We are not in pursuit of some quixotic fantasy of perfection. We know that as long as we are required to choose our representatives from the human gene pool, we will have to settle for some qualities that we aren’t crazy about.
So we are not going to jump ship and just hand the election over to either of the Socialist candidates in the front running for the Dems, just to make a point about not getting our own way.
If Romney supporters had been able to carry the day for Mitt, a lot of people who really preferred John or Mike would have been disappointed—but they would have supported him. For several months, John has been running against other Republicans, but now he will be running against a Democrat, and it will a very different ball game.
8. phnx | February 25th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
“McCain’s biggest problem now is he can’t weasel out of his legal, contractual commitment to public financing as hard as he is trying to - ” Jayhay
Sorry to disappoint you.
This might be true had he actually received any government funds…which he hasn’t. To have a ruling against him would require a majority vote of the FEC. The FEC is split evenly among dems and republicans so there will be no ruling against him. He will be free to raise funds.
Lagely untapped until now, the republican fund raising juggernaut is about to get into gear for the main event.
See you at the polls.