The Confused Talk Express

Read his lips. On second thought, don't bother:

McCain Backtracks From ‘No New Taxes’ Pledge, Ditches His Social Security Plan In Favor Of Bush’s, Think Progress: Two weeks ago, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) took the “Read My Lips” plunge, proclaiming ... he would not raise taxes for any reason. “No new taxes,” he declared twice in an interview with ABC News. ...

The Wall Street Journal reports today that McCain is now distancing himself from the pledge not to raise taxes, saying his statement was not a firm commitment:

Q: On ABC’s “This Week” on Feb. 17, in response to a question, “Are you a ‘read my lips’ candidate, no new taxes?” you replied, “No new taxes.” Did you mean that literally?

McCAIN: I’m not making a “read my lips” statement in that I will not raise taxes. But I’m not saying I can envision a scenario where I would, OK? ...

In the WSJ interview, McCain appeared clueless about his own Social Security plan. In 2000, he supported President Bush’s efforts to divert part of Social Security payroll taxes to fund private accounts. Asked about his current position, McCain said, “I’m totally in favor of personal savings accounts.”

On his campaign website, however, McCain offers a different plan. He proposes “supplementing” the system with personally managed accounts, which, as the Wall Street Journal observed, would not be financed by diverting Social Security payroll taxes...

McCain denied there was a change in his position. “I’ll correct any policy paper that I’ve put out that might intimate that personal savings accounts are not a very important factor.” His website, however, has still not been changed...

In light of McCain’s now-famous declaration that “the issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” conservative pundit David Frum said McCain needs to brush up his economic bona fides or will risk looking more clueless in “what may soon become a recession year.”

UPDATE: Carpetbagger adds:

He’s confused about the relationship between taxes and revenues; he’s confused about whether he thinks our economy is strong or not; and he’s confused about why interest rates even exist. And now he’s confused about his own no-new-taxes pledge, his own Social Security policy, and how he’ll pay for yet another round of reckless tax cuts.

What will McCain do when the "red phone" rings with bad new about the economy? From the WSJ:

With the U.S. economy softening, he said he might have "a couple of fireside chats with the American people because of what we see in the [consumer] confidence barometers." But he added that the most potent economic stimulus would be to assure Americans that taxes won't go up in the future and to "call for a meaningful -- and I mean meaningful -- approach to simplifying the tax code so that it's fairer and flatter."

So, he will sit by the fire, assure us everything is okay, and that will cause us to become confident and start spending more. Too bad he can't do that now.

But, McCain says his most potent weapon is to make sure we know taxes won't go up (I'm sure lots of people will be expecting that response to a recession), and to promise to lower taxes on the wealthy and/or raise taxes on the poor (making taxes flatter, and fairer by his definition, but how does that stimulate the economy out of a recession given the difference in propensities to consume?).

And what will he do if a second recession hits? He will have to promise not to raise taxes (in case we still think he might do that in a recession) and promise to make taxes flatter and fairer once again (in addition to more fireside chats of course). But promising to make taxes flatter and fairer won't work if he actually keeps his promise and makes taxes flatter and fairer the first time a recession hits (since they will already be flat and fair). And if he doesn't do like he promises the first time, why should we believe him the second time he makes the promise? Good thing he's such a straight-shooter.

Comments

[Lafayette]

Aint no free lunch

So what, if he has to raise taxes?

The US has some of the lowest tax rate regimes in the western developed world and one of the highest levels of Income Inequality (just look up its Gini Coefficient).

It also has grave deficiencies in terms of Health Care services and overall workforce skills or level of education. The latter go a long way towards determining where in the Income Inequality percentiles one is found - at the higher or lower end.

Any presidential candidate who says they will address those challenges without significantly large taxation increases and a consequent funding shift into Human Capital Investments is a liar.

Read my keystrokes ... a liar. Which likely means it aint gonna happin'. Perhaps Americans are too cheap to pay the cost of infrastructural reforms, including Health Care services and Workforce education/training?

Ya pays for what ya gets. Aint no free lunch.

[PS: What idiocy. We can pay through the nose for a useless war over in the sandbox, but we can't spend to remedy our own problems at home. Why? Because we think, stupidly, that attending to a menace from abroad is more important than curing the rot within. Tell Orwell and he'd roll over in his grave laughing. Life imitates fiction.]

[Lafayette]

McCain: But he added that the most potent economic stimulus would be to assure Americans that taxes won't go up in the future and to "call for a meaningful -- and I mean meaningful -- approach to simplifying the tax code so that it's fairer and flatter."

Which means 8 more years of Income Inequality and Do Nothing administration that assures that the rich get richer and the poor can go to hell - whilst the middle-class foots the bill.

Way to go, John!

[kharris]

I think I know what argument you mean to make, but I'm not sure you've made it. Lowering taxes is a reliable policy tool during recession only if taxes are raised again after recession. Yes? Otherwise, the rate falls so low that it becomes irrelevant to economic performance, unless it is to cut into necessary government services.

"Flatter and fairer" are probably just distractions or, as the popular expression now goes, dog-whistle politics, in the form of a pledge to cut taxes for the rich. We may have a reasonable handle on the impact of changes in various tax rates at various levels, but do we really have any strong evidence on chnages in differential tax rates?

I also suspect that concatenating "flatter" and "fairer" in this context is rather like mentioning Social Security in the same breath as Medicare over and over. It is an effort to link the notion of a flatter tax structure with fairness. That is an discussion we ought to have, rather than an assumption that we ought to swallow.

[ken melvin]

The key to economic success in America, as both Bush and McCain know, is to be born into it wealth and power. And, in case that isn't enough, marrying someone who's rich can work as well or better.

[Greg]

Don't down play fireside chats. No communication with the public means not harnessing public support for policy initiatives. Public support is crucial for big changes in policy.

Just because we're not use to having a president hold a conversation with us, doesn't mean that it isn't important for the nation to be able to do that.

[Noni Mausa]

Yes. Here's something re: fireside chats.

I was listening to a Bill Moyers interview with Susan Jacoby, author of the new book "The Age of American Unreason".

The interview may be seen or a transcript read here: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02152008/profile.html

I was too young to ever see the fireside chats. But one point Jacoby made caught my attention:

SUSAN JACOBY: ...everybody talks about who's equipped to be Commander in Chief, a word I hate, which presidents didn't used to use, from day one--

BILL MOYERS: And why do you hate it?

SUSAN JACOBY: Because the President's only the Commander in Chief of the Armed Force. He's not the commander in chief of us. And it's a word that presidents didn't use except in a strictly military sense in the past. What's far more important than being commander in chief is being educator in chief. And Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln would not have succeeded as commanders in chief if they hadn't first succeeded as teachers in chief.

To be non-partisan about it, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are two of the biggest failures as teachers in chief of any presidents we've ever had. Bush at foreign policy obviously. It's great to bring people along with you when everybody's in favor of the war as they were in 2003 'cause there was this desire to strike back at somebody, anyone, for 9/11. So Bush just said, "Oh, yeah. Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11." And people believed it. But--

BILL MOYERS: And Clinton? What about Clinton?

SUSAN JACOBY: Everything in my view that's being written about the failure of the Clinton healthcare program in relation to Hillary Clinton's candidacy is wrong. Yes, it's true. It's that failure is usually attributed to their failure to bring the insurance industry groups to the table, all of the interest groups in advance.

No. The reason that healthcare reform was dead on arrival was that the American people hadn't been educated and prepared for any kind of change. Bill Clinton just announced his plan which had been developed kind of secretly, without much public participation. The health insurance industry jumped in with its Harry and Louise commercials. Now I'll bet everybody who is listening to this tonight remembers Harry and Louise. And nobody remembers a detail of the Clinton plan, the healthcare plan. It is the job of the president to get his message out before Harry and Louise. Bill Clinton didn't do that.

Noni

[Jim Harrison]

As they used to warn you in public health ads about AIDS, when you go to bed with somebody, you're going to bed with everybody they ever went to bed with. Whatever his true beliefs on a variety of subjects, a President McCain would bring with him the same old gang. A vote for McCain is a vote, not only for Bush's policies, but for the modern Republican party and everything it stands for. McCain may be genial, but he's also contaminated.

[LJM]

Oy!

[Holly W.]

McCain: "... the most potent economic stimulus would be to assure Americans that taxes won't go up in the future ..."

Was it only a few years ago that conservatives were accusing liberals of having "no new ideas"? The constant focus on taxes, and the inability to admit that anything else is affecting American pocketbooks, is starting to sound like a broken record.

Well, here's my broken record, since I've made similar arguments before: The best economic stimulus would be to assure middle class Americans that they can count on meaningful raises in the next few years. Many of us pay so little in income taxes under the current structure that any further reductions, or even holding the level steady, will not make any difference to our standard of living. In addition, IMO, lowering taxes is a very passive way of making people feel wealthier. People feel better when they are earning their money. Raises make people feel optimistic, and ought to be good for morale.

I keep wondering whether all the focus on tax cuts has actually contributed to the stagnant median wage; after all, employers can assure themselves that workers already have more money in their pockets thanks to lower tax rates, so they don't actually need raises any more.

[pgl]

Kudlow alert - his latest National Review nitwittery is advice to John McCain. Pursue a strong dollar policy for prestige and patriotism reasons. The economic effects of this really dumb idea are addressed over at Angrybear where I suggest McCain may be dumb enough to take Kudlow's advice.

[sglover]

Of course this is all moot, because 1) The GOP has been at the helm for years, helped lay the foundations of the developing disaster, and will take the blame, and 2) McCain has so thoroughly whored himself to satisfy the Republican nutjob "base" -- and shows no sign of stopping!! -- that by November he's going to be a pathetic joke.

"Maverick" Johnny may as well claim that he'll piss crude oil and shit gold bullion, for all the difference his "promises" will ever make. A Dem sweep is inevitable.

[Andrew]

I don't mean to be impolite, but my most serious issue with McCain is that he just doesn't seem too bright. He doesn't seem to have the faculties to discriminate at all whose hand he allows up his ass to make his lips move.
Frankly, I've had enough of that after the last seven years.

[Lafayette]

A Moon Program for Social Investments

Jacoby: It is the job of the president to get his message out before Harry and Louise. Bill Clinton didn't do that

This point is well made.

A good president or leader has a knack for pedagogy. A leader leads not only by example, but by their ability to explain in clear and simple terms the what, where and why of the results they promise.

This present presidential primary is wholly indicative of the lack of any candidate to explain/defend in simple terms a vision or program that they would implement. The reasons for its perceived necessity and a commitment to results - i.e., a candidate saying clearly "I shall be judged by my results".

We do hear a great deal about "change", however. From what? To what? Where's the how and why? Where's the beef?

Kennedy was straightforward and simple when he set this country its goal to go the moon. It gave the country a well-designed purpose.

We need a Moon Program for Social Investments - simple, concise, well explained and patently obvious.