As we get closer and closer to November, the presidential candidates are continuing to make headlines. Especially when it comes to their economic views. Please enjoy the following excepts from recent coverage, and click the respective titles to read the full articles.
Obama missing chance to campaign as a tax cutter – Few people know that they'd get more under Democrats
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama is trying to avoid two traps that have doomed previous Democrats: Being seen as a "tax-and-spend liberal" who is soft on national security. He's making progress on one trap, but not the other.
Obama's silence on taxes is a bit puzzling, because independent analyses of his plan compared with Sen. John McCain's well-advertised tax cuts show that the vast majority of Americans would be better off under Obama than McCain.
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).
McCain and Obama on Tax Reform
Hardly anyone disagrees with this statement: The nation's tax system is a mess. The U.S. tax code is riddled with far too many deductions, credits, exemptions, exclusions, phase-ins, and phase-outs. Nobel laureate Milton Friedman noted half a century ago that constant changes in the tax code discourage long-term planning by households and businesses. He was right, but that has not stopped Democrats and Republicans from tinkering with taxes ever since the income tax was imposed in 1913.
Perhaps it is the safest forecast in politics and economics that history will repeat itself when it comes to the tax code. It's going to get even more complex next year, since both Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama are proposing major tax initiatives.
For instance, among his proposals, McCain wants to make the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent (with the exception of the estate tax repeal), phase in a two-thirds increase in the dependent exemption, and offer a voluntary alternative tax with two rates and a larger standard deduction and exemption.
McCain will repeal the AMT. Wait, no ...
...not exactly. The presidential candidate has been saying he would eliminate the so-called "wealth tax" that threatens the non-wealthy. But now he supports a more modified plan.
Sen. John McCain's pledge to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax has morphed into a promise to phase it out.
Translation: More than 4 million households would continue to pay the so-called "wealth tax" under his proposal during his term if elected. And the tax likely would remain on the books long after the presumptive Republican nominee left office.
But McCain's amended AMT policy would still end up protecting most of the folks who would be unfairly trapped by the tax, which otherwise would raise a ton of revenue from middle- and upper-middle-income families instead of the wealthy, for whom the tax was initially intended.
Obama tax plan too big a burden on rich, some say
Though the Illinois senator's plan would pump billions of dollars into the system, it also would fundamentally change how the program is funded. Many economists said the economy would be hurt by sending some rich folks' overall tax burden soaring past 60%, which one analyst said Obama's proposal would do.
His plan would work like this: Those who earn $102,000 annually or less, a figure that's adjusted each year for inflation, would continue to pay the 6.2% Social Security tax, while their employers also paid 6.2%.
Obama asks donors to help Clinton pay off debt
Sen. Barack Obama has asked top contributors to help former rival Sen. Hillary Clinton retire the debt from her failed presidential campaign, an Obama campaign source said. Obama and Clinton ran a protracted race for the Democratic presidential nomination that left Clinton with a campaign debt of more than $22 million when she bowed out this month.
About $12 million of that amount is money the senator from New York loaned to the campaign herself. Obama asked members of his National Finance Committee to contribute to Clinton's campaign if they were so inclined, but he did not direct them to do so, the Obama campaign source said Tuesday
Obama Jabs at McCain Tax Cuts
Sen. Barack Obama told a crowd of predominately white, middle class voters today that his tax plan will provide three times more relief than Sen. John McCain’s proposed cuts. He charged McCain with only helping the wealthiest families, saying that his tax cuts will only go to households earning more than $2.8 million a year.
“Now, I don’t want to embarrass anybody but how many people here make more than $2.8 million a year,” Obama asked the audience here, “If you’re there, I want to know you because we’re still fundraising!”