Obama Slams McCain On Economy

Jump-starting his two-week whistlestop tour on the economy, Obama took McCain/Bush to the woodshed:

Senator Barack Obama, with the Democratic stage to himself for the first time, began a two-week assault on Senator John McCain’s economic policies in a series of battleground states on Monday, moving to focus on the ailing economy as the central theme of the general election campaign.

In his most pointed and sustained attack on Mr. McCain’s economic agenda, Mr. Obama said that a McCain presidency would be a continuation of President Bush’s faltering economic policies. And he highlighted his own proposals to aid economically beleaguered Americans: tax cuts for middle-income families and retirees, a $50 billion economic stimulus package, expansion of unemployment benefits, and relief for homeowners facing foreclosure....

Here's a link to the full text of the speech. A few choice excerpts:

But when it comes to the economy, John McCain and I have a fundamentally different vision of where to take the country. Because for all his talk of independence, the centerpiece of his economic plan amounts to a full-throated endorsement of George Bush’s policies. He says we’ve made “great progress” in our economy these past eight years. He calls himself a fiscal conservative and on the campaign trail he’s passionate critic of government spending, and yet he has no problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for big corporations and a permanent occupation of Iraq – policies that have left our children with a mountain of debt.

George Bush’s policies have taken us from a projected $5.6 trillion dollar surplus at the end of the Clinton Administration to massive deficits and nearly four trillion dollars in new debt today. We were promised a fiscal conservative. Instead, we got the most fiscally irresponsible administration in history. And now John McCain wants to give us another. Well we’ve been there once, and we’re not going back. It’s time to move this country forward....

John McCain takes great pride in saying that he’s a fiscal conservative, and he’s already signaled that he will try to define me with the same old tax-and-spend label that his side has been throwing around for decades. But let’s look at the facts.

John McCain once said that he couldn’t vote for the Bush tax breaks in good conscience because they were too skewed to the wealthiest Americans. Later, he said it was irresponsible to cut taxes during a time of war because we simply couldn’t afford them. Well, nothing’s changed about the war, but something’s certainly changed about John McCain, because these same Bush tax cuts are now his central economic policy. Not only that, but he is now calling for a new round of tax giveaways that are twice as expensive as the original Bush plan and nearly twice as regressive. His policy will spend nearly $2 trillion on tax breaks for corporations, including $1.2 billion for Exxon alone, a company that just recorded the highest profits in history.

Think about that. At a time when we’re fighting two wars, when millions of Americans can’t afford their medical bills or their tuition bills, when we’re paying more than $4 a gallon for gas, the man who rails against government spending wants to spend $1.2 billion on a tax break for Exxon Mobil. That isn’t just irresponsible. It’s outrageous.

If John McCain’s policies were implemented, they would add $5.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. That isn’t fiscal conservatism, that’s what George Bush has done over the last eight years.

Check out McCain's weak response:

McCain: “Senator Obama says that I’m running for a Bush’s third term. Seems to me he’s running for Jimmy Carter’s second.

Jimmy Carter has been out of office for what, thirty years? So McCain once again demonstrates his age by making attacks that only resonate with the 50+ crowd.

Jimmy Carter obviously wasn't a perfect president, but he inherited a terrible economy from Nixon/Ford and had to take serious measures (including higher interest rates) to get the country on track. But Carter was also quite ahead of the curve regarding the coming energy crisis, and he made a strong push to increase fuel efficiency in our vehicles. Maybe if Ronald Reagan hadn't rescinded those fuel efficiency standards, we wouldn't be in the crisis we are today.

But let's get real here. This election, more than anything, will be a referendum on George W. Bush and his policies. Trying to bring up Carter will not change the dynamics of the race, it will only make Old Man McCain look, well, old.

I've long believed that no Republican, not even John McCain, can win this election in this environment. If McCain slams Bush, he alienates Republicans. If he praises Bush (as he is doing) he will alienate the 70% of the country that thinks Bush is a total failure. McCain's only chance is that Obama somehow drops the ball, and so far it just doesn't look like that will happen.