It's The Economy

by Steve Soto

Both presidential campaigns are focusing this week on the economy. Obama is spending his time linking McCain to Bush's record, which has given us record deficits and debt, a collapsing dollar and infrastructure, and an energy policy that impoverishes the country's future. But at a time when Obama slams McCain for gimmicks like the gas tax holiday, his own plan calls for another stimulus package.

McCain knows that he needs to straddle conservative orthodoxy while distancing himself from Bush personally. Stories about unhappy Stepford Cultists who are concerned that McCain talks about global warming and balanced immigration reform play right into McCain's hands. He is even running commercials taking credit for leading the GOP to confront climate change. But while emphasizing his differences with Bush, he reassures the base that he is one of them on economics by releasing an economic plan today that calls for:

*Privatizing Social Security;
*Cutting Medicare;
*More tax cuts;
*Plowing savings from troop reductions into deficit reduction;
*Cutting domestic spending significantly;
*Using a huge nuclear power expansion as a jobs program;
*Retraining laid off workers .

Of course, none of it adds up, and there is no accounting for how he plans to cut taxes and reduce domestic spending enough to eliminate the deficit by 2012. You will also note that there is no money for health reform, alternative energy development, or infrastructure in his plan, and no one should be surprised at this. The same party that has walked away from its commitment to balanced budgets will make budget balancing a reason for avoiding commitments to universal health care, fixing roads and bridges, and investing in new alternative energy that can free us from foreign domination.

The problem for Obama is that he still has no clean and short message against McCain on the economy, and instead resorts to "McCain=Bush." McCain has now laid out an agenda that is standard GOP pabulum of the last twenty years, so Obama should be able to respond with 3-4 concise and easy-to-remember soundbite rebuttals to the GOP status quo that got us into this mess.