McCain Advisor Holtz-Eakin: ‘The Main Street Guys Are Hanging In There’
McCain Advisor Holtz-Eakin: ‘The Main Street Guys Are Hanging In There’
It seems McCain’s economic concerns extend only as far as Wall Street. Today in the Politico, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain’s senior policy adviser, admitted that “in McCain’s world…the Main Street guys are hanging in there“:
In McCain’s world, Holtz-Eakin said it seems ‘the Main Street guys are hanging in there. The Wall Street guys are in a world of hurt…The concern is how to keep the travails in the financial sector from spilling over and hurting Main Street,’ he concluded.
This is what the McCain campaign must consider “hanging in there.” Since 2000:
–The average family income is down $962, after inflation
–The cost of an average family health plan is up almost $6,000, from $6,300 to $12,100 a year
–Higher gas prices cost families $1000 more a year. The price of a gallon of gas has gone from $1.50 to an all-time high of $4.10.
The American economy has lost 438,000 jobs so far this year alone. Today, there are 1.6 million people who have been unemployed for six months or longer.
Maybe his concern for “the Wall Street Guys” explains McCain’s $175 billion tax cut for corporations in which 59% of the benefits flow to the richest 1% of Americans and $44 billion goes directly to the Fortune 200. After all, they’re in “a world of hurt.”
2 Responses to “McCain Advisor Holtz-Eakin: ‘The Main Street Guys Are Hanging In There’”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Wonk RoomContact Us
Donate
Anecdotally at least I tend to agree with McCain on this one, but for completely different reasons. When someone on wall street loses 10%, 20% even 50% of their ‘worth’ they think it’s the end of the world, that nothing could possibly be worse. However the guy on main street keeps plugging along, doing what he needs to do.
When times are good many on Wall Street probably made money in spite of themselves, rather than because they deserved it, like many farmers who have over-farmed their land, or hunters that have over-hunted, these amateurs on wall street have over-utilized even abused Main Street, and the good times subsequently have ended. Now that the good times are over they are in a world of hurt, mainly because they are unwilling or unable to change themselves, their habits or their lifestyles.
By it’s nature Main Street will likely always survive, Wall Street might not, and certainly won’t if Main Street doesn’t recover.
-MBirchmeier
July 18th, 2008 at 11:05 amWhile I acknowledge that merits of this most far-reaching, fundamentally unfounded attack on Senator McCain, there are two reasons that your argument is rather weak. First, it is rather convenient to, in isolation, pick and choose words stated by a McCain adviser and subsequently state them to be indicative of the candidates’ cohesive economic policy. Regardless of whether one may agree or disagree with responses to current economic hardships McCain has proposed throughout the election season (repealing the gasoline tax, for one), it would certainly be difficult to argue that the senator is obstinately showing disregard for the financial state of the largest group of American voters.
Secondly, if I may, I choose to offer a different interpretation of “hanging in there.” Recent sentiment has pointed to the United States entering a severe, depression-esque economic crises that threatens to critically alter the way in which the vast majority of Americans live. Yet, such statements by Holtz-Eakin, as well as Phil Gramm, point to the somewhat conflicting notion that there is indeed a possibility that this crisis may not be as bad as once posited. In fact, US consumer spending, while declining, has stayed more buoyant than many previously predicted. Such evidence would point to the fact that many Americans, while by no means prospering financially, are indeed, “hanging in there.”
Finally, the microscopic particles of substance contained in the former part of your article were severely discredited by your ending argument relating to corporate taxes. Your logic stating that a corporate tax cut (which, by the way, has been hinted at by Senator Obama) would solely benefit the richest 1% of Americans is so asinine that I am having trouble deciding where to begin my rebuttal. Firstly, corporations are largely owned not just by the richest Americans, but by the vast majority of the US population. Roughly 59% of Americans own stock, and of that number 75% make under $100,000/year. Moreover, America has been put at a significant competitive disadvantage by imposing corporate taxes that are the 2nd highest in the developed world. This encourages companies ti set up there headquarters elsewhere, thus decreasing the rate of domestic job creation for American citizens.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:18 pm