Trailhead: A campaign blog.

PRINTDISCUSS

• « Prev | Main | Next »

  
  

  Obama Finds McCain’s Soft Spot …

  … And goes for it.

  On a day when McCain is highlighting his own ethical cleanliness by trying to abolish earmarks for a year, Obama dings McCain for perhaps his most egregious policy reversal: Bush’s tax cuts.

  The logic of why he first voted against the tax cuts, then supported making them permanent, is contorted at best. Jonathan Chait summed it up most pithily:

  McCain explained that his position was perfectly consistent because, while he may have opposed the tax cuts in the first place, letting them expire would amount to a tax hike; and, he said, "I've never voted for a tax increase in twenty-four years . . . and I will never vote for a tax increase, nor support a tax increase." In fact, McCain had proposed a tobacco tax increase in 1998. Nor would his position have made sense anyway. (Some economists favor higher tax rates and others prefer lower tax rates, but none would oppose a tax cut and then oppose its repeal simply because it had already been enacted.)

  Now McCain says he thinks the tax cuts are necessary to support a flagging economy. But Obama has an easy retort: How would you know? McCain himself admitted that he knows “a lot less about economics than … about military and foreign policy issues.” The flip-flop/confession combo is likely to be one of the strongest weapons against McCain in the general. No surprise Obama wanted to be seen as the first one to use it.

  Published Thursday, March 13, 2008 3:51 PM by Christopher Beam
  Email jcbeam@gmail.com

  Filed under: Barack Obama, John McCain, Taxes

About Christopher Beam

• Christopher Beam is a Slate political reporter.