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Four Things You Should Know About McCain’s Speech Yesterday

John McCain hit Pittsburgh yesterday to unveil his new economic plan.

From the Washington Post: “Sen. John McCain today offered sweeping rhetoric about the economic plight of working-class America, even as he spelled out a tax and spending agenda whose benefits are aimed squarely at spurring business and corporate growth.”

Yeah, we got that, but all his talk about tax cuts and gas tax holidays made our heads spin a bit. Luckily, the Wonk Room was there to walk us through. It helped us understand, so we thought we’d (steal it and) pass it on to you. [John McCain] [Wonk Room Analysis]

• ONE: Corporate tax cuts are still front and center. By far, the biggest and most expensive part of McCain’s tax agenda remains his $1.7 trillion tax cut for corporations. There is little evidence that taxes are hurting American competitiveness; corporate taxes are the fourth-lowest in the industrialized world as a share of the economy.
• TWO: Tax cuts blow a hole in the budget. McCain’s tax cuts now total approximately $285 billion a year (in addition to the cost of making the Bush tax cuts permanent). But McCain’s proposals to pay for these tax cuts fall $150 billion short, even in the extremely unlikely event that he can achieve these savings.
• THREE: The gas tax break is temporary. Unlike McCain’s corporate tax cuts, the gas tax rebate would apply only in 2008 – before McCain could be president and implement these ideas. While offering some help to drivers, it would drain $11 billion from job-creating investments in infrastructure and transit. A better approach would replace those revenues by repealing special tax breaks for oil companies.
• FOUR: Deliver most of its benefit to the top. Before today, McCain was running on an extremely regressive tax agenda that delivered 58 percent of its benefits to the top one percent of taxpayers and only nine percent to the bottom 80 percent. Doubling the dependent exemption – while not as regressive as McCain’s earlier plan – still gives less to regular families than to high-income families in higher tax brackets

Interesting, huh? And that’s just their quick explainer – for even more analysis, go here. Now don’t you feel smarter?

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