McCain camp fires back on taxes
Posted: Thursday, August 14, 2008 4:39 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
Economy
From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy
Three McCain surrogates repeated many of the campaign’s attacks on Obama’s tax plan, including his pledge to raise taxes and his history of voting for tax increases in the Senate. The campaign criticized Obama's op-ed published today in the Wall Street Journal, saying that it is just more evidence of the Democratic candidate's "shifting" language on taxes.
There wasn’t much new information on this call, but one questioner did challenge the McCain campaign’s claim that their tax plan would be more beneficial to the middle class.
Obama’s campaign has said that their plan provides tax cuts to lower-income individuals, an assertion that the McCain campaign didn’t directly refute. In response, senior policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said that the key to John McCain’s middle-class proposals is allowing people employment opportunities, which in turn ensures that they have the opportunity to benefit from lower taxes.
“In order to pay taxes and have the opportunity to have lower taxes, you have to have a job, and John McCain’s plan is a plan which is dedicated to preserving the small businesses that have created 283,000 jobs in an economy that is struggling,” Holtz-Eakin said. “Barack Obama’s plans are plans which would damage small business in ways that are quite dramatic.”
Carly Fiorina, a McCain economic adviser and head of his Victory Fund, said that Obama’s campaign was simply being disingenuous. “Obama has also said that all of his government-mandated programs are paid for. That doesn’t make it true.”
