As Barack Obama waxed on about the economy before 35,000 cheering fans in Indianapolis, Ind., Thursday, John McCain surrogates were on the phone with reporters warning direly that Obama’s tax plan will help torpedo Social Security by giving Americans credit for their payroll tax liability.
Former U.S. Sen. Dan Coats and Doug Holtz-Eakin, the senior policy adviser for the McCain-Palin camp, said during a telephone news conference that Obama’s plan to relieve Americans of payroll taxes would “rob Social Security indirectly,” because payroll taxes finance Social Security, as well as Medicare.
Meanwhile, at the sprawling American Legion Mall in Indianapolis, the Democratic nominee for president was telling his faithful that the Republican candidate won’t take the steps necessary to revive the nation’s economy. He accused McCain of proposing a tax policy that would reward companies for moving jobs overseas.
McCain has endorsed an economic philosophy of “Wall Street first and Main Street last,” Obama said. “That’s fundamentally wrong.”
Obama touted his own tax plan, which he promised would provide tax cuts to 95 percent of working Americans.
But Coats and Holtz-Eakin argued the opposite.
“The rhetoric and record of Barack Obama clearly supports higher taxes and more spending,” warned Coats.
“At a time of financial crisis that we’re all going through right now, the idea of raising taxes is counter to what virtually every economist who has ever written, or studied, or analyzed the situation would recommend,” Coats said. “You don’t raise taxes in a fiscal downturn.”
For his part, Holtz-Eakin explained that the impact of raising taxes hurts small businesses first — and these hard-working folks generate “80 to 90 percent of new jobs in America.”
Coats explained that another one of the main differences between the McCain-Palin campaign and the Obama-Biden campaign is that McCain supports the use of coal in the Midwest, where there are abundant coal resources and new clean coal technologies.
Holtz-Eakin characterized the Obama plan as simply an attempt to “spread the wealth” and said it is not affordable, given the slowing economy.
“When they find out his real agenda,” Holtz-Eakin said, the polls “will firm up.”
Meanwhile, Obama contended at his mall rally that Republican proposals to give tax cuts to wealthy Americans and corporations, in hopes that the benefits would trickle down to the working class, haven’t worked.
“It’s time to grow this economy from the bottom up,” he said.
But Holtz-Eakin countered that Obama’s tax plan would devastate small businesses.
Also during the news conference, Coats talked up the role of McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, saying, “When you look back at who is making the biggest impact on Indiana — Barack Obama or Sarah Palin — I think Sarah Palin wins.”
McCain hasn’t been in the Hoosier State since July but is running ads there now. Palin was making her second campaign appearance in Indiana Friday at a rally in Fort Wayne. She was in Indianapolis a week ago, addressing more than 20,000 supporters at an outdoor concert venue in Hamilton County.
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