Archive for the Election 2008 Category

At least one element of the Democrats’ strategic plan to win the presidency this November is no secret: appeal to the middle class. Candidate Barack Obama is already using the tagline “middle class first” in TV ads. And as the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports, the middle class theme is consistently being stressed at the Democratic National Convention.

There’s no question that the Democrats are doing a far better job than the Republicans of sounding pro-middle class these days. But is their newfound love of the middle class “for real”? It’s a mixed bag.
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Remember the 1992 election? President Bush was sitting in the White House. A well-spoken Democrat—a fresh face on the national scene—came along and promised change from business-as-usual. He avoided the usual partisan rhetoric and said his goal was to bring us all together. He went out of his way to reach out to Middle America and, among other things, promised a middle class tax cut.

Sound familiar?

Once Bill Clinton was elected, he quickly forgot about his promise and abandoned the tax break for the middle class. Will Barack Obama do the same?
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� “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.”

—Late billionaire Leona Helmsley�

According to a study of corporate tax returns filed for the years between 1998 and 2005 issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), over 60% of U.S. corporations paid no corporate income tax at all.

For large foreign-owned corporations operating in the U.S., the number is even higher: almost 75%.

All of this is entirely above-board. After all, the government itself provided the statistics and is therefore fully aware of what is going on.
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Barack Obama’s newest TV ad ends with a powerful tagline: “Middle Class First.”

I can’t argue with that sentiment—it’s been decades since any president did anything of the sort.

Should we trust� Obama� to carry through with it? Will he really put the middle class first?
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An item posted today on the MSNBC site entitled “Who’d give more to the middle class” looks at both candidates’ records and promises regarding taxation.

On the one hand, a McCain campaign ad portrays Obama as intending to increase taxes on those earning only $42,000 as well as small business, seniors, your life savings, your family.”

But a more objective look at both candidates’ plans shows that Obama would cut taxes by 3.6% on those earning $37,595, and by 2.4% on those earning $66,354. McCain would only cut taxes on these two brackets by 0.5% and 0.7%, respectively.

Who to believe? It’s hard to tell. In any event, the primary issue for the middle class isn’t taxation. A percentage point here or there won’t change the underlying problems: outsourcing, globalization, de-industrialization, mass cheap-labor immigration. Neither of the candidates, it seems, want to address these problems head-on.