McCain Unplugged

Although their positions on issues may look indistinct to many voters right now, policy analysts are finding key distinctions between the two major political parties’ presidential candidates this year—Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

“McCain is what we designate a career free trader,” Cato trade policy analyst Sallie James said. “In the last 15 or so years in the Senate, he has voted against trade barriers 88 percent of the time and against subsidies 80 percent of the time.”

At the July 15th forum at Cato, a libertarian think tank, James observed a much different response from Sen. Obama with regard to issues of trade.

“Obama has a shorter record than McCain obviously,” James said. “Since joining the Senate in 2005, Sen. Obama has voted in a free trade direction only four times out of 11 opportunities…he has rarely voted to reduce trade barriers.”

This voting record doesn’t seem consistent with a statement taken directly from Obama’s web site which, as James noted, clearly states that Obama “believes that trade with foreign nations should strengthen the American economy and create more American jobs.”

Dan Mitchell, a Senior Fellow and tax expert at the Cato Institute, noted that Sen. Obama has sponsored $334 billion of new spending, as opposed to McCain, who sponsored $68.5 billion of new spending.

“With Sen. Obama, I’m afraid it’s not a pretty picture,” Mitchell said, referring to the Senator’s plan to let the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire. “It’s going to mean higher tax rates on income, it’s going to mean higher tax rates on dividends and it’s going to mean higher tax rates on capital gains.”

Mitchell is also concerned about Obama’s proposal to extend the 12.4% payroll tax to those with an annual income of over $250,000.

“You are talking about a huge marginal tax increase on work,” Mitchell said. “Globalization is a reality, and if you are deliberately adding shackles to American taxpayers who are trying to compete in global markets you are going to simply make it that much more difficult for America to prosper.”

Christian Weller of the Center for American Progress served as the final speaker on the panel, expressing his deep concern for the state of the economy. Weller noted that there are several potential solutions to the problems our economy now faces, but he believes that only one will work: faster productivity growth.

“We have run the economy on massive amounts of debt,” Weller said. “The problem here is that, for the last seven years, we have an abysmal record when it comes to investment and innovation. The goals are clear: We need to focus on innovation…we need to get productivity growth back on track.”

Audra Taylor is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.