McCainomics vs Obamanomics: Which one will get America back on track?

I watched News Hour with Gwen Ifill last Tuesday because she discussed the differences between the McCain economic plan and the Obama economic plan with the campaign advisers of the respective candidates. The interesting thing was that I supported both plans at different points in the debate. However, McCain's plan seemed to prevail in the end.

Barack Obama supports an oil windfall profit tax. The senate recently blocked a bill that included legislation that would increase windfall profit taxes on oil companies. On the surface, an oil windfall profit tax certainly seems reasonable. This would allegedly prevent price gouging like oil companies having been doing for at least the past 4 years. The question is: Would it work? Raymond J Learsy of the Huffington Post seems to think it's the right plan, but it uses the wrong language. Raymond suggests that it should be called the Cartel Profits Tax. He has a good point. OPEC certainly seems to fit the description. However, it is obvious that senate Republicans objected to the bill. They argue that imposing such a tax would not provide "relief at the pump". In light of that rejection, Democrats plan to work on a new bill that will increase oversight of trading by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Democrats also propose regulating U.S.-based transactions on the Intercontinental Exchange in London and imposing rules on the London exchange's American parent Intercontinental Exchange Inc., which is based in Atlanta. Only time will tell how Republicans will react to this new legislation when it is introduced.

Here's a word that makes many people cringe: Taxes. Barack Obama says that he wants to raise taxes for the richest 2% of the population. John McCain thinks that is a horrible idea and wants to lower the corporate tax rate. As I see it, there is a subtle difference here that one has to be careful not to overlook. The difference, as I understand it, is that Barack wants to increase taxes on individuals who make more than $250,000 per year; however, McCain wants to decrease taxes on corporations. While it is true that many people who make over $250,000 per year own corporations, individual and corporate tax returns are separate entities. Barack says that lowering taxes will be giving a huge tax break to companies like Exxon. That may be true, but McCain says that our high corporate tax rate prevents us from being competitive on the world market. I can also see truth in that statement. McCain also says that he wants to cut "pork-barrel" spending and declare Washington DC a "no earmark zone". In addition, he wants to put a freeze on non-defense discretionary spending for one year and conduct a complete top-to-bottom review of the federal government. Barack Obama calls this "Bush-onomics on steroids". I disagree. I think it's about time government spending was evaluated. The last time there was a real evaluation on government spending was when Clinton was president. The outcome of the evaluation was that we had the first surplus in decades!

Back to gas tax for a moment . . . McCain, like Hillary, suggests a gas tax holiday. Barack thinks this is a gimmick and would rather send out a second stimulus rebate as a short term solution. Honestly, I don't think either idea is good. A gas tax holiday wouldn't work because it would just give Big Oil a larger profit margin. A second stimulus rebate wouldn't work because the first one didn't work. I don't know about anybody else, but the rebate that my family will receive is just enough to make one mortgage payment. While that is helpful to a very small degree, it's not near enough to encourage us to spend money on things we do not need. Therefore, a second rebate, unless it is 3 or 4 times the amount of the first, still won't be very helpful. A family vacation, something that many people desire, can hardly be paid for by that tiny rebate by time you take transportation (air fare, rental car), hotel expenses, food, and attraction costs into account.

In summary, although both have some good ideas, I like some of McCain's ideas more than Barack's. Does that say that McCain has got my vote? No. We still have 4.5 months until election day. A lot can happen in that time. That said, both are going to have to do quite a bit of convincing in order to earn my vote.