Jul 07 2008
John McCain’s Economic Plan
“Some economists don’t think much of my gas tax holiday. But the American people like it, and so do small business owners.” Hmmm….if the economists don’t like it (these are the people trained to know what is good or bad for the economy) but the regular people and business owners do (who only care about their bottom line) then damn the consequences and let’s get rid of that pesky tax. It isn’t as if the government needs the money or anything…oh wait. Yeah, I can’t actually believe I’m saying give more money to the government but I really don’t think the idea has merit. A few cents off from Memorial Day to Labor Day? Uhmmm, ok. How about instead you keep the tax and use that money to pay off some of America’s debt. It should be noted that in general I am opposed to taxes as I don’t like having my money taken from me but I’m actually pretty ok with taxes that are added to things I buy. We’ll get into a philosophical debate over taxes on another day for now we’ll focus on McCains ideas on the economy. On to the next point.
“We will build at least 45 new nuclear plants that will create over 700,000 good jobs to construct and operate them. “ I admit I’m not the most knowledgable person on environmental issues so if anyone wants to clear this up for me that would be great…here is my problem. He says it is better for the environment BUT what happens to the nuclear stuff after it’s made the power…believe I’ve heard the term nuclear waste mentioned. What in the name of all manner of political monkeys does everyone intend to do with the biproduct of that ‘clean’ energy? Nuclear people. Nuclear!
He also says some wonderful things about lowering taxes or at least not raising them and vetoing all the bills that he gets that have wasteful spending. Both of these are great ideas but I don’t feel like ra ra-ing today :) Incidentally, if you want to read more from his Economic Plan speech you can go here. All of the quotes above are from the referenced speech. What do you think about the points I decided to focus on? Do you think a gas tax holiday makes sense? What about nuclear plants? Yay or nay?
John McCain Photo Credit: dsb nola from Flickr, Creative Commons License
I’ve heard all this few pennies off gasoline around labor day or some other holiday before. To me it’s just indicative of some pretty retro 60’s/70’s establishment old school political thinking. Wherein the the voting public is just a bunch of uneducated low brows who will fall for any sweet teat we might toss their way just to appease whatever their current concerns might be,even thought that teat might be meaningless or merely a bandage, we can always say we did it.The 45 new nuclear plants seems pretty frightening besides from being a giant boondoggle.In the event that this plan went through where are they going to get those 700,000 people for those jobs? Work-fare and other low income jobs training programs? Foreign Labor? I don’t know much about the specifics of such a project but I would think it would entail highly specialized construction techniques that would be beyond your average recipient.Building 45 new nuclear plants around the country is the Chernobyl in your backyard plan.I say nay.