Shhhh! McCain will raise taxes too-McCain Aide Admits

[RamboLiberal]

It seems that Douglas Holtz-Eakin, John McCain's chief economic advisor, has exposed yet another hole in the Straight Talk Express. Time's Joe Klein reports that in a forthcoming book by Fortune columnist Matt Miller, Holtz-Eakin admits that the next president will have to raise taxes. "If you do nothing on the spending side, you're going to have to raise taxes whether you're a Republican, a Democrat or a Martian," Holtz-Eakin tells Miller.

So why does McCain keep voicing his opposition to tax hikes, and hitting Barack Obama for supposedly wanting them? Holtz-Eakin had an idea about that too. When Miller asked him why Republicans continue to push tax cuts, Holtz-Eakin replied, "It's the brand ... and you don't dilute the brand."

Holtz-Eakin has also previously acknowledged, to Time's Michael Scherer, that Obama's tax plan will lower taxes over 10 years.

So perhaps Holtz-Eakin should sit down with McCain himself as well, because the candidate seems to disagree with his chief economic advisor on these two points -- at least publicly. In his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, McCain said, "I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them ... My tax cuts will create jobs. His tax increases will eliminate them."

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/09/12/mccain_taxes/

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Director of the Congressional Budget Office and current chief McCain economic advisor, is an honest man--which means he's something of a liability on the Straight Talk Express. A few months ago, he admitted to my colleague, Michael Scherer, that Barack Obama's economic plan would reduce taxes for most people. And now, in a forthcoming book by Fortune columnist Matt Miller, he makes it clear that the next President is going to have to raise taxes.

"If you do nothing on the spending side, you're going to have to raise taxes whether you're a Republican, a Democrat or a Martian," he tells Miller...and then he immediately makes it clear that the "spending side" part of the argument is nothing more than a political fig-leaf.

"It's arithmetic." Federal revenue today is 18.8 percent of GDP and federal spending is 20 percent. Holtz-Eakin observes that "the pressure are there" to lift spending and taxes to 23 or 24 percent of GDP by around 2020, and to as much as 27 percent if health costs remain out of control. Miller does the arithmetic: that's an annual tax hike of $550 to $700 billion, well beyond the range of any spending cuts that McCain has or might propose. (Those vaunted earmarks cost about $20 billion per year.)

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/09/the_mccain_tax_increasescontin.html

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. read my lips!