RARE FIND! - SF Chon Article That Compares Obama and McCain's Economic Policies! Real Issues!

[Median Democrat]

I know that this is the great taboo of the mainstream media to actually discuss issues and compare their economic policies to those of George Bush. However, I did find this one article on the subject. I guess this break from the great economic discussion taboo is due to the fact that this article appeared in a San Francisco newspaper. The article has a great table and comparison, though I would have appreciated a more thorough dicussion of how their proposals compare to those of George Bush.

However, good luck finding a similar discussion elsewhere:

Comparing the candidates' economic remedies

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/15/MNRI12RK2N.DTL

/snip

Rising unemployment, falling real incomes and resurgent inflation are exacting a tremendous toll, putting the economic security of tens of millions of Americans at risk. The disparity of wealth and income between those at the top of the economic scale and everyone else is greater than at any time in decades. And the next president will take office in the teeth of the worst housing crash since the Great Depression.

The two major-party candidates offer sharply varying prescriptions for how to stabilize housing, fix the economy and put the standard of living for working people and the middle-class once again on a rising path. The differences between Obama and McCain are deep-seated, both in their philosophies and their likely policies.

Voters will have a choice between the two dominant economic philosophies that have defined American politics for decades, represented by Democrats and Republicans. For all the focus on personalities, Obama and McCain are not unique. When it comes to economic policy, both are firmly rooted in the main current of their parties.

McCain hews to the Reaganite philosophy that the free market works best to manage the economy. He believes that economic growth cures most ills, benefiting rich, poor and middle class alike. Government should promote growth by cutting taxes across the board and getting out of the way of business. He seems more genuinely committed to small government than the Bush administration and recent Republican majorities in Congress, which stuck to the party's program on taxes, but didn't follow through on spending.

Obama is guided by the notion that growth alone doesn't automatically provide people health care, help them pay for college or offer them training for 21st century jobs. Government should use its powers of taxing, spending and regulating to reduce inequality and benefit people at the bottom and middle of the income spectrum. He would cut taxes for most households, but raise them for those with the highest incomes.

* * *

Both candidates promise to slash the deficit or even bring the budget back to balance during his term in the White House. Independent experts scoff.

"Both will simply dig the fiscal hole deeper and put us more into hock to foreigners," Sawhill said. "McCain's proposals are even less fiscally responsible than Obama's."

The Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, calculates that Obama's tax cuts would reduce revenues by a total of $5.4 trillion from 2009 to 2018. McCain tax plans would dig a deeper $7.4 trillion hole based on policy documents provided by his campaign and reach a staggering $11 trillion if the candidate's promises made in stump speeches are taken at face value.

Goolsbee counters that Obama would trim the deficit by ending the Iraq war and removing subsidies now going to Medicare and student loan providers, among other steps. McCain would rely on economic growth and unspecified spending cuts to eliminate the deficit, Holtz-Eakin said.

/snip

The article is actually fairly generous to McCain, since it assumes that McCain will follow-through on his promises to cut spending.

[jakem]

1. dont go dragging your issues around here. we have a campaign to run!

;)

kick.

[Median Democrat]

3. The MSM Taboo - A Substantive Discussion Of Issues

There are actual differences between the candidates, which Obama talks about everyday. In contrast, John McCain rare discusses such differences except to accuse Obama of raising taxes for everyone. Now, if we had a real diverse and independent media, McCain would be getting shredded over the fact that his policies are just a continuation of George Bush's. Instead, it is like finding a needle in a haystack to find a substantive discussion of the differences between the candidates.

[yurbud]

2. GOP economic policy: deregulate, steal, move to Aruba

[Median Democrat]

6. Bump! Rare Discussion Of The Issues and The Candidates!

If anyone finds anything similar besides the usual spin and garbage, please post!

[LooseWilly]

4. Kick

[Median Democrat]

5. "GOP policies come home to roost in Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae bailout"

It seems like the San Francisco Chronicle is the only newspaper out there that is actually discussing issues and the relevance of the election to these issues. The rest of the MSM seems focused on lipstick.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/09/ED7R12R6CA.DTL

/snip

The mortgage swaps distancing the originator of the loan from the ultimate collector were only made legal as a result of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that former Texas Republican Sen. Phil Gramm pushed through Congress just hours before the 2000 Christmas recess. Gramm, until recently co-chair of the McCain campaign, also had co-authored the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that became law in 1999, with President Bill Clinton's signature. That gem, which Gramm had pushed for years with massive financial industry lobbying, destroyed the Depression-era barrier to the merger of stockbrokers, banks and insurance companies. Those two acts effectively ended significant regulation of the financial community, and no wonder we have witnessed an even more rapid and severe meltdown in housing values than during the Great Depression.

Not surprisingly, Gramm was rewarded for his service upon retirement as head of the Senate banking committee with a top position at the Swiss-based UBS bank, which is close to drowning in the subprime mortgage nightmare he helped create. These folks have no shame, as was evidenced when the senator's wife, Wendy, was named a director of Enron, whose roiling of the energy market had only been made possible through yet another provision of the senator's Commodity Futures Modernization Act.

While neophyte Palin can claim ignorance of such matters, that will be particularly difficult for McCain, who as a senator consistently lined up with Gramm in his deregulation crusade. Clearly McCain had not learned much from his previous involvement with the savings-and-loan debacle about the risks to consumers in unregulated banking.

McCain served as chair of Gramm's abortive 1996 presidential campaign and Gramm returned the favor providing critical support for McCain with the hard-line Republican base, including the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. It was assumed in the business press that Gramm was the front-runner to be Treasury secretary in a future McCain administration. Gramm only left his visible role as the top economic person near McCain after an embarrassing statement blaming the current downturn on "whiners," an awkward reference to the victims of his disastrous legislation.

/snip