Opinion: John McCain's Campaign Message to Average Americans

Sarah Palin and John McCain are out campaigning as hard as they can to make up ground and, if they can, overtake Barack Obama. They have been hammering away on tax issues, calling Barack Obama names like socialist and “Barack the wealth spreader,” as reported by CNN News. The Boston Globe quotes John McCain’s campaign speeches with the following:

“When a politician tells you he’s going to cut income taxes for 95 percent of all Americans, it’s reasonable to wonder how he’s going to do that for the 40 percent who pay no income taxes at all. Right now, tens of millions of Americans have an income tax bill of zero. How’s Barack Obama going to reduce the number zero?

Well that’s the key to his whole plan: since you can’t reduce income taxes on those who pay zero, the government will write them all checks called a tax credit.”

What McCain Wants You to Know So that’s how John McCain and his campaign hope to appeal to the lower income voter? If I may take the liberty to paraphrase, “my opponent wants to send you money taken from the rich Wall Street bureaucrats who caused this economic mess.” Hmm. How’s that message working for you, John? Maybe if there had been some spreading of the wealth from Wall Street to Main Street, there wouldn’t be such a big mortgage foreclosure mess right now. What We've Already Tried Will Work Differently This Time? We’ve tried John McCain’s plan of supporting big business and hoping they share their profits with the American worker instead of shipping jobs overseas and pocketing the difference for the last eight years. It’s worked very well for John McCain’s wife and others with multimillion dollar investment funds and seven houses, but it hasn’t worked for the rest of America. If we try the same thing for another four years, though, maybe the outcome will be different. Maybe this time, the executives of those companies will say they don’t need to make tens of millions in bonuses every year even if the company loses money. Maybe this time, that money will go into raises for American workers, instead of paying reduced rates to outsource those jobs to overseas workers. Maybe the banks and credit card companies will take those corporate tax cuts that John McCain is promising and reduce their credit card interest rates to single digit numbers for people of average income. Maybe they just needed a few more years of record-breaking profits and tax cuts paid for by middle income Americans in order to get around to those items on their to do lists. Or Is It Time to Try Something Different? Or maybe it’s time for middle income Americans to get some of their tax dollars back from big business; maybe the economy will be stronger if we build it from the bottom up, by keeping money in the pockets of the American family. Maybe the economy will be stronger if it’s built on a foundation of working to keep jobs in the United States so people can afford to pay for the things they want with American dollars instead of urging people to buy what they want on credit offered at ruinous terms. Maybe it is time to spread some of that wealth that the government has helped gather up and place in the pockets of the Republican elite, and place it into the pockets of middle income Republicans and Democrats alike who have worked to build this country from the ground up. Please Listen to John McCain's Message John McCain and Sarah Palin want you, the average American, to know that if Barack Obama is elected, your taxes will be reduced, and if you make so little that you don’t have enough income to be taxed today, the government will provide a little hand up to help get you back on your feet. Then it’s your choice to decide if you want to share the wealth with the big businesses by buying their products with the tax money you save. That’s a pretty clear message from the McCain camp to the American public, but are you listening?