Once upon a time, there was a fiscally and socially responsible senator named John McCain. Despite his presidential ambitions, the Republican from Arizona spoke out against the economic royalism of his party’s leadership in the White House and Congress, and simply said no.
He rejected the Bush tax cuts in 2001 because they provided an unearned bonanza for America’s
wealthiest citizens while giving a pittance to the middle class and
nothing to the working poor. To him, as a long-standing enemy of waste
and profligacy, these proposals were not only unfair but also unwise.
“I
cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the
benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of
middle-class Americans who most need tax relief,” he said, joining
courageously with Lincoln Chafee, then a senator from Rhode Island, as one of two Republicans who dared to cast such a crucial vote against president and party.
Now
Chafee is no longer in the Senate, having lost re-election in 2006
after enduring a brutal primary challenge from the Republican right.
And McCain, now driven by ambition rather than principle, has changed.
He supports the tax cuts that his conscience once moved him to oppose—
and indeed, he promises to deliver even more lucrative benefits to
those who need relief least, at the expense of those who need it most.
Flip-Flop on Tax Cuts for the Wealthy
Tax
policy is rarely regarded as a character issue. It is possible to
believe that rewarding the rich should be the main purpose of the tax
code, and it is also possible to believe that taxation should advance
rather than diminish equality— and it is possible for honorable people
to argue either way. But in McCain’s case, the complete flip-flop and
implausible explanation raise disturbing questions about his integrity.
(That is particularly true of a candidate like McCain, who questioned
the character of a primary opponent, Mitt Romney, for revamping his
positions on abortion and other social issues.)
By the time
McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, he had
established a strong position against their regressive effects. That
stance marked him as a true maverick in his own party and a straight
talker who spoke for the national interest against his own personal
interests. Running against George W. Bush in the 2000 GOP primary, he
mocked the Texas governor’s “misplaced” bonanza for the affluent.
“Sixty
percent of the benefits from his tax cuts go to the wealthiest 10% of
Americans—and that’s not the kind of tax relief that Americans need,”
he said. Despite his wife’s inherited wealth, he criticized proposals
to repeal the estate tax for the same reason, noting that such
legislation “would provide massive benefits solely to the wealthiest
and highest-income taxpayers in the country.”
As the chance to
run for president again drew closer, however, McCain shifted toward
conservative orthodoxy. In 2005, he voted for cuts in capital gains
taxes that he had previously opposed, and in 2006, he voted for
essentially the same estate-tax repeal he had once denounced. And
today, his economic platform extends to the Bush tax cuts and renders
them still more regressive—and more expensive.
According to
the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the McCain proposals would render
almost one-quarter of their benefits to the top one-tenth of 1% of
taxpayers. Those are households with annual incomes that exceed $2.8
million. Families in the lower 60% of the income scale would receive 8%
of the McCain plan’s benefits. This scheme will result in the loss of
at least $4 trillion in revenue over the coming decade, as our physical
infrastructure crumbles.
Even more troubling than those
numbers, however, is the contorted rhetoric that the Republican
nominee-to-be has used to justify his policy reversal. Over the past
several months, you see, he has discovered that he never really opposed
the Bush tax cuts as unfair. He only opposed them because there weren’t
enough spending cuts to balance the revenue reductions.
At the
same time, however, he now insists that cutting taxes actually
increases federal revenues—the discredited supply-side mumbo jumbo that
he must endorse to win over his party base. But if reducing taxes
actually raises revenues, then why is he so worried about spending
cuts? Intellectual honesty was the currency of the straight talker, yet
he has squandered that great asset by pandering to the most
irresponsible ideologues. How he can bear to do this to himself is a
mystery.
2008 Creators Syndicate Inc. What’s your take? Write: editor@shepex.com or comment on this story online at www.expressmilwaukee.com.
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