McCain vs. Obama

The most important reason to vote for McCain in the election is so he can serve as a check on the Congress, which will certainly be more Democratic after the election. Gridlock is often the best we can hope for by politicians who have incentives to grow government. Unfortunately an Obama administration with a supportive Congress can pass Medicare-like programs that will be nearly impossible to undo once they become enacted and gain a group of core dependents. I’m afraid the free market will be under assault if this transpires.

To me, small gov. or big gov. are tools to bring economic prosperity, and different times may require different tools. Generally, I am a believer in small gov, free market economy, but at this time, significant fiscal policy might be what’s needed. So Obama’s policy wouldn’t necessarily be terrible at this time.

In choosing a president, I think the most important thing is the way the person makes decision. There will be new challenges and information that will make both candidates’ plans obsolete in some ways, so it’s important to have a guy who’ll make the right decision. Obama seems to be a guy who likes to consult different points of view and make an unemotional decision, whereas McCain tends to go with his guts. In this sense, I am more comfortable with Obama’s decision making process.

I am amazed at McCain’s utter failure to voice a consistent normative theme about the economy other than cutting taxes and the corruption of earmarks.

Every Republican at least since Reagan has promised to cut taxes and “eliminate waste, fraud and abuse,” but the only president since then to actually balance the budget was Clinton. McCain has simply mouthed a bunch of old, empty promises. (Empty, because a dollar borrowed is a dollar plus interest that will have to be paid from taxes; they are merely deferred.)

His economic “message” is dominated by cheap shots about Obama’s offhand remark to “joe the plumber,” random shots about housing and capital gains tax rates that are irrelevant to the current economic mess, or ridiculous stunts such as his threat to call off the debate to work out the Paulson plan (despite not having read the double-spaced 3 pages nor actually getting involved with anybody outside of his campaign, being totally blindsided by his own party in the House).

The closest he came to writing worked-out proposals was his health care plan that threatens to add adverse selection problems & mutual-fund-class administrative costs atop an increased rate of uninsured low-income costs dumped on ERs. Next best was a retread of Bush’s tax cuts, favoring the wealthiest, while making it harder for low-income families to hope for better incomes. Fortunately, he dumped his earlier proposal to gut Social Security.

McCain has expressed some admirable positions over the years and is of course a war hero, but in refusing to coherently address average Americans’ economic aspirations and concerns, he seems aggressively disdainful of the electorate. He might be the better candidate for the presumably wealthier who read this blog, but why would the majority of voters put their future into his hands?