There’s More to the Economy Than Taxes
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 by RLRFrom TruthDig
By Marie Cocco
When the next president takes office six months from now, it will be both too late and too early to do anything very substantial about the economy.
Too late, because the mortgage, banking and energy crises have been so long in the making and their tentacles reach in so many directions that their stranglehold on Americans’ well-being may have only begun to be felt. The first real chance for the new president to make a seismic shift in economic direction isn’t apt to be in 2009. It’s more likely to be in 2010.
That is when the Bush tax cuts—essentially, the only economic policy the current president has deliberately put in place during his two terms in office—are set to expire. And that is when future President John McCain or future President Barack Obama must decide if he is going to be a caretaker of conventional wisdom or a creative leader who at last breaks the psychology of using tax policy as a substitute for a broader, bolder economic plan.
Using taxes as the centerpiece of—or as a substitute for—a more comprehensive economic policy is the idea that has dominated Washington since the rise of Reaganism nearly three decades ago. McCain at first seemed to have shaken it off when he initially opposed the Bush cuts as too costly and misguided. But then he reverted to me-too-ism in order to please conservative Republicans whose support he needed to grasp his party’s nomination.
Obama has shown a milder orthodoxy, but it is orthodox nonetheless. As Bill Clinton did, he would use the tax code to encourage endeavors he finds worthy, whether it’s getting more low- and middle-income people who do not itemize their taxes to be able to deduct their mortgage interest or helping students attend college. He embraces tax cuts for everyone he considers to be middle class, but generally defines the middle as those who make up to $250,000.
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