В Dear Friend and Reader,
I hope the undecided voters out there have something on their Tevo to review, because the presidential debates are now over.
Last night, at Hofstra University, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain sat on ergonomic swivel chairs at half an oval table, responding to questions from Bob Schieffer, the moderator. There were nine-minute segments, in which each candidate had a two-minute response window and a chance to talk to each other directly afterwards.
By the end of it, I was convinced that McCain looked like a cross between a tortoise, the Grinch (the way his cheeks stick out) and a pirhana (all I see from this man are his bottom teeth). But let’s get to the issues.
McCain has a $52 billion bailout bill to “save the economy,” and, if I heard him correctly, he wants to use $300 billion of that to buy home loan mortgages, because there are at least 11 million homes with bad mortgages (i.e. they can’t pay them) that average American’s need to be absolved from. In other words, once he throws in another $52 billion to the “$700” billion bailout package (reports are saying it’s going to, actually, cost trillions), he wants to take half of tax payers’ money so every American can own a home, which he says is part of the American dream. Maybe he should give us a couple of his?
Obama’s $60 billion package (also over the course of two years and on top of the $700 billion one we have already is focused on creating jobs by removing tax breaks for companies that ship their jobs overseas, and adding one to businesses who keep their jobs in the country. He also mentioned a middle-class tax cut for those making under $200,000 a year, access to our IRA accounts, “without penalty,” if we experience a financial crisis, and for the long-term: a focus on energy policy, health care and the education system.
Then Joe “I’ll never ask a politician a question again” the Plumber came in. That’s when things started to go off kilter. Over the entire debate, a reporter from CNBC stated during follow-up commentary, McCain mentioned Joe the Plumber 20 times. Apparently, JP not-Morgan wanted to buy this plumbing company he’d worked for his whole life, but couldn’t under Obama’s new tax plan, because the company grosses over $250,000 a year — unlike the majority of small businesses in the US — and so he’d be experiencing a slight tax increase. (This story was relayed by McCain in his usual frustrated, high strung, scary, i’d-slap-you-if-we-weren’t-on-national-television voice laugh.)