McCain Should Have Challenged Obama More
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Debates, McCainThe Wall Street Journal nails why John McCain lost last night’s debate. He failed to challenge Barack Obama on substantive matters.
One of Mr. Obama’s gifts is his ability to glide over contradictions with the greatest of ease. He spent minutes explaining that we spend “$10 billion a month” in Iraq that should be spent here in the U.S. But a short time later he was promoting what sounded like a surge in Afghanistan, and vowing to spend even more money to assist “the economies” of Eastern Europe. He also proposes to provide free health care while claiming he’d cut more spending from the overall budget than his new ideas would cost. If Mr. McCain lets that last claim go unrebutted, he deserves to lose.
Obama has managed to get away with proposing a ridiculous amount of expensive initiatives without McCain or Sarah Palin doing much to point out the potentially disastrous budget implications of those plans. Didn’t we just suffer through 8 years of reckless spending? Just because we switch from Republican-backed squandering to Democratic-backed squandering, doesn’t mean we’re making positive change. McCain should have been all over this. But he let Obama slide.
That’s unfortunate. This campaign could have really used a Ross Perot.
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October 8th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Well Alan that assumes that we have a real choice, our debt is going to grow for the forseeable future, we are not in a position to cut it, short of raising taxes back to pre Reagan levels, so if we are going to spend i’d rather have a dem doing the spending, because then we get healthcare, we get Bin Laden killed, we get alternative energy and so on, people keep saying that Obama won’t be able to afford his new plans, what are they smoking, sure he will, we’ll just increase the debt for a while or raise taxes even more on the rich and corporations, but if we’re going to have big government either way, i’d rather have big government that works in my favor instead of the favor of the obscenely rich
October 8th, 2008 at 9:30 am
I see your point, but here’s one difference I see. When asked about his spending he’s consistently cited three top priorities: energy, health care, and education. The thing that these have in common is that they are all investments. Spending money to greenify our energy infrastructure will pay huge dividends, but the investment has to be made. If (and admittedly this is a bigger if) his reforms reduce some of the huge inefficiencies in our health care system (note especially his emphasis on prevention), then again, this investment can lead to big savings. Likewise, education (especially IMHO early education) is an important long-term investment.
Contrast that to McCain’s focus on tax cuts. While that does put money into the economy (although I’d argue that Obama’s focus on putting that money in lower-income hands does a better job of this), it does so in a diffuse way that can’t address the systemic inefficiencies (energy and healthcare) that we’re facing.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:02 am
C’mon Alan! Y=
Do you really mean you don’t really believe that Obama is going to go through the budget line by line and cut a bunch of programs that “no longer work” and find enough money for:
• a middle class tax cut,
•more education funding,
•stabilized social security,
•an increased committment in Afghanistan,
•financial add to soviet satellites,…
•subsidies for solar, wind, and biofuel,
• healthcare reform
…and a pony in every pot?
What are you, some kind of a cynic? :-) I’m sure Obama can do this and also balance the budget. Even McCain says that fixing social security won’t be hard.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:29 am
I agree with Alan. Neither candidate is prioritizing or taking into account the financial crisis. The reason McCain didn’t challenge Obama on this is that despite his reputation as a “straight talker” even he knows he can’t continue and expand Bush’s tax cuts for big corporations/top income brackets, keep our troops in Iraq indefinitely, and expect that eliminating earmarks will make up the difference.
Obama’s unlikely to be able to keep his proposed middle-class tax cut, but I agree with mdgeorge that spending on issues such as alternative energy and healthcare constitutes an investment in a way that corporate and top-bracket tax cuts do not.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:32 am
“Obama has managed to get away with proposing a ridiculous amount of expensive initiatives without McCain or Sarah Palin doing much to point out the potentially disastrous budget implications of those plans.”
Don’t forget that McCain introduced his own big-budget plan last night - his big bad mortgage payout. (I can’t imagine that too many conservatives are thrilled with that right now.)
He can’t attack Obama on this stuff because he’s not exactly mister penny pincher himself.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
McCain Should Have Challenged Obama More…
Alan Stewart Carl, a moderate blogger and an undecided voter, writes about last night’s penultimate presidential debate: “The Wall Street Journal nails why John McCain lost last night?s debate. He failed to challenge Barack Obama on substantive matt…
October 8th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
How can McCain challenge Obama more when that is what everyone is telling him to do/saying he should do.
If he did what everyone wanted him to do, it wouldn’t be very “mavericky” would it? Gotta go your own way, blaze your own trail, do things the opposite of what you are told.
McCain=maverick. Learn it. Love it. Live it.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
The reason McCain does not challenge this is because, as the Tax Policy Center has calculated, given each candidate’s proposed taxing and spending initiatives, the national debt and deficit will increase more under McCain’s plan. So Obama could turn around and say, well I’m going to do all of these things and will add less to the national debt than you.
The difference according to the TPC is $3.5 trillion boost to the national debt under Obama with a $5 trillion boost to the national debt under McCain.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
The reason McCain does not challenge this is because, as the Tax Policy Center has calculated, given each candidate’s proposed taxing and spending initiatives, the national debt and deficit will increase more under McCain’s plan. So Obama could turn around and say, well I’m going to do all of these things and will add less to the national debt than you.
The difference according to the TPC is $3.5 trillion boost to the national debt under Obama with a $5 trillion boost to the national debt under McCain.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
cutting federal spending in a recession/depression is not a recipe for success. in bad economic times the government is supposed to be running a deficit. the fed is supposed to be spending to bolster the flailing economy instead of letting it sink into the abyss. What everyone on the board seems to advocate is a hooverish policy of letting the market and private sector deal with everything. we were supposed to be saving in the good times but that went out the window with bush’s tax cuts and his war. now, when we need to deficit spend, people are demanding we return to deficit hawks.
October 8th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Stuperb is right (according to Matt Cooper and apparently plenty of other people who know a hell of a lot more about the economy than I do).
L may be right as well about each candidate’s contribution to the national debt. If so, Obama is the lesser of 2 evils, which is the premise for most of his support among independents. I am likely to be supporting him, however reluctantly, for this reason.
October 8th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
How could Sen. McCain challenge without substantive ideas? Sen. Obama got a pass in the debate because McCain seemed more intent on slipping in not so subtle barbs and innuendo - most already identified as prevarications or misquotes in the general press.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Obama’s policy proposals do a terrible job of matching up with each other in a believable way, but McCain seems not to realize the need to make that abundantly clear then repeat it over and over again.