Nathan Scandella (personal)

McCain and Palin are Just Dirty Liars

Prior to this election, most Americans regarded John McCain as a straight-talking, honest, honorable public servant. Perhaps our political system is to blame, perhaps the parties themselves, or perhaps it's personal ... but, John McCain has sold his soul to win this election. He has resorted to telling outright lies in order to win votes. His running mate has followed, although to be fair, I don't think she was ever honorable to begin with.

Check out this recent interview McCain gave:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27357412#27472540

Here he states that Obama went back on a committment to accept public financing, when he "signed a piece of paper". What signature is McCain referring to? The last time Obama signed his paycheck? Obama never committed in writing to accepting public financing. That's an outright lie. Obama did change his mind, thus going back on his verbal statement. But that's different from breaking a law or violating a contract, which is what a signed agreement is. Obama is spending the money of willfull contributors, as is McCain. The only person short-changed by Obama's change of heart is McCain himself. While I think Obama's move was dishonest, so too is McCain's account that Obama ever signed anything. See the full story here:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/15/fact-check-did-obama-say-he-would-accept-public-financing-if-mccain-did/

This fact check has been available for at least two weeks, and yet McCain continues to perpetuate this lie.

In the interview, as well as on the campaign trail, he continues to state that Obama would require small businesses to provide health care for their employees, and fine them if they don't. That's also an outright lie. And there's no way that McCain can deny it. He asked the question directly to Obama in one of the debates (about the fine for small businesses who don't provide health care). Obama clearly said that the fine would be zero. McCain replied, "Zero?". He heard Obama's response. Obama explained that under his plan, small businesses would be exempt. This is completely blatant.

Furthermore, the GOP ticket has repeatedly claimed that Obama has voted to raise taxes 94 times as a Senator. But, many of these votes were:

• multiple votes on the same bill


• votes that raised taxes for some, and cut taxes for others


• votes that didn't actually raise or lower taxes at all

I won't blame McCain for the lies that Joe the Plumber told about his buying a plumbing business. But, there's been plenty of time for the press to expose that Joe, or Samuel, who is now campaigning with McCain, is not wealthy enough to buy a $270,000 plumbing business. Joe is just a blue-collar Joe, and he would get his taxes cut by Obama, not raised. McCain continues to state that Obama is going to take money from people like Joe and redistribute it to whoever the government likes. This is so ridiculous, it's sad. The Obama tax plan raises income taxes only for the top 5% of earners, and only then back to levels that we've had prior to George Bush. Were Reagan and Clinton socialists? Because Obama's tax rates won't be any higher than that.

McCain and Palin have also been claiming that the threshold for who gets tax cuts keeps changing with Obama. That's another lie. All of Obama and Biden's statements are collectively consistent. Just because someone says that a middle-class worker making $100,000 per year will get tax cuts doesn't mean that $100k is the most you can make and still get a tax break. This logic is completely corrupted. See the fact check.

McCain's rallies are filled with angry conservatives, who vehemently boo whenever McCain or Palin claim that Obama wants to redistribute "their" money. Has McCain somehow found a way to populate his rallies with nothing but the top 5% of earners? If that's true, you would expect more of his rallies to be held on Wall St., which I know is one of John's favorite places. His leading these low-to-middle income heartlanders to believe that it's them who are going to keep more money under his tax plan is just an outright lie. It's disheartening to see the guy who claimed to be the shining moral star of the Congress taking advantage of stupid people this way. This is the political equivalent of predatory lending. Just like the greedy lender, McCain is praying on the common morons' inability to do remedial math.

All around the country, Republicans find a way to get into office by propagating the same lie, that "I can lower your taxes, and it'll all just work out". That's what Bush has been doing for eight years. We've just had a collapse in the private credit markets, because Americans were spending lots more money without actually having any more (i.e. borrowing too much). Now, McCain's plan involves shifting that really successful paradigm from the private sector to the government. He's in favor of the massive $700B bailout, and yet wants to cut taxes across the board. All tax brackets, capital gains, corporate income tax. Where is this money going to come from, John? It's bad enough that our private sector is collapsing. Now, McCain is going to bankrupt the federal government and at the same time, tell voters that it's his opponent that wants to raise taxes. That's a dirty lie, and McCain knows it. I hope his reputation never recovers after he loses this race.

Posted at 01:34PM Nov 03, 2008 by Nathan in Politics  |  Comments[0]