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Will McCain raise your taxes ?

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Director of the Congressional Budget Office and current chief McCain economic advisor tells Fortune columnist Matt Miller in a forthcoming book, The Tyranny of Dead Ideas, that the next President is simply going to have to raise taxes. Joe Klein has an advance copy of the book and the details: “If you do nothing on the spending side, you’re going to have to raise taxes whether you’re a Republican, a Democrat or a Martian,” he tells Miller…and then he immediately makes it clear that the “spending side” part of the argument is nothing more than a political fig-leaf. “It’s arithmetic.” Federal revenue today is 18.8 percent of GDP and federal spending is 20 percent. Holtz-Eakin observes that “the pressure are there” to lift spending [on entitlement programs, mostly] and taxes to 23 or 24 percent of GDP by around 2020, and to as much as 27 percent if health costs remain out of control. Miller does the arithmetic: that’s an annual tax hike of $550 to $700 billion, well beyond the range of any spending cuts that McCain has or might propose. (Those vaunted earmarks cost about $20 billion per year.) At least Obama's tax plan is clear. Cut taxes for 80% of the population. Raise taxes for the richest 20 % (those making 250,000 or more) http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/09/the_mccain_tax_increasescontin.html

Public Comments

1. sorry but lower taxes has been the Republican MANTRA forever!
2. No that would be the Democrats
3. Joe Klein is a liberal moron. Raising taxes results in lower revenues, so the concept that anyone "has" to raise taxes is just backwards. Cutting the cap gains tax from 28% to 15% resulted in twice the cap gains revenue. So anyone who says that economics is just arithmetic isn't qualified to be speaking about anything.
4. yes, definitely. The Republicans are savvy in talking about lowering taxes during elections only to raise taxes when in office or introduce other fees that are not labeled taxes but the end result is you still end up paying more to the government. They know how to disguise increased taxes when in office.
5. According to McCain's plan, no. But Obama will lower my taxes more than McCain will. But that's if their plans are even implemented.
6. Both candidate lie. Obama's tax on the rich isn't nearly enough to close the spending gap.
7. Just keep in mind that most working families are in Obama's 20%, and most of his 80% are not paying much if any taxes now.
8. how the hell do you create socialized health care and lower taxes at the same time? It can't be done Canada is smaller than America and has higher taxes due to socialized health care
9. BS Alert. The tax policy center has stated that both candidates will grow our national debt. Why do you people tell one side of the story or find articles that agree with your point of view, and then try to pass them off as unbiased?
10. they're both going to have to raise taxes(obama and mccain ). Anyone who thinks otherwise is completely mental. Look you guys have a huge debt if china suddenly decide to stop giving you money how are you going to fund the two wars