analysis
Tax-cut fight may
define his first year
FiveThirtyEight.com Nov 25, 08 8:17 PM CST
(Newser)
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Will Obama be a progressive president or more of a centrist? Stop looking at Cabinet picks, suggests Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com, and look instead to the president-elect's website. Silver went through Obama's policies and charted them on the political spectrum. The result tilts strongly left on domestic policy, less so on economic policy, and moves to the center on foreign affairs. The real question, though: How's he going to pay for all this?
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analysis
Similarities helped in victory; challenge now is governing: pollster
Wall Street Journal Nov 10, 08 10:51 AM CST
(Newser)
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Barack Obama's election was an affirmation, not a rejection, of Ronald Reagan’s principles, writes pollster Scott Rasmussen in the Wall Street Journal . Both espoused platforms of hope and tax cuts during administrations that disgusted voters with economic mismanagement. Obama's challenge now is "attempting to govern with a message that resonates with most voters but divides his own party," Rasmussen predicts.
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Partisan battle lines already being drawn as economic slump appears to worsen
Los Angeles Times Oct 16, 08 12:25 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Congress’ partisan battle over the Wall Street bailout could look amateur compared to what lies ahead, the Los Angeles Times reports, as lawmakers consider a second stimulus package to keep the nation out of a steep recession. Republicans want tax cuts, while Democrats are pushing infrastructure projects and other federal spending—and relief might have to wait until after the election.
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ANALYSIS
And candidates' own plans will add billions to budget deficit
McClatchy Newspapers Sep 21, 08 9:37 AM CDT
(Newser)
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“Change” may be more than an election-year buzzword: Thanks to record deficits and Wall Street's crisis, it could be the only money the next president has left. Barack Obama and John McCain are vowing ambitious projects, reports McClatchy, but “the next president is just not going to have the money to meet his promises,” says a nonpartisan researcher.
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OPINION
Innovation, and making it more efficient, can turn gray skies blue
BusinessWeek Sep 14, 08 1:37 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Democrats and Republicans do have something in common: Both parties are wrong on how to resuscitate the flat-lining US economy, Michael Mandel argues in BusinessWeek . Tax cuts or increased government spending aren’t the cure. “Innovation is the best—and maybe the only—way the US can get out of its economic hole,” Mandel insists, adding that money alone isn’t enough.
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ANALYSIS
Politico documents the differences
Politico Jul 31, 08 2:10 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Much has been made recently of John McCain’s difficulty in driving a message from his “eclectic and occasionally politically inconvenient hodgepodge of policy positions,” Politico says, but little has been said about how often the candidate’s top aides disagree with him. And while fewer public disagreements within the Obama campaign might be attributable to tighter messaging as well as the Democrat's shorter and less-maverick career, Politico takes a look.
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OPINION
Bush has 'lowered my standards'
New Republic Jul 17, 08 2:23 PM CDT
(Newser)
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“What can I say?” writes left-leaning Jonathan Chait in revealing his continued affection for John McCain. “Bush has lowered my standards.” Remember, McCain was once “the country’s foremost progressive champion”—battling the religious right and tax cuts while pushing immigration and anti-global warming advances. And while the old McCain is gone—having tacked hard to the right—Chait clings to an “affinity for the old codger.”
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ANALYSIS
McCain offers some differences, but largely agrees with Bush
New York Times Jun 17, 08 9:06 AM CDT
(Newser)
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With President Bush posting record disapproval ratings, Democrats have gleefully dubbed a John McCain presidency a "third Bush term." The claim is at least partially justified, reports the New York Times in an analysis of the "McBush" charge—McCain agrees with Bush on taxation, health care, the war, abortion, and judicial appointments. But they diverge on questions of the environment, diplomacy, and nuclear proliferation—which the McCain campaign is playing up.
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Opinion
McCain backs tax
cuts; Obama would roll back only for very rich
New York Times Jun 16, 08 9:28 AM CDT
(Newser)
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President Bush’s tax cuts have become the governmental equivalent of a corporate poison pill, Paul Krugman observes in the New York Times , aimed at hamstringing new stewardship. Both prospective replacements have tax plans very much haunted by the Bush cuts, with one-time critic John McCain promising not only to make them permanent, but add more—and without a plan to replace revenue.
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Candidates differ sharply on how to get economy rolling again
Washington Post Jun 11, 08 6:24 AM CDT
(Newser)
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John McCain and Barack Obama drew clear battle lines yesterday over a central election issue—the sputtering economy. McCain promised to boost the economy with tax cuts and reduced regulation, while Obama set out a strategy to help the hard-hit poor and raise taxes on the rich, reports the Washington Post .
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OPINION
Our 'land of equality' is now a 'bankers' utopia'
Wall Street Journal May 14, 08 1:10 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Thomas Frank tackles the decline of the American middle class in an outraged op ed piece in today's Wall Street Journal. He confesses fascination with "the mechanics of this huge social reconfiguration," which has, over several decades, shunted the nation's wealth into fewer and fewer hands, until the top 1% of the population takes home more than the bottom 40%. It's the kind of fascination, he adds, one might feel for "the industrial procedures of a slaughterhouse."
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Congress passes budget plans to roll back tax cuts
CNN Mar 14, 08 7:59 AM CDT
(Newser)
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The Senate soundly rejected a bid to ban pork barrel spending for a year last night, despite the support of all three presidential candidates who returned to DC for a day of heavy voting, CNN reports. Both the House and Senate also passed budget plans—largely symbolic moves in an election year—that would allow many of President Bush's tax cuts to expire in about three years.
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