Obama’s biggest missed chance last night
September 27th, 2008Jim Lehrer tried his damnedest to get any answer to this question:
What priorities would you adjust, Senator McCain, because of the financial bailout costs?
It was repeated over and over and addressed at both candidates. He eventually elicited an across-the-board spending freeze proposal from McCain, but Obama missed a huge opportunity to knock McCain’s tax cuts again. I think that Obama drawing first blood on tax cuts was his best moment in the campaign, but he had a chance to revisit the issue and knock it out of the park by saying:
Jim, one proposal that I won’t have to adjust and will bring before Congress and the American people in my first 100 days is my tax plan. I will cut taxes for 95% of Americans and roll back Bush’s tax cuts for the top 1%. Independent analysts have looked at my plan and found out that it pays for itself… we actually make a little bit of money! The same analysts have looked at Sen. McCain’s plan and found that it will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Specifically, John needs to address is exactly where he intends to find the money for his plan, and whether he thinks it’s better to spend money giving $300 billion to the richest Americans, or spend that money helping regular Americans who can’t pay their bills or afford health care or afford to retire with dignity. If John McCain is elected President, I won’t vote for such an irresponsible giveaway to the richest Americans, and I don’t know many people in Congress or many people I’ve met across America who would support it, either.