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McCain-Palin: Still Offering Nothing for Working Families |
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Last night, when John McCain formally accepted the Republican nomination, his speech drew heavily on his honorable military service going back more than 30 years.
Unfortunately, what his speech left out is serious attention to the real issues facing working families. Today, new numbers show that the unemployment rate has hit 6.1 percent—a five-year high—and that the economy shed some 84,000 jobs in August. When you combine the unemployment rate and the inflation rate—the so-called “misery index”—the squeeze on working families is the worst it’s been since 1991.
Would you know that from McCain’s acceptance speech, or that of his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin? From any of the convention speakers and surrogates who tried over the past week to convince America to vote for the McCain-Palin ticket? Sadly, the important issues of jobs, health care, housing, fair trade and retirement security seemed the furthest thing from the minds of McCain and his allies.
Maybe if you’re a multimillionaire with taxpayer-funded health benefits and too many houses to count, the economy doesn’t matter.
For McCain, the economy is still “fundamentally strong” and the problems with it are “psychological”—because millionaires like McCain are the only ones who’ve done well in the past eight years.
What’s worse is that when McCain did manage to touch on policy issues, so much of what he had to say was evasive, misleading or just plain untrue.
- He claimed he wants lower taxes and that Democratic nominee Barack Obama wants higher taxes—even though the vast majority of families would get a bigger tax cut from Obama than from McCain. (McCain does want big tax cuts—for corporations, who’ll get hundreds of billions under his plan.)
- He claimed to want relief and retraining for workers affected by economic change—but in the Senate, he repeatedly has voted against extending unemployment benefits and offering aid to workers in training programs.
- He claimed to feel for those struck by the foreclosure crisis, but his example was a family that lost money on real estate investments, not their home.
- He claims to want to give families more choice in the health care system—but his health care plan leaves families at the mercy of private insurance companies whose profit margins depend on putting barriers between patient and doctor. (And, by the way, his health care plan would create a new tax on middle-class families.)
Palin’s speech, too, was heavy on inaccuracies
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She claimed to be a leader who acted in the public interest, but as governor she vetoed funding for special education, senior housing, hospitals and even programs for pregnant teens.
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She claimed to be a fiscally responsible reformer—but under her watch government debt increased by almost $19 million in the small town when she was mayor.
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She claimed to take on corrupt interests and Big Oil—but as governor, she brought oil industry lobbyists to her staff. As mayor, she hired a high-priced lobbying firm to win earmarks from Washington. She also took Big Oil money in her campaign for governor.
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She claimed to represent a change from politics as usual—but she helped run a campaign organization for indicted Sen. Ted Stevens.
Predictably, she repeated the false claims about Obama’s tax plans and also made false statements about his legislative record and energy proposals.
The real contradiction at the heart of both speeches, however, is that McCain is running against the Washington that he’s been a part of for decades. McCain has decided it’s time to reclaim the themes of change and reform, without actually offering any change from the Bush agenda—for which he’s voted 89 percent of the time overall and 95 percent of the time last year.
Watching the speech last night, you’d never know McCain’s own party has controlled the White House since 2001 and run Congress for most of the past decade.
When it comes to the economy, bad trade deals, health care, Social Security or the freedom to form unions, there’s no reason to expect that McCain will turn around the policies that have left us where we are today.
That’s why the convention speeches focused on the candidates’ biographies, and falsehoods about Obama. McCain’s campaign offers nothing new for working families.
McCain and Palin are trying to paint different faces on the same old, failed Bush agenda. That’s it. Campaign manager Rick Davis has said that “this election isn’t about issues,” and that’s obvious from listening to the convention. It’s about hoping new names will convince voters to accept the same agenda that’s working for the big-money corporate donors and lobbyists who fund and run McCain’s campaign. In short, the convention, and the McCain campaign, seem to be about personality, not leadership on the issues that matter. Image, not substance.Fact checks of McCain’s and Palin’s speeches are available online, and show that both spent time in their addresses misrepresenting their own records and Obama’s.
Time magazine’s Joe Klein said much of McCain’s speech was vague and misleading about what his presidency, or an Obama presidency, would be like.
…a half-hearted and unadventurous slog through the world of policy, a vivid demonstration of how little McCain cares about this stuff. It was notable only for the steady stream of misrepresentations of Barack Obama’s positions.
And The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn says, despite McCain’s claims to be a maverick, his policy agenda is the same as Bush’s.
When it comes to economic policy, McCain is just another Bush Republican.…In the end, tonight’s speech merely confirmed what many of us knew along: McCain just doesn’t have good answers to our troubled economy.
Obama, in a speech yesterday, noted that mention of the economy was absent from the Republican convention. He said the convention focused heavily on false attacks on him but said very little about the working families who are struggling.
They’ve spent a lot of time talking about me, not entirely in truthful terms, but have not spent any time talking about the problems that ordinary Americans are going through every single day….I understand that they do not have much of an agenda to run on, but I think that the American people deserve better….I hope at some point they will decide to engage in that debate.
The next 60 days offer a chance for serious focus on how we can make the economy work for everyone again. Will McCain and Palin engage?
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Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
8 Comments
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Sirs, I must disagree with you. He talked about retrainning, He talked about schooling. he talked about taxes be lowered. Honest, I heard him talk about not just you and me and just one thing maybe I want to hear , But I heard him talk about America and being strong and the UNITED, UNITED STATES of AMERICA. We are electing a President for all of us. I heard Palin talk about ALL of US. Yes we need our unions for the corperations and the industrys, and the Munisipalitys. But we also must be united for the country also as we are at the work place. Sincerly, Al G. North Canaan, Ct.
Your in fantasyland pal.Check McSames record he and that joke from Alaska will not unite this country.You can thank your boy Bush for that. If you are UNION MEMBER and support a repub. throw your card away, we real members don’t want ya.
I must write again, not scaring any off but to let you know I also listen to both canidaites. You must vote for the one you believe in, but we must be fair to equal mentioning of both. Alll I would ask for from Americans to weigh our facts, weigh our hearts vote with a Patriotic heart and mind for that is who we are, Americans united. But vote and I as I hope all of us , even if the one we want doesn’t get the nomenation, we stand behind him and support the United States of America, as we do in our uions in votes if they go one way or the other. AL G. North Canaan, Ct
I’m breathed a sigh of relief when I read the above ACCURATE and honest take on McCain’s speech and where he and Palin really stand on issues. OUTSOURCING America’s jobs has to stop! Employment figures are telling the real story of the result of that. There’s got to be a cap or something! on medicines and health care. And you folks don’t forget about all of us over 65 people who can’t afford to pick up their prescriptions and who can’t afford anything but the barest necessities. Inflation is killing us! I’m lucky — I’m drawing death benefits plus I’m working because I have to but I’m 65 and there’s NO hope for ever being able to retire or to have a house or condo or a trailer. I’ll be paying escalating rent payments from now on (I have prescriptions right now that I can’t pick up because I can’t afford them this month). Do you have any idea how many people there are in America who are actually trying to live on $400 - $500 per month! PER MONTH. In my job, I talk to over 300 people per week - lot of them much older than I am - and I’m staggered at the stories that I hear where there’s no hope. Main thing I’m hoping is that the only votes McCain - Palin ticket will get will BE the folks who do make over $5 million!
What conclusions can be made after watching the Democratic and Republican party conventions?
McCain launches fall campaign as Obama embraces Iraq “surge”
By Patrick Martin
6 September 2008
(Link to full article here:)
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/mcca-s06.shtml
“The events of Thursday, September 4 demonstrate the two overriding political facts of the 2008 US presidential election campaign: a Republican Party in deep political crisis and widely hated for its program of social reaction and war, and a Democratic Party that represents no alternative whatsoever, galloping to the right.”
McSame’s speech sounded like he took pages of the lame duck’s State of The Union Address from a couple of years ago; lose your job? then go to community college and learn a new skill. (like bush, he fails to say who will pay for it), he talks of changing America (what, he isn’t happy with what the lame duck has done (or hasn’t done for the past 8 years?)., but failed to say what he would do. So that means 4 more years of the same. He blames Democrats for jobs leaving the US after the tax breaks are given to corporations, won’t let the union bosses interfere(? whatever that meant). Sarah Palin is a witch behind the cute smile. She’s anti-union, and lied through her smile in her acceptance speech.
4 more years of conservative rule is not acceptable. Let’s give Obama 4 years. If he fails to change America, then out he goes.
But I think it probably will take 8 years for Obama to fix the mess Bush left us.
VOTE or don’t complain.
Interesting that McCain made a disparaging comment about “union bosses” while Sarah Palin’s spouse holds a union job. Contradictory?
No one can argue that this economy is at a crucial pivotal turning point. If John McCain is elected, gridlock is guaranteed.
John McCain will block working families at every turn. He represents the corporate elite who are paying for his campaign.
Sarah Pallin is very attractive. This is not a personality contest to see who cuts a better figure in front of the flag on fox network. Its about the future direction of this country. Remember the issues when you vote in November.
Where will our children and grand children go to work and what type of lives will they have to look forward to?