John McCain is a blithering idiot, much like G.W. Bush, but every once in a while he manages to tell the truth, as when he confessed, "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should." He should have stuck with that, because his recent attempts to sound knowledgable have been cringe-worthy at best.
McCain recently attacked Obama's alleged "socialism," using the narrative trope of "Joe the Plumber" supposedly unmasking Obama's "hidden plan". This trope, of the simple everyman unmasking the "so-called experts" is a perennial favorite of rightwing populism, and McCain got lots of jollies from using it. Just one problem: the "hidden plan" he unmasked wasn't hidden, wasn't socialist, and wasn't even new. It consisted, quite simply, in some folks getting tax credits beyond the taxes that they owe. And, as this chart from Visualizing Economics makes clear, many low-income taxpayers already pay negative income taxes, largely thanks to the Earned Income Tax Credit, first signed into law by that old Marxist, Gerald Ford, and later expanded by Comrade Reagan.
STATE BLOGS
