A Political Glimpse from Ireland

The McCain’s Wrong Round-Up

John McCain’s campaign has been hitting a constant theme in his most recent attacks, stating that Senator Obama is going to increase the size of the federal government. This theme resonates with conservatives who believe that a larger government is inefficient and wastes the tax payers money. The problem with this theme is that Senator McCain is wrong once again as stated by Politifact.com:

John McCain’s campaign is trying to paint Barack Obama as a big spender. In a new radio ad, an announcer says Obama wants to implement “$863-billion in new government programs - a 23 percent increase in the size of government.”

The percentage-increase claim is so far off base that we’re going to grant McCain several questionable assumptions - and then show that he’s still way off.

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And lastly, how can McCain argue that an increase in discretionary spending is the same as an increase “in the size of government”? Here’s what Pounder had to say about that: “By size of government, we are referring to government spending outside of mandatory spending. It’s the argument that outside of mandatory spending, this is the most immediate way that Barack Obama will have an impact on government spending and when you include his spending proposals it accounts for a 23 percent increase.”

That’s the equivalent of saying, “By size of government, we are referring to a government with no Social Security, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no food stamps, no federal employee retirement benefits and no interest on the national debt.”

Senator McCain’s 2nd mistake this week is to continue to mislead his base with attacks against Senator Obama’s tax plan however as I have stated in numerous posts, Senator McCain’s tax plan spends more money in his first term not to mention maintains the tax cuts for the richest Americans rather than those who need it the most:

Lastly the Sunlight Foundation is an organization that keeps track of politicians wealth, do you want to guess how elite Senator McCain is? $36,431,099 in 2006 according to Senator McCain’s personal disclosure forms. Senator Obama for that same year was worth just shy of $800,000. For those of you who think Senator McCain understands what it means to be in the middle class or that his policies help middle America, think again.

American Prayer

Its a pretty good morning as far as Ireland goes, no rain and the expectation is no rain for the rest of the week though I am not sure how accurate that is. Waking up this morning I found out that Senator Biden is Senator Obama’s VP candidate, I am a bit mixed on that choice but I will withhold judgment until 3pm today (8pm Irish Time) when Senator Obama and Senator Biden will appear at an Illinois campaign event.

From the people who guessed what the potential nominee would be on this site, I guess none of us were right including myself therefore no one gets bragging rights . Anyway I need to get outside and do some yard work, I will leave you with the latest Dave Stewart Obama Music Video: