McCain’s policies make sense

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ You don’t have to be crazy or stupid to support Sen. John McCain…. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ You don’t have to be crazy or stupid to support Sen. John McCain. The McCain campaign has started to believe otherwise, though, specifically targeting the ‘crazy and stupid’ voting bloc in recent weeks, with Real America, Bill Ayers and the Joe the Plumber Tour. It’s this anti-intellectual bent that forced Colin Powell to abandon the Republicans. ‘ ‘ ‘ But it’s a bad thing for our democracy when the idea of a plausible choice is absurd. I don’t support McCain, but today I’d like to explain why sane and intelligent people might. ‘ ‘ ‘ 1. Health care. If you get cancer or break your hip or carve a backward ‘B’ into your face, who will be there to pick up the bill? McCain’s plan is to give the same tax subsidy to health insurance, whether it’s bought by individuals or employers. The idea is that if more workers buy their own plans, competition will cut costs. ‘ ‘ ‘ That’s the idea, and you can disagree. Maybe you believe people are too crazy to buy insurance: Even today, half the uninsured can afford it. Maybe you believe people are too stupid to be savvy health consumers: McCain’s regime would popularize cheap, high-deductible plans that rely on shopping around. But whatever you believe, please recognize that one doesn’t have to be crazy or stupid to think that people aren’t too crazy or too stupid for McCain’s plan to work. ‘ ‘ ‘ Here’s a quote from a reputable economist: ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘The most promising way to move forward in all three dimensions ‘mdash; coverage, cost and long-run fiscal situation ‘mdash; is to replace the employer exclusion with a tax credit … Firms would still be allowed to deduct the cost of their contributions to employee premiums, just as they can deduct wages and other expenses today for the purpose of calculating taxable income. But workers would now have to include employer contributions to health insurance in their earnings for the purpose of calculating taxes … In exchange for, workers who purchased qualifying insurance would get a refundable tax credit.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ The reputable economist who wrote this in February 2008 is Jason Furman. Since then, Obama tapped Dr. Furman as his economic policy director. Crazy! ‘ ‘ ‘ 2. Government Debt. McCain voted against President Bush’s tax cuts twice, arguing that tax cuts without spending cuts aren’t really tax cuts at all, just ways of shifting current spending to later on. He also felt that the tax cuts were too slanted. In a floor statement during the Senate debate on the 2001 tax cut bill, McCain said, ‘I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ Then McCain voted against Bush’s Medicare Part D prescription drug plan, because the government was fighting a war and running a large deficit and still didn’t have money saved to meet even its present obligations to senior citizens. ‘ ‘ ‘ Voting against your party on tax cuts and against the elderly on anything is a difficult choice. It would appear that McCain conditions his spending votes, although not necessarily his words, on principles. You might believe otherwise ‘mdash; that McCain is a faux-maverick, a con ‘mdash; but please recognize that a reasonable person could see these votes as evidence to the contrary. ‘ ‘ ‘ 3. The war in Iraq. McCain has been lambasted for his support of the war. But his motivation is clear: He doesn’t want to pull out and leave a failed state unable to prevent ethnic cleansing. The divide between the two candidates is not so much how soon a majority of our troops should leave Iraq ‘mdash; in both cases the answer is clearly ‘as soon as possible.’ What we see is a difference on how likely it is that the Iraqi state would collapse. If you think it is unlikely, go ahead and support Obama, but please recognize that it’s not bizarre speculation that makes McCain want to maintain troops in Iraq. ‘ ‘ ‘ 4. Globalism. McCain is arguably the leader of anti-nativist forces within the Republican Party. He coauthored a liberal immigration agenda, and he supports free trade. Obama supports immigration but won much of his ground in the primary bashing Sen. Clinton on NAFTA, making his position something like, ‘I want to give Mexican citizens jobs, but only the Mexican citizens inside of America.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ McCain also supported allowing Dubai to buy a British company that manages American ports. Nativist Republicans and Democrats derided the measure as unpatriotic. But McCain stood fast against this economic ethnic profiling of Arabs, just as he refrained from the China-bashing that invigorated Clinton so much. For Americans who like foreigners treated as equals, these tendencies are assuring. ‘ ‘ ‘ This column won’t sway anyone toward McCain. But if it stops Obama supporters from mocking someone for supporting McCain, I won’t feel crazy for writing it. E-mail Lewis at ljl10@pitt.edu.