The McCain campaign continues to criticize Barack Obama for his vote earlier this year on a non-binding budget resolution, accusing Obama of supporting raising taxes on those making as little as $42,000 per year. But what McCain won't tell you is that Obama's taxA tax is a mandatory payment or charge collected by local, state, and national governments from individuals or businesses to cover the costs of general government services, goods, and activities. plan as a candidate isn't going to raise taxes on very many people making $42,000 (none directly through the individual income taxAn individual income tax (or personal income tax) is levied on the wages, salaries, investments, or other forms of income an individual or household earns. The U.S. imposes a progressive income tax where rates increase with income. The Federal Income Tax was established in 1913 with the ratification of the 16th Amendment. Though barely 100 years old, individual income taxes are the largest source of tax revenue in the U.S. ). As I pointed out in a recent review of the debate, you may say that Obama is saying one thing as a candidate and voting another way as a member of the Senate. Maybe that's a fair point. But let's extend that to Senator McCain. McCain favors huge tax cuts as a candidate for president, but much of the tax cuts he favors as a candidate (extending almost all of the Bush tax cuts), he voted against as a member of the U.S. Senate in 2001 and 2003, saying that such tax cuts were not distributionally aligned with his preferences and were not accompanied by spending cuts. But there is no way that his proposed tax cuts are going to be accompanied by sufficient spending cuts.
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