McCain Attacks Obama’s Votes on Taxes, But Would He Criticize His Own Voting Record?

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 tax plan as a candidate isn't going to raise taxes on very many people making $42,000 (none directly through the individual income tax). 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.