Obama McCain Issues: Economy

While Obama and McCain have very different views of how things should be done the one thing they do hold in common is that they want to boost the economy in any way possible. They biggest and most dramatic difference that I noticed overall on any issue was that Obama presented his plan as more of an immediate action. While he may be able to give a boost by giving more tax refunds, I personally would tend to side with McCain that the whole process will not be resolved until 2012 or 2013. Obama has some interesting ideas, but the problem with them is that they all require tons of money to get going. As different as some of these ideas may be, Obama is finding ways to get people interested, and not just people who watch tv or read the newspaper. He is reaching out in more ways than I have ever seen.

-The rising cost of gasoline
-Taxes
-Unemployment
-The Housing crisis
-Foreign Trade.

McCain has the less presidential image here. He is not offering “McCain Ringtones” but he seems to have somewhat more realizstic and better palnned ideas when it comes down to the find details. I really like the way that he gives information of how we would obtain everything that is promised where as Obama says that we will get stuff, but has no exact plan of how he is going to provide these billions of dollars that he promises to use to raise the economy. The general approach for McCain is that we need to use what we have and improve what we have instead of just getting new stuff and leaving the old stuff the way it is. I do like the way Obama has more immediate plans, and he does seem to be making a stronger effort to get out his message, which may result in a stronger effort to get things done in Washington, but I am just not sure that we can change something so big that quick.

-The Rising Cost of Gasoline

“The only way to over the long term reduce gas process, is to reduce demand, and the only way to reduce demand, the only way to reduce demand, is if we are creating more fuel efficient cars, increasing gas mileage…” (Obama) I personally like this idea, however as seen lately, the price of gas did go down, but it does seem it is only to get people to start driving again. Though this may be the case, the other half of this idea involves investing in better public transportation, which in every way would be better. Public transportation both lowers emissions and traffic, as well as it often helps promote a city as somewhere where foreign countries can go to do business. It is now often seen that public transportation in the form of subway, ICE (Intercity Express), or any other train, are only thing big or well-established cities get. Now here is the problem, if we give every city this mark of establishment, then no one is special.

As for McCain, his strategy is not so much to lower the demand of fuel in general, but to lower the demand of foreign oil by actually using the reserves that are saved for this sort of situation. His general strategy, though quite the contraire to Obama, however does share the similarity that both candidates are looking to get away from such a dependence on foreign oil. McCain wants to also help lower emissions, and better develop the battery that can be used in cars. However, he is not going to go to the extent that while we work on this battery we will at the time take immediate action by switching to ethanol based cars, and both deplete the supply of corn as well as increase the price of food as we see now.

-Taxes

The big difference between the candidates, one wants to lower the taxes on small business companies, and the other would rather tax the big companies at a higher rate to be able to lower taxes for the lower and middle class. I think that this would make sense, but as the McCain strategy seems to point out, when the tax rate for large businesses is high, it discourages foreign trade or establishment in the United States. I agree more with Obama on this one that the higher class should have to pay more, but I do realize that it can be a possible factor that may discourage other foreign businesses from forming in America, but if the potential business is really big enough to consider working in another country (Untied States), and they are willing to make the investment to do such a thing, I don’t think they will mind a higher tax rate enough to discourage them, especially if they can be assured that the US market will be strong.

-Unemployment

The problem of unemployment does not see to be that there are not enough jobs, but rather there are not enough well paying jobs. Regardless of if Obama is elected or not, we need to raise the minimum wage once again because it is not enough anymore as other prices have gone up. I don’t agree with Obama in the idea that we should create new jobs, but I understand why he says to raise the minimum wage, as well as create different jobs that pay better. The problem is that a better paying job would translate into more skill. Personally not everybody should have the opportunity to, nor will they be able to work at a solar plant if they have no knowledge or interest in solar energy. It would be like having the guy at McDonalds fly the plane just because it pays better to be a pilot. Specifically the idea here would be to create good new jobs by creating a new job field in solar energy because solar energy is something that would grow to support and lower the rising gas prices. It would seem that the best idea would be to allow the small independent businesses grow.

-The Housing Crisis

How do you prevent people from loosing their house or going homeless altogether? You can do like Obama and just build new affordable houses, which is a a good idea for areas that don’t have house yet, unfortunately this is not the case for most of the areas where foreclosures are rising. Again, the concept of creating new things and avoiding the old is seen here. The alternative for areas that don’t have foreclosures without any newer homes is to instead extend the loans an additional 30 years with a flat rate. In areas like Harlem, Obama seems to have the best plan, but many areas where many new homes are being built such as in California, McCain may have the best plan if the people who are about to loose the house are not fraudulent in any way, and would otherwise be able to pay their mortgage despite the economy. For those who did buy houses they could not afford, the Obama strategy would be the most effective method to getting them back into a house they can afford.

-Foreign Trade.

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One issue that seems quite similar between Obama and McCain is trade. Both candidates want to make it easier for foreign markets to support American jobs by expanding their business into the United States. McCain is more focused on using this as a way to create new jobs, and Obama is as well, but it seems that Obama also hopes that this will increase the amount of items sold from the united states to other countries.

Assadourian, Erik and the Worldwatch Institute. State of the World. W. W. Norton & Company. 2007


Trent, Judith S. and Friedenberg, Robert V. Political Campaign Communication. Rowman & Littlefield. 2008