By CARL CAMPANILE
Last updated: 1:58 am
October 8, 2008
Posted: 6:48 pm
October 7, 2008
John McCain charged tonight that Barack Obama would be the worst American president on the economy since Herbert Hoover in the Great Depression by pushing tax hikes during a financial crisis.
"Nailing down Senator Obama's tax proposals is like nailing Jell-O to the wall. But he wants to raise your taxes," McCain said during the spirited, town-hall-style debate at Belmont University.
"My friends, the last president to raise taxes during tough economic times was Herbert Hoover, and he practiced protectionism as well, which I'm sure we'll get to at some point."
With the continuing meltdown on Wall Street and trailing Obama in recent polls, McCain went straight at his rival as the two White House hopefuls took questions from the audience and via the Internet.
Obama stressed that his plan would cut taxes on everyone making under $250,000 a year, while hiking taxes on higher earners.
"Senator Obama's secret is his taxes will increase taxes on 50 percent of small-business owners," McCain said.
Then McCain, looking directly at Obama, said, "Senator Obama said he'd forego a tax increase if the economy is bad. I've got news for you, Senator Obama. The economy is bad."
But Obama returned fire and defended his tax proposal as fair.
"[McCain] said he thought the fundamentals of the economy were sound," Obama said.
"Senator McCain wants to give a $300 billion tax cut, $200 billion of it to the largest corporations and oil companies - and $100 billion of it going to people like CEOs on Wall Street," Obama added.
McCain's plan would slash business taxes from 35 percent to 25 percent, lock in the current Bush tax cuts for all payers, and phase in a doubling of tax breaks for parents per each dependent child.
The two also traded blows over the mortgage crisis and the Wall Street meltdown when an audience member asked about it.
Answering first, McCain said he raised the alarm two years ago about lax lending practices at mortgage-lending behemoths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
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