McCain Touts Economic Plan at CMU
By Mike Wereschagin
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee said this morning he would phase out the Alternative Minimum Tax, ban Internet and cell phone taxes and double the exemption for dependents, from $3,500 to $7,000.
He also proposed suspending all federal gas taxes from Memorial Day to Labor Day this year, and to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
“The effect will be an immediate economic stimulus,” McCain said.
Speaking to an enthusiastic audience of about 600 mostly college- age people at Carnegie Mellon University, McCain also said he would allow struggling homeowners who can afford it to turn their mortgage into a 30-year, fixed rate federal loan.
He railed against both Democrats and Republicans for their stewardship of the federal budget.
“In so many ways, we need to make a clean break from the worst excesses of both political parties,” McCain said during his first campaign stop in the region since sewing up the Republican presidential nomination fight.
He saved his harshest words for Democratic rivals, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, criticizing them for their promises to rein in free trade and extolling “the false virtues of isolationism.”
“Senators Obama and Clinton feel we should bury our heads and industries in the sand and hope we have enough left to live on as the world passes us by. But that’s not good policy and it’s not good leadership,” McCain said.
Taking the opposite position as the Democratic candidates took Monday during a forum on manufacturing and trade at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, McCain called on Congress to pass the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
He also reiterated his longstanding opposition to Congressional earmarks, criticizing $1 million Clinton tried to appropriate to a Woodstock museum.
“That kind of careless spending of tax dollars is not change, my friends,” McCain said. “It is business as usual in Washington, and it’s all part of the same wasteful and corrupting system that we need to end.”
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