Our guest bloggers are Center for American Progress Action Fund fellows James Kvaal and Robert Gordon.

Apparently the McCain campaign is feeling the sting of comparisons to George Bush. McCain describes himself as the strongest support of the war in Iraq. His answer to $4.00 gasoline is to cut oil company taxes by $4 billion a year. And McCain has embraced a Bush proposal to radically change our health care system. (These and other similarities are described in a memorandum released today by the Center for American Progress Action Fund.)

Swimming upstream, McCain policy advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin now argues that it is Senator Obama – not McCain – who wants to continue Bush’s fiscal policies. Obama’s budget “is dedicated to the recent Bush tradition of spending money on everything,” he said.

This is exactly backwards. Consider:

– Like Bush, McCain has proposed massive tax cuts that primarily benefit high-income households. McCain’s $300 billion a year in tax cuts – over and above the cost of extending the Bush tax cuts when they expire in 2010 – would essentially double the size of the Bush tax cuts and make them even more regressive.

– Like Bush, McCain’s massive tax cuts and spending on security leaves little for other priorities. Over the past eight years, other types of discretionary spending have remained essentially unchanged after inflation and population growth. McCain would continue the pattern of putting huge tax cuts and defense spending ahead of other needs, like preschool and renewable energy.

– Like Bush, McCain rails against wasteful spending in the abstract but fails to target any actual programs. His promises to eliminate earmarks and freeze spending could save $30 billion a year or even less. That leaves him short the quite noticeable sum of $270 billion a year. (Holtz-Eakin told Bloomberg that McCain has a secret plan to balance the budget, but he hasn’t shared it with the Concord Coalition — or those of us at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, for that matter.)

– Like Bush, McCain is likely to drive up the national debt by trillions of dollars. Bush took a debt of $3.4 trillion – and headed down – up to $5.4 trillion. McCain’s budget plan would drive the deficit to $12.7 trillion.

Obama also has expensive proposals, such as his health care coverage plan and middle-class tax cuts. But he is clear where the money is coming from: higher taxes on high-income families, ending the war in Iraq, selling the right to emit greenhouse gases, and cutting subsidies to oil and gas companies, health insurers, drug companies, and the student loan industry.

That’s why the Wall Street Journal concluded that Barack Obama’s budget “adds up, probably.” But McCain’s plan, it concluded, “would either cause the federal deficit to explode or would require unprecedented spending cuts.”

Digg It!

Our guest bloggers are Jason Walsh and Van Jones from Green for All.

This morning, Senate debate on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act came to an end. It was a missed opportunity to robustly debate a critical issue facing the country. The bill had the potential, particularly if strengthened during the amendment process, to affect profound and positive change for both the American people and the planet.

It is a shame that political gamesmanship paralyzed the Senate on such a crucial piece of legislation. Many of the arguments against the legislation were patently false. It was particularly ironic that some senators chose to argue against this bill on the basis that it does not protect those less fortunate; their voting records clearly indicate that the poor are not the constituents with whom they are most concerned.

Hypocrisy aside, the claim that the bill hurts the underserved ignored the assistance for low-income families and workers already in the legislation — which could and should have been strengthened by an amendment filed by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) — and the critical investments that the bill makes in providing economic opportunities for low-income workers and building the wealth and health of low-income communities.

The fact of the matter is that this issue is far too important to employ scare tactics and play politics with. The effects of global warming, which hit low-income people first and worst, are real and they warrant a genuine discussion and substantive action.

We do, however, want to commend Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA). She has proven herself to be the national leader and voice that we have been longing for in the Senate. She is a true heroine, and the nation will owe her an incalculable debt when we finally win sane climate policy in the United States.

We hope to continue the conversation, and insist that any federal climate legislation must: Read more

On Wednesday’s edition of Your World with Neal Cavuto, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) defended John McCain’s fiscal intentions:

LIEBERMAN:…I think he favors a strong dollar and he favors a balanced budget, but he wants to see all the Bush tax cuts extended.

Watch it:

But even if McCain “favors” a balanced budget (just like President Bush does), he clearly favors tax cuts for corporations and wealthy CEOs even more.

McCain not only wants to extend Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, he wants to double them by cutting corporate taxes, creating new loopholes for big business, and ignoring the middle class.

Far from balancing the budget, McCain’s plan would create the largest deficits in 25 years and the largest debt since World War Two.

As McCain’s own Chief Economic Advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin said on deficits: “You have to pay for that somehow or you’re George Bush III.”

Yesterday, the Center for American Progress released a report by American Worker Project director David Madland comparing the US economy during the presidencies of George W. Bush (2001-2007) and Herbert Hoover (1929-1932). Although today’s economy cannot technically be labeled a recession (whereas Hoover presided over a stock market crash followed by four straight years of economic deterioration), a close inspection of the economic track records and ideology of these two presidents reveals that they are quite similar. Here are some highlights from the study:

Comparison #1: Housing

Under both presidents, housing foreclosures rose rapidly—even more rapidly under Bush than Hoover. Housing starts also fell significantly, though to a much greater degree under Hoover than Bush.

Comparison #2: Employment

Bush has presided over the worst annual job creation record since Hoover, the only president to ever preside over an economy that has lost jobs. Although Bush has created jobs at an annual rate of .07 percent, most presidents in the 20th century have boasted a 2 to 4 percent increase.

Comparison #3: Income

While the drop in average income during Bush has been less severe than that of the Hoover era, it is one of only three instances since the end of the Great Depression in which average income for most Americans has decreased during a president’s tenure. In contrast, income inequality in the Bush years has grown to levels above even those during the Depression era.

Read the full report.