Our guest blogger is Will Straw, Associate Director for Economic Growth at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Senator John McCain today responded to 14 questions from scienceblogs.com about aspects of his science policy. The questions are part of a project by 38,000 scientists, politicians and business leaders who initially proposed a televised presidential debate focused on science and technology issues.

It was hard to expect much from the self-confessed computer “illiterate” described by former FCC chairman Reed Hundt as a “technological troglodyte,” who had a lackluster record as two-time chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and has voted over 90% of the time with the President who refers to using “the Google.” McCain didn’t disappoint with not a single reference to “broadband” and only passing references to the “Internet.”

At a time when the United States has slipped to 15th out of the 30 rich Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in terms of broadband penetration and when a “digitial divide” has developed with a lack of access in rural areas, this has become one of the most important areas of science policy.

In fairness to McCain, his campaign website does set out that he “Will Pursue High-Speed Internet Access For All Americans” but it is vague about how he would do so offering mealy mouthed proposals to “encourage private investment” and relying on “people acting through their local governments (sic).”

Obama’s response to the ScienceDebate2008 sets out explicitly that he will provide “broadband Internet connections for all Americans across the country.” His website contains a detailed six point plan to “restore America’s world leadership in this arena.”

This includes proposals such as “unleashing the wireless spectrum” that were set out in the Center for American Progress’ own report, A National Innovation Agenda by Tom Kalil and John Irons. Other ideas include:

- Creating tax incentives for companies that invest in next-generation broadband networks and provide access to underserved urban and rural communities.
Permanently extending the moratorium on taxes on Internet access.

- Investing in R&D that will allow us to make better use of the existing spectrum, such as “cognitive radio” that will be able to intelligently detect, which channels are in use and which are not, and maximize our use of the spectrum while avoiding interference.

- Supporting state efforts to accelerate broadband deployment.

Digg It!

“The fundamentals of the economy are strong.”
- Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), 9/15/08

McCain uttered this phrase on the same day that the U.S. financial system was facing its “gravest crisis in modern times.” This weekend, the securities firm Lehman Brothers “filed for bankruptcy protection and hurtled toward liquidation,” “becoming the largest financial firm to fail in the global credit crisis,” while Bank of America “agreed to acquire Merrill Lynch & Co. for about $50 billion as the credit crisis claimed another of America’s oldest financial companies.” The insurance giant AIG is also asking the Federal Reserve for an infusion of cash, while the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 300 points in the first 15 minutes of trading this morning.

But it’s really no surprise that McCain is divorced from the reality of America’s faltering economic system. Just take note of who advises his campaign on economic matters. The Wonk Room has assembled a report on John McCain’s Econ Team — from those who helped spur the mortgage meltdown to those still blissfully unaware that anything is wrong with the economy:

Phil Gramm: McCain’s “Econ Brain,” who called America “a nation of whiners” in a “mental recession,” former Senator Gramm was behind the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. The former made legal “the mortgage swaps distancing the originator of the loan from the ultimate collector,” while the latter “destroyed the Depression-era barrier to the merger of stockbrokers, banks and insurance companies.” As The Nation wrote, “those two acts effectively ended significant regulation of the financial community.”

Rick Davis: Before becoming McCain’s campaign manager, Davis “served as president of an advocacy group led by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that defended the two companies against increased regulation.” As noted in the Progress Report, “During his tenure, Davis moved to challenge even the smallest measures to make sure that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are be held more accountable for their actions.”

Donald Luskin: Like McCain, Luskin believes that “things today just aren’t that bad,” and everyone should “quit doling out that bad-economy line.” In a Washington Post Op-ed on Sunday, he wrote that “we have surely become a nation of exaggerators,” despite agreeing that “the foreclosure rate is the worst since the Great Depression.” Read more

On Saturday, John McCain told the New Hampshire Union Leader that he’d lower taxes for everyone:

John McCain yesterday said he will take Barack Obama’s New Hampshire pledge not to raise taxes for anyone making less than $250,000. “Not only that, I’m going to cut taxes for literally everybody,” the Republican nominee said yesterday in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C.

This isn’t true.

John McCain’s tax plan leaves out the millions of American households who do not earn enough money to pay income taxes and millions more middle class households with no dependents. This amounts to around 100 million households who’d see no tax cut under John McCain. (This corroborated by both the Obama campaign, and the right-wing conservative Tax Foundation.)

Furthermore, the millions of Americans who currently get their health care through their jobs could see their taxes increase when John McCain starts taxing their health benefits and gives them a credit that won’t offset their increased taxes. An American couple making $60,000 a year would see their taxes go up over $1,100 by 2013.

So when John McCain tells you he’ll cut taxes for “literally everyone,” he’s just not telling the truth.