During a debate last night with former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) reiterated his opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

The EFCA would allow workers at a company to unionize by signing cards of consent, instead of having to undergo a full unionization campaign and vote. However, Sununu said that the bill “would take away the worker’s right to a secret ballot,” and that workers would “have to tell everyone” what their choice was when deciding whether or not to unionize:

This legislation would take away the worker’s right to a secret ballot when deciding whether or not they want a union. Signing a card is a public act and when you have to tell everyone what your choice is, how you’re voting, you become subject to intimidation. Maybe intimidation by other workers, maybe intimidation by employers. Either way, the worker’s right is compromised.

Watch the video here.

Sununu has also said that the EFCA “would force workers to stand up and declare their vote in front of both union bosses and employers,” and that the act could “potentially erode the foundations of free elections everywhere else.”

Contrary to Sununu’s assertion, the EFCA “would not eliminate traditional elections.” Instead, it would prevent employers from forcing their workers into a secret ballot election, and mandates that employers “recognize the majority sign-up process whether they like it or not.”

It’s important that workers be allowed to avoid an election, if they so choose. As David Madland wrote “workers considering forming a union face an undemocratic system that permits intimidation. Employers legally can force workers to attend anti-union meetings, including ‘one-on-one conversations’ with supervisors, which happens in over 90 percent of organizing campaigns.”

Furthermore, “even after workers successfully form a union, in one-third of the instances, employers do not negotiate a contract.” The EFCA would “strengthen penalties for such labor law violations and prevent employers from delaying first-contract negotiations.”

Sununu is not alone among conservative lawmakers in opposing the EFCA. Earlier this month, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) called it the “most insidious bill” he’s seen during his time in Congress, while Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) called it a “threat” to democracy. Both Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) have characterized it as “un-American.”

However, there is nothing “un-American” about easing the path towards unionization for American’s workers. Or maybe the 60 million U.S. workers who “would join a union if they could” are all un-American too.

When it comes to taxes and the economy, John McCain has got his dancing shoes on.

In the early 2000s, John McCain eschewed his reputation as a radical tax cutter by opposing the Bush tax cuts because they “came at the expense of middle class Americans.”

But now he’s waltzed all the way back to the far right, proposing not only to extend the Bush tax cuts, but double them by giving away another $300 billion in budget-busting tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy while leaving out 100 million Americans.

In the last month, he’s made overtures to the middle class, promising mortgage relief and a new set of tax cuts for the middle class. But when the details were revealed, they turned out to be just more giveaways to corporations and the wealthy.

Watch him go:

Dancing shoes? Maybe he’ll just add taps to his $520 loafers.

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UPDATE: Embeddable code after the jump.

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During an interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto yesterday, Karl Rove derided Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) plan to return the top two federal income tax brackets to the levels at which they were under President Clinton. Rove claimed such action would “devastate” small businesses.

To back up his assertion, Rove reeled off a long string of numbers – including “in the top 1 percent, 73 percent of the filers are small business people. 663,000 out of 912,000 filers in the top 1 percent are small business people” – to suggest that Obama would tax a huge percentage of small businesses. Watch it:

Rove is using an intimidating slew of numbers to spread falsehood. First, only 1.9 percent of small businesses file in the top two federal income tax brackets. That leaves 98.1 percent of small businesses unaffected by Obama’s suggested rate change.

Furthermore, because of the Treasury Department’s broad definition of small business, “many of the roughly 650,000 filers with small-business income who face one of the top two tax rates are merely passive investors who have nothing to do with running the business.” As the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities found:

About 35 percent of “small-business owners” with incomes above $200,000, and about 58 percent of “small-business owners” with incomes over $1 million, received some or all of their business income in the form of passive investments. The Treasury definition also counts as “small-business income” the fees that CEOs are paid for sitting on corporate boards.

Under the Treasury definition, “the $84 of income President Bush received in 2001 from a passive investment in an oil and gas company made him a ‘small-business owner.’” It’s hard to see how taxing this income would devastate actual small businesses.

The Wonk Room has been arguing recently that an economic stimulus package is a necessary step towards recovering from the current financial crisis. The counter argument – which Matthew Yglesias calls “Neo-Hooverism” – is that the government should exercise fiscal restraint and curb spending, out of concern for widening deficits.

However, during a hearing today before Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, New York University Economics Professor Nouriel Roubini explained that failure to enact a fiscal stimulus could actually result in wider deficits as the economy contracts. In his estimate, this would send the U.S. into a “very severe recession.” Watch it:

Roubini is part of a growing chorus of voices calling for a fiscal stimulus. Yesterday, Gov. David Paterson (D-NY) and Gov. Jon Corzine (D-NJ) joined in, saying that “state governments would face devastating cutbacks if they did not receive assistance soon”:

“We are cutting all we can,” Mr. Paterson told the House Ways and Means Committee. “Therefore, we feel that targeted, sensible actions by the federal government will provide relief for us now.”

CAP’s Michael Ettlinger agrees, noting that “of particular importance are steps to help state governments so that they don’t become a drag on the economy as their revenues dry up and demand on their services grows.”

Today, the economic stimulus package also received an endorsement from Professor Martin Feldstein, an economic adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). In the Washington Post, Feldstein wrote:

The only way to prevent a deepening recession will be a temporary program of increased government spending. Previous attempts to use government spending to stimulate an economic recovery, particularly spending on infrastructure, have not been successful because of long legislative lags that delayed the spending until a recovery was well underway. But while past recessions lasted an average of only about 12 months, this downturn is likely to last much longer, providing the scope for successful countercyclical spending.

As Matthew Yglesias noted, Feldstein “gingerly avoids pointing out that this is the reverse of what his preferred candidate is proposing.” Indeed, McCain has said that he will freeze government spending on everything besides what he deems to be “vital” programs.

Feldstein believes that government spending is the only way to avoid a deeper recession. Will McCain get the message and endorse a full stimulus package?

The winners and losers of the Bush years are now clear.

Today, Exxon-Mobil announced third quarter profits of $14.83 billion, the most profitable three months of any U.S. company in history.

These profits represent annual profits over 250% of the levels at the beginning of the Bush years. Over the same period, real average wages for the American worker have stayed essentially flat, growing only 2% over eight years.

Real median household income was lower in 2007 (last data available) than it was in 2000, after growing 13% from 1992 to 2008.

These huge oil company profits come even as the American economy has shrunk 0.3% and slides into recession.

John McCain’s plan to solve this crisis? A budget busting tax plan that would give a $1.2 billion tax break to Exxon-Mobile ($4 billion for America’s largest oil companies) and give nothing to over 100 million Americans.

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On the stump, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) has been emphasizing Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) plan to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, citing the oft-repeated claim that the U.S. rate is the “second highest in the world.”

However, yesterday on CNBC, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) was asked if the “second highest” rate needs to be cut, and responded with the true story: the U.S. tax code is riddled with loopholes that enable corporations to pay far less. Watch it:

McCaskill is quite right to say that corporations benefit from the intricacies of the tax code, as it contains myriad “loopholes, shelters, and giveaways that minimize, or completely eliminate corporate taxes.” This week, in fact, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report showing that “the U.S. corporate tax burden is smaller than average for developed countries” due in part to the “plethora of generous corporate tax breaks“:

Corporations in 19 of the member states of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development paid 16.1 percent of their profits in taxes between 2000 and 2005, on average, while corporations in the United States paid 13.4 percent.

The CBPP noted that the “second highest” charge “while true…gives the false impression that the corporate tax burden is greater here than in other developed countries.”

This all makes perfect sense, since the U.S. also collects below the OECD average in corporate tax revenue. The Treasury Department actually estimates that “various corporate tax breaks will cost the federal government more than $1.2 trillion over the next ten years.”

Instead of worrying about the amount of taxes that corporations are paying, perhaps Palin should focus on the 100 million middle class households to which the McCain/Palin economic plan gives no benefit.

During an appearance on Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes last night, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), as he is fond of doing, invoked Herbert Hoover to warn against Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) economic plan. “There was a president named Herbert Hoover,” said McCain. “They raised taxes, they practiced protectionism and they went from a serious recession into a deep depression. Now, that’s a matter of history.” Watch it:

However, there is another matter of history that McCain should look at regarding Hoover’s actions. Responding to the recession, and “convinced that a balanced federal budget was essential to restoring business confidence, Hoover sought to cut government spending and raise taxes.”

In fact, before the 1932 election, Hoover was touting his successful push to reduce government spending:

The extension of governmental expenditures beyond the minimum limit necessary to conduct the proper functions of the Government enslaves men to work for the Government….[T]he ordinary expenses of the Government have been reduced upwards of $200 million during the present administration. They will be decidedly further reduced.

Hoover’s approach was clearly unsuccessful, and late in his administration, he tried to recover:

As conditions worsened, Hoover’s administration eventually provided emergency loans to banks and industry, expanded public works, and helped states offer relief. But it was too little, too late.

There is a growing consensus among economists, budget analysts, and lawmakers that the next administration should not subscribe to what Matthew Yglesias has called “Neo-Hooverism” — mass spending reductions as a response to the financial crisis. McCain, however, consistently promises to balance the budget and has advocated a complete spending freeze on everything besides several “vital issues.”

If McCain really wants to use Hoover as an example of what should not be done in response to a recession, he needs to include the entire story, and not cherry-pick the most convenient of Hoover’s actions.

On the stump recently, both Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) have been calling Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) economic plans “socialism” because he wants to “spread the wealth” by raising rates on the top two federal income tax brackets back to the level at which they were under President Clinton.

The Tax Policy Center noted that “sharing the wealth, as McCain puts it, is what government does.” But this hasn’t stopped the media from amplifying the McCain message by questioning if Obama’s plan amounts to socialism or even Marxism.

The most egregious example was put forth by WFTV Orlando’s Barbara West, who asked Sen, Joe Biden (D-DE) “how is Sen. Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?” But the media haven’t stopped there. Watch a compilation:

As the New Yorker pointed out yesterday, “the principle that Obama evinced, which most economists would regard as unexceptionable, can be traced to Adam Smith.” In The Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote:

It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

Furthermore, a new analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice found that only 2.5 percent of Americans would lose any of their Bush tax cuts under the Obama plan.

Not only should those in the media point out that McCain’s charge is false, but they should note that McCain also plans to redistribute wealth. He just wants to redistribute wealth to the already wealthy.

Currently, the United States’ income concentration is at its highest level since 1928. McCain, though, has embraced the Bush economic agenda, proposing to make all of the Bush tax cuts permanent. From this, the bottom 60 percent of taxpayers would only see 12 percent of the benefit. Meanwhile, the top 0.1 percent of taxpayers would see a $1 million tax cut under McCain’s plan.

As Ben Armbruster noted on ThinkProgress, “Seeing that McCain’s policies have little to offer the average American, it seems he is now forced to acquiesce to the fringe right wing talking point that Obama just might be a Marxist.” But this doesn’t mean that the media need to follow suit.

Conservatives have been desperately trying to shift responsibility for the spiraling economic crisis away from its root cause: a bankrupt governing philosophy that shreds regulations and neglects vital supervision.

But there are a few individuals more responsible than most. A new site, How Did This Happen, a joint product of the Center for American Progress Action Fund and Media Matters Action Network, has identified six villains of the crisis.

Here are two:

Former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX)

Gramm is a former Republican senator from Texas who now serves a vice chairman of the UBS investment bank. He served as a senior economic advisor to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) until October when he stepped down after calling America a “nation of whiners” experiencing a “mental recession.”
While still in the Senate, Gramm shielded derivatives from financial regulatory oversight, slipping a rule into an unrelated budget bill in 2000. The unregulated credit default swap market reached a peak of $62 trillion and contributed to the collapses of Bear Stearns Cos., Lehman Brothers Holding Inc., and the American International Group Inc. in recent months.

Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve System

As chairman of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System, Greenspan allowed the markets to run wild without proper supervision, a radical free-market ideology exemplified by a 2005 speech when he said “private regulation generally has proved far better at constraining excessive risk-taking than has government regulation.” He resisted the farsighted recommendation of fellow Fed governor Ned Gramlich that the Fed act to prevent some abuses predatory and risky practices in subprime mortgages, such as mortgages issued without verifying the borrower’s income or ability to repay the mortgage once the introductory rate expired.

Greenspan also opposed a voluntary code of conduct for mortgage lenders. Greenspan also led efforts to exempt derivatives legislation from the oversight BY the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, despite the clear threat to the financial system posed by the near-collapse of the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management due partly to disastrous bets on derivatives.

He now regrets his deregulatory stance. Testifying before the House Government Oversight Committee on October 23rd he explained that he “made a mistake” and had “found a flaw” in his free market ideology.

Read about all six here.

Today, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) is “preparing to unveil a major economic initiative” aimed at “economic recovery.” Based off of an earlier “alternative” to Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s stimulus package – and outlined in a memo circulated last weekend – Boehner’s plan includes tax cuts for coprorations and zeroing out the capital gains tax.

Ultimately, the plan is a mere conglomeration of ideas plucked from the conservative tax cut wishlist and won’t do what Boehner intends:

- If we cut taxes on small businesses, they’ll use the money to create jobs.

As the Wonk Room has previously noted, tax cuts do not spur business investment. Private business investment actually rose after President Clinton’s tax increases and fell after both the Reagan and Bush tax cuts. As Princeton professor Uwe E. Reinhardt wrote “I would challenge supply-siders to explain why the owners of small businesses — say, restaurants — would expand the capacity of their establishments or build new restaurants at a time when customers stay home, even if they were given a tax cut on the income from their restaurants.”

- A zero capital gains tax is the fastest way to rebuild Americans’ 401(k)s.

The benefits from a capital gains tax cut go overwhelmingly to millionaires, particularly given the current economic climate, in which “the middle class doesn’t collect capital gains, or dividends, in any material amount.” As Michael Ettlinger pointed out “benefits of capital gains tax cuts overwhelmingly go to those who own capital assets outside of retirement.” Furthermore, Ettlinger noted “a 0% capital gains rate would in fact be a disaster for the market.” “Given the uncertain times we face, it’s far more likely that a zero rate on capital gains would prompt a massive exodus from the market than a massive entry into it,” he wrote.

Boehner is also proposing a reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. As the Wonk Room has noted over and over, this proposal does not create jobs. A study by the Center for American Progress Action Fund found that increased corporate profits do not trickle down, and that corporations invest little in new commercial structures such as factories and office buildings.

As evidence that his plan will be well received, Boehner cites a New Models/Winston Group survey showing that “the American people overwhelmingly believe the focus of government economic policy should be economic growth and jobs, not income redistribution or ‘spreading the wealth around.’” However, according to the latest Pew Research poll, “only 25 percent of the public agrees with the centerpiece of the conservative tax program: making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent.”

Instead of presenting a bailout stimulus package economic recovery plan based on trickle-down tax cuts – much in the manner of Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) – Boehner should take a serious look at stimulus thru infrastructure investment, an idea which is gathering widespread support and could actually help the economy recover.

Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) held a roundtable with some of his economic advisers, including former Governor Mitt Romney, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), and former Housing Secretary Jack Kemp.

In a statement following the roundtable, McCain ripped the idea of an economic stimulus package, calling it a “$300 billion spending spree,” and said “I would rather give the great American middle class additional tax cuts and let you keep that money and invest it in your future.” Watch it:

McCain has been consistently cold to the idea of an economic stimulus package, saying various other proposals are better for energizing the economy. Last week, the campaign released a statement saying “we do not believe that a national crisis should be taken as a license for wasteful spending or earmarked projects,” and advocating McCain’s American Homeownership Resurgence Plan as “the best kind of stimulus.”

McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said on CBS’s Face the Nation yesterday that “keeping American households spending” is “the greatest stimulus of all“:

[T]he idea that somehow tough economic times are license to spend money on anything you can think of is something you want to look at very carefully. [...] There is no greater stimulus than keeping American households spending. They’re 70 percent of the economy. And so focusing on them, keeping them in jobs, creating new jobs, that’s the greatest stimulus of all.

However, there is a growing consensus towards an economic stimulus package aimed at infrastructure investment. The proposal has been endorsed by myriad economists and budget analysts, including Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. In fact, Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition – which McCain said he would rely on for economic policy advice – recently said that “it’s appropriate…to loosen fiscal policy, so long as it is done on a targeted and temporary basis.”

Furthermore, it is odd that McCain is touting tax cuts for “the great American middle class” as an adequate stimulus package, since his economic plan gives no benefit to over 100 million middle class households. And his job creation plan doesn’t even keep pace with new workers entering the workforce, so it’s difficult to see how it would provide any economic stimulus.

As Krugman noted, “there’s a lot the federal government can do for the economy.” Relying on tax cuts and an ineffective job creation plan is not enough.

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Recently, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been criticizing Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) for his plan to let the Bush tax cuts expire on the top two federal income brackets. McCain claims that this will hurt small businesses, and cause them to cut jobs:

[H]is tax increase would impact 50 percent of small business income in this country, and the jobs of 16 million middle class Americans who work for those small businesses. My opponent’s massive new tax increase is exactly the wrong approach in an economic slowdown.

McCain’s economic plan centers on making the Bush tax cuts permanent and cutting corporate taxes. However, as Princeton professor Uwe E. Reinhardt points out in the New York Times, business investment actually rose following President Clinton’s tax increases and fell following the Reagan and Bush tax cuts.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “only 1.9 percent of filers with any small-business income are projected to face either of the top two income tax rates in 2009,” and thus the effects of Obama’s tax increases on small businesses would be almost negligible. Furthermore, as Reinhardt pointed out, even rich business owners won’t expand their businesses if no one has money to spend:

Specifically, I would challenge supply-siders to explain why the owners of small businesses — say, restaurants — would expand the capacity of their establishments or build new restaurants at a time when customers stay home, even if they were given a tax cut on the income from their restaurants.

Echoing a slew of prominent economists – including Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman – Reinhardt advocates domestic stimulus “to rebuild the nation’s tattered infrastructure.” Indeed, this is the path that should be taken, instead of cutting taxes for the rich and America’s corporations.

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After accusing Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) of redistributing the wealth of the richest tax payers and handing out “welfare” to the poor, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) today attacked his opponent for not giving enough money to the unemployed:

Just yesterday, we received news that jobless claims have increased by 15,000. And yet, just this week, Senator Obama announced that his plan would have a work requirement, meaning that those who are unemployed will receive no help under the Obama plan, while Senator Obama’s tax increases would put even more people out of work

But as Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee explained, even though 98 percent of Obama’s tax credits were previously tied to work, the final work requirement was added to address the McCain campaign’s “welfare” charge. Watch a compilation:

The McCain campaign is trying to have it both ways, criticizing Obama for redistributing the wealth to lethargic couch potatoes, on one hand, and then complaining that the unemployed “will receive no help under the Obama plan,” after Obama tweaked his proposal to reflect their criticism.

McCain’s own plan would do little to help workers. In a statement this week on the increase in jobless claims, McCain said “today, we learned that another 478,000 Americans claimed unemployment benefits this week. Times are tough, and we need immediate action to take this economy in a new direction.”

However, an analysis by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, finds that McCain’s plan for job creation “would create only about ƒƒ450,000 jobs in 2009, at a cost of $280 billion.” Meanwhile, “the United States needs to generate 1.5 million jobs a year just to keep up with the new ƒƒworkers entering the labor force.”

So while it is a good thing that McCain is suddenly expressing such worry for the unemployed, his economic plan won’t do much to put Americans back to work.

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Today, during an interview on Fox News, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said that while he has at times “voted to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans,” he currently agrees with the tax plan of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and opposes higher tax rates for the wealthy.

He explained that by proposing a more progressive tax system, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is “misreading” the situation of middle-class workers like “Joe the Plumber.” Lieberman claimed that, with the two presidential tax plans, “the American story” is “on the line.” Watch it:

However, it is Lieberman who is “misreading” this entire situation. First, as Lieberman concedes, Joe the Plumber is “not a rich guy,” and thus would receive a larger tax cut under Obama’s tax plan than under McCain’s.

And since Lieberman is so concerned with Americans who are “trying to make [their] way up” and “want to be rich,” it is worth pointing out that income inequality threatens economic mobility. America’s income concentration is at its highest level since 1928, and “36 percent of children born to parents in the bottom wealth quintile remain in the bottom as adults.” Meanwhile, just “7 percent of children born to parents in the bottom wealth quintile make it to the top quintile in adulthood.”

The American public actually “rejects the conservative approach to taxes” and favors a more progressive system:

Data from the latest Pew Research poll shows that only 25 percent of the public agrees with the centerpiece of the conservative tax program: making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent. In contrast, 62 percent want to either repeal tax cuts for the wealthy while keeping the rest of the cuts (37 percent) or repeal all of the tax cuts (25 percent).

If Lieberman wants “the American story” to come true for middle- and low-income workers, he should be supporting a progressive tax system.

Yesterday on the Situation Room, McCain defended the tax practices of the companies of his economic advisers:

…[I]f you talk to the CEO of FedEx, Fred Smith, if you talk to the CEO of Cisco, John Chambers, you talk to Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay, you know what they’ll tell you? They’ll tell you they pay their full 35 percent…they’re paying 35 percent full freight, no evasions or escapes from the taxes. They’re paying full freight, and they’ll show you their tax returns.

Watch it:

What McCain didn’t mention is that at least two of the companies of his advisers, Fred Smith’s FedEx and Hewlett Packard under former CEO Carly Fiorina, have a history of massive tax evasion.

A 2007 investigation by the IRS found that FedEx owed $319 million in back taxes from 2002 by misreporting its employees as independent contractors. Just yesterday this full penalty was withdrawn on appeal, but an investigation is continuing into their tax returns for 2003-2006. Lawyers for the drivers insist that FedEx could owe up to $1 billion in back taxes.

Similarly, as CEO of Hewlett Packard, McCain adviser Carly Fiorina deferred taxation on $14.4 billion by keeping it offshore. This lowered Hewlett-Packard’s effective tax rate from 35 percent to 12 percent.

America collects only 2.2% of its GDP in corporate taxes because of loopholes, shelters and giveaways, compared to 4% in Ireland (which McCain frequently touts for its 11% corporate tax rate).

Rather than closing the loopholes that let his economic advisers’ companies dodge millions in taxes, McCain’s tax plan would have let them to pay even less: saving FedEx $260 million in taxes and HP $250 million had his tax plan been effect in 2007.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economic adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), has repeatedly asserted that there are “no tax cuts anywhere for the wealthy” in McCain’s tax plan. During a debate on Bloomberg last night, Holtz-Eakin again said that “there aren’t any tax cuts for the wealthy in this.”

However, when it was pointed out that McCain’s proposal to temporarily cut the capital gains tax would overwhelmingly benefit millionaires, Holtz-Eakin conceded that was a “fair point,” but said he’s “not here to quibble on things like that.” Watch it:

Indeed, this is a very fair point, as the Tax Policy Center found that two-thirds of the benefits from McCain’s capital gains cut would go to those making $1 million or more. Were this proposal enacted, millionaires would get an average tax cut of more than $72,000, while those making less than $50,000 would receive, on average, no cut at all.

However, Holtz-Eakin now needs to acknowledge that the rest of McCain’s plan also significantly cuts taxes for the wealthy. McCain’s tax plan delivers almost half of its benefits to the top 1 percent of taxpayers, and gives the top 0.1 percent a $1 million tax cut. Meanwhile, 100 million middle class households receive no benefit at all.

So it is “fair” to say that McCain’s capital gains cut would only benefit the wealthy, but it’s also “fair” to say that about the rest of McCain’s plan.

An updated analysis of the Obama and McCain tax plans by the Center for American Progress Action Fund finds that John and Cindy McCain would have saved $730,000 over 2006 and 2007 under McCain’s tax plan.

Under Obama’s proposed plan, the McCains would have saved $62,000 over the same two years.

Read the full analysis here.

Barack and Michelle Obama would have saved $270,000 under McCain’s plan and $14,000 under Obama’s.

This analysis incorporates the effects of John McCain’s new controversial proposal to temporarily cut the capital gains tax to 7.5% from 15%, a cut whose benefits go overwhelmingly to those making over $600,000/year, as well as other recent modifications to the McCain and Obama proposals.

John McCain’s $300 billion tax plan is heavily skewed towards corporations and the wealthy and does nothing for over 100 million Americans.

It sure wouldn’t do nothing for John and Cindy McCain, though.

Recently, a series of media commentators and conservatives have lent their support to what Matthew Yglesias dubbed “Neo-Hooverism” – the idea that the United States should significantly cut back on spending due to the financial crisis. The Neo-Hoover premise is also being used to argue against enacting an economic stimulus package.

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) joined the ranks of the Neo-Hooverites when he laid out his own economic recovery plan this week. “I would have grave reservations if the stimulus concept got hijacked into another just big spending bill — I wouldn’t support that,” he said. Coleman said he would support “tax breaks or stuff like that to grow jobs.”

Coleman’s own eight-point economic plan, meanwhile, includes a slew of spending cuts and freezes:

Coleman’s recovery plan includes enforcing spending caps, freezing congressional pay, enforcing pay-go where new spending must be accompanied by like spending cuts, require the president to submit spending cuts to Congress, giving the president line-item veto authority, closing the tax gap of unpaid taxes, closing tax loopholes, making sure Social Security and Medicare are solvent in the future.

Coleman’s point of view, however, has been rebutted by economists and budget analysts, who say that the next administration should “open its wallet, not tighten its belt.” Nobel Prize winning economists Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz have both advocated for a stimulus package. Krugman wrote that “increased government spending is just what the doctor ordered, and concerns about the budget deficit should be put on hold.”

As the Center for American Progress Action Fund has outlined, increased domestic spending would stimulate the economy and stem the tide of job loss. The stimulus “should jump-start a low-carbon economy, invest in infrastructure, expand unemployment insurance, increase energy assistance, and boost food stamp support.”

Matthew Yglesias wrote that a stimulus package constitutes “an effort to prevent the country from sliding into an extremely deep recession. The evidence suggests that the most effective forms of stimulus are spending-side stimulus.” Conservatives like Coleman and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) need to set aside unproductive budget fervor for the moment, unless they believe that it’s “far better to let our children and grandchildren grow up amidst an endless depression.”

In the last few weeks, conservatives have amplified their criticism of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), a bill that passed the House but stalled in the Senate in 2007, and that may be revived in the next Congress. The EFCA would offer “a fairer path for workers to unionize” by enabling them to form a union by signing cards of consent, instead of having to undergo a full unionization campaign and vote.

One of the conservatives bashing the EFCA recently was Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), who said that the legislation promotes “something called card-check … which would take away the right to a secret ballot in a union election.” He added that “unions would be able to browbeat workers into signing the cards.”

On MSNBC today, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said he “can’t think of a more insidious bill.” Watch it:

Coleman and Hatch join former Congressman Bob Schaffer (R-CO), Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Jim Demint (R-SC), and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), along with George Will and the National Review, in berating the bill.

These conservatives, however, are all missing the point. First, the EFCA “would not eliminate traditional elections.” Majority sign-ups, meanwhile, are “usually fairer than secret-ballot elections,” as the current method “allows companies to pressure workers through a formal campaign.”

The advocacy organization American Rights at Work found that employers interfere with almost 50 percent of union elections, and workers who ask for a vote never receive one 40 percent of the time.

The importance of unions to the American worker can not really be understated. The AFL-CIO notes that “60 million U.S. workers would join a union if they could.” Union workers on average make 30 percent in more in wages than non-union workers, and are more likely to have health insurance.

This is important because, in recent years, wages have stagnated. Wages were actually 0.3% lower in June 2008 than they were in March 2001. Meanwhile, in 2007 top business executives earned “344 times the salary of the average American worker.” Between 1980 and 2005, as unionization rates plummeted, CEO pay rose.

As the Institute for Policy Studies wrote, the Employee Free Choice Act is “legislation that would help workers realize their right to organize into unions and bargain collectively with their employers.” If this is the most insidious bill that Hatch has seen, he really hasn’t seen anything insidious at all.