Our guest blogger is Adam Jentleson, the Communications and Outreach Director for the Hyde Park Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
To cut through the rhetoric coming out of St. Paul, here is a by-the-numbers examination of how Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin are proposing a third term of failed conservative policies.
The McCain-Palin Agenda for Our Economy:
* Zero tax relief for 100 million middle-class Americans, but trillions in tax cuts for big corporations and the very wealthy.
* $175 billion per year in tax cuts for corporations.
* $45 billion per year in tax cuts for the top 200 corporations alone.
* The top 1 percent will receive nearly 50 percent of the benefits of McCain’s tax plan.
* People making $5 million a year (McCain’s definition of “middle class”) will get a nearly $1 million tax cut.
* Women will continue to make 78 cents to every dollar a man earns because McCain opposes legislation to close the pay gap.
The McCain-Palin Agenda for Health Care:
* 158 million Americans will be at risk of losing their employer-sponsored health care coverage.
* 56 million Americans with chronic illnesses will be at risk of losing their coverage.
* More than 59 million women who receive their health insurance through their job or their spouse’s job will be at risk of losing that insurance.
* More than 30 million women who suffer from a chronic condition could lose their coverage, find it harder to obtain coverage, or have to purchase supplemental insurance to cover their chronic condition.
* Millions of middle class Americans will see their taxes go up, because McCain’s health care tax credit is not indexed to keep up with costs. (For instance, a family making $60,000 a year will see their taxes go up by $1,100 by 2013.)
* McCain’s one-size-fits-all health care tax credit will fall far short of covering many Americans’ health care costs. For instance, it will cover less than one-third of the average health care costs for older, sicker Americans.
The McCain-Palin Agenda for Energy:
* $4 billion in tax cuts for the top 5 oil companies in the U.S. ($1.2 trillion a year for ExxonMobil alone).
* $39 billion in taxpayer subsidies for big oil and gas companies over the next five years.
* More than 30 years before gas prices go down, because it will take at least that long for McCain’s drilling proposal to affect prices.
* $0 in gas price relief from drilling, instead of up to $500 in relief from a proposed gas rebate that McCain opposes.
The McCain-Palin Agenda for Four More Years of the Same Failed Conservative Agenda:
* 159 lobbyists working for the McCain-Palin campaign.
* 0 new ideas to get our economy working again and restore our leadership around the world.
* 4 more years of President Bush’s policy agenda.