McCain just said that the last person to raise taxes in tough economic times was Herbert Hoover. That is utterly indefensible. FDR raised taxes in the early to mid 30s, which were unambiguously bad times. Clinton's tax increase in 1993 might also qualify.

Did anyone else notice something kinda weird during this "discussion" section where Brokaw asked each for their spending priorities? McCain talks about how he can work on all main priorities at once...starts talking about various forms of alternative energy he'd puruse.. and then apropos of nothing, he just throws in "...and my friends, some of that 700 billion dollars ends up in the hands of terrorists"??? Wha????? Then he continued on about the health care or whetever his other priority was. Obama then outlined his as Jonathan describes above.

I guess it is moreRepublican scare tactics. Or maybe those brain synapses are miasfiring.

Did he really say that? I missed it.

This is the 1988 election, right? George Bush vs. Michael Dukakis? It must be, because John McCain seems to really believe that taxation is the defining issue.

Nikkiwhite, don't you see?  That $700 billion goes to banks.  Some banks are public companies.  Public companies are represented in major stock indexes.  Pension funds hold major stock indexes.  William Ayers has a pension fund.  Hence, Obama voted to hand over your tax dollars to his terrorist friend William Ayers.  It's so simple!

The "$700 billion" line is another example of McCain taking a piece of a point he once made at greater length and then going into shorthand mode -- such as when he shouts "I'll make them famous!" without actually saying that he means he'll make sure the names of pork barrel spenders are publicly known.

In this case, he's not referring to the (more than) $700 billion Wall Street bailout, but the 700 bil the American public pays each year for foreign oil, some of which does end up in the hands of terrorists, or as he usually says, "people who hate us." But he almost never makes clear that that's what he's referring to -- partly, I think, because he dimly recognizes that this is the beginning of an argument in favor of serious conservation and changes in our driving habits, but mostly because he doesn't seem to get that making oneself understood to anyone besides oneself is part of the job of communication.

This communications failure is compounded by the fact that he doesn't notice the similarity in the foreign oil and Wall Street bailout figures, and the confusion that he's causing.

Nikki, yes, I noticed that too and was befuddled. Mishkin, thanks for clearing that up.

I don't know about tax and spend, but I've gotten the feeling that the tax cut Energizer bunny no longer plays.  As Obama said during the 1st debate, McCain wants to give away $300 billion in tax cuts for people who haven't even asked for them.  I thought that was an excellent sound bite way of saying that it's no longer clear how much tax cuts will motivate or tax raises will disincent.  Take e. g. the idea of cutting cap gains taxes.  People's main concern right now is having gains to tax, rather than what that rate might be.