Candidates Asked To Clarify Tax Stance

My Top 3

Crazy for liberty
quotes Bob Barr:

Where does John McCain stand on taxes?, asks Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party candidate for president. He was for higher taxes before he was against them. But now he seems to be in favor of them again, notes Barr.

Perhaps Sen. McCain has been in Washington too long to realize, but Americans pay far too much for government. The Tax Foundation says most of us spend nearly four months working for the government, and that doesn’t include the cost of government borrowing or regulation. Yet Sen. McCain opposed President George W. Bush’s tax cuts as being unfair. When he decided to run for president, he decided that he favored making the tax cuts permanent. Which is the real John McCain?, Barr asks.

Earlier this year Sen. McCain said no new taxes, no matter what, but his economic adviser Carly Fiorina recently encouraged the Democrats to be creative enough to propose a tax hike on wealthier Americans as part of a Social Security plan. McCain’s spokesman then insisted that the candidate believes ‘we can fix Social Security without raising taxes,’ but this weekend Sen. John McCain told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that ‘There is nothing I would take off the table’, notes Barr. That language is Washington-speak and is nothing less than an open invitation to the Democrats to propose tax hikes in the context of negotiations concerning the budget or Social Security reform. We all know how such bipartisan ‘compromises’ end—with spending going up and taxpayers paying more.

Of course, some libertarians are wondering whether Bob Barr supports the Boortz/Linder “fair” tax plan,
or to what extent he differs from it.