Saturday, September 6, 2008

Should Obama give more details than McCain on his economic plans?

Well, as you know, liberals are complaining that McCain's speech is less informative on his plans to reform the economy than Obama's. It's not fair! Well, think about it...

As the Russian saying goes - "You have to build socialism. It's sufficient to allow capitalism". Obama wants to nationalize the medical care. He plans to drastically increase spending on social programs, raise minimum wage, make "volunteer service" compulsory for high school students. Moreover, he wants to spend tens of billions of dollars on "alternative energy", heavily tax all businesses that emit CO2, regulate labor relations, heavily tax all companies that export capital to foreign countries and make much tougher environmental laws. It's his duty to explain how exactly he proposes these thing to work, and why exactly he believes these new (actually modern day European) policies will create jobs, revitalize the US economy and increase the wealth production. For example - it's common knowledge that minimum wages increase unemployment, particularly among uneducated workers. So, why is he promoting a policy which will undeniably hurt his professed goal of creating more jobs?

As for McCain, his job is much simpler. In many cases he supports simple conservative-libertarian position - cut the government role and give money back to the people. Since he won't be the one spending people's money - he cannot explain which mechanisms will be created in a free market economy. Asking him what solutions will become popular is like asking someone promoting democracy to explain who must become the president.

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