Today, Sep. 15, in Jacksonville, Florida, before a smaller than expected crowd, John McCain repeated his economic slogan. "Our economy, I think, still the fundamentals of our economy are strong," he said.
In the face of a five-year high in unemployment, six straight years of growing poverty, record numbers of home foreclosures, falling home values, 47 million Americans without health insurance, and a crumbling infrastructure, John McCain still thinks everything is OK. And today, two of the largest banks in the country collapsed: a warning siren by any standard of an unsound economy.
McCain's comment earned a sharp rebuke from Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton. "Today of all days," Burton stated, "John McCain's stubborn insistence that the 'fundamentals of the economy are strong' shows that he is disturbingly out of touch with what's going in the lives of ordinary Americans."
Burton pointed out the disconnect between John McCain the candidate and his own TV ads which seem to have a different message. "Even as his own ads try to convince him that the economy is in crisis," Burton said, "apparently his 26 years in Washington have left him incapable of understanding that the policies he supports have created an historic economic crisis."
John McCain's apparent confusion about the soundness of the economy and even the message of his own campaign may stem from his admission in early 2008 that he doesn't understand economics very well.
His campaign also suffered a major setback in July when McCain's top economic advisor and close friend Phil Gramm described Americans who fear economic recession as being in a "mental recession" and the country as being "nation of whiners." Though Gramm was fired, his idea that everything is fine seems to have stuck.
McCain's new top economic advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin outlined McCain's tax policy recently, which both reflects George W. Bush's tax policy and McCain's inside the box thinking about the soundness of the economy. According to Holtz-Eakin himself, the McCain tax policy will hit working families hardest with some tax increases when McCain's proposed health care tax is included.
Separate analysis indicated that the wealthiest 1 percent of people in the country who are having the least economic difficulties in this economy will get the 58 percent of the benefits under McCain.
Indeed, when working families need relief and an economic stimulus package, McCain is ready to govern, as George W. Bush did, as though nothing is wrong.
