McCain: Opponent would seek trillion-dollar tax hike

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Monday that the eventual Democratic nominee would allow taxes to increase by over $1 trillion over the next decade by permitting tax cuts to expire.

“You can’t raise taxes by a trillion dollars without hurting American workers,” the presumptive GOP nominee, who appeared before the National Restaurant Association in Chicago, said in prepared remarks.

{mosads}McCain hopes to label his opponent in the general election as a “tax and spend” Democrat who wants a bigger government in Washington.

“As president, I will keep the current low tax rates, and I will leave that trillion dollars and more with the millions of Americans who earned it,” McCain stated.

He noted that some of the “sharpest disagreements” between himself and the Democratic nominee, whether it is Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) or Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), center on how to help the economy and American workers.

“On tax policy, healthcare reform, trade, government spending, and a long list of other issues, we offer very different choices to the American people,” the Arizona senator said. “The nominees of each party have an obligation to make those choices clear to the American people, in civil and candid debate between now and the fourth of November. And I suggest we start sooner rather than later.”

Clinton quickly rejected to McCain’s accusations.

“It’s hard to take lectures on economic policy from Senator McCain, who has admitted he doesn’t understand economics, and who thinks the right way to fix or ailing economy is to embrace George Bush’s failed economic strategy,” she stated.

McCain later directly attacked Obama, the favorite to win the Democratic nomination, for his position on trade.

“Sen. Obama has a habit of talking down the value of our exports and trade agreements,” McCain said before reminding his audience that an Obama adviser, through back channels, sought to assure Canada that Obama’s trade rhetoric is only “political posturing.”

“For those of us who were paying attention, what we heard was not impressive. It was bad judgment and a bit inconsistent,” McCain said. “Sen. Obama is fond of scolding others for engaging in the ‘old-style politics,’ but when he plays on fears of foreign trade, he’s resorting to the oldest kind of politics there is. It’s the kind of politics that exploits problems instead of solving them, that breeds resentment instead of opportunity.”

At the onset of the speech, the Arizona senator blasted Obama for his willingness to meet with Iranian leaders without preconditions. The proposal, McCain said, shows Obama’s inexperience on foreign policy and would strengthen President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.