According to his website, McCain wants to do the following:(a) Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax.
(b) "John McCain will fight the Democrats' crippling plans for a tax increase in 2011." That "tax increase" is what is more commonly known as "letting the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule."
(c) "Cut The Corporate Tax Rate From 35 To 25 Percent."
(d) "Allow First-Year Deduction, Or “Expensing”, Of Equipment And Technology Investments." From the Gordon/Kvaal report:
"Under current law, corporations must generally deduct the cost of an investment over that investment’s useful lifetime, a tax and accounting practice known as depreciation. McCain’s proposal will allow corporations to depreciate the entire cost of investments in the first year of the purchase, a practice known as expensing. This would create extra incentives for business investment by letting corporations claim these tax breaks immediately."
There are a few other tax proposals, none of which would do anything to offset the cost of these.
The Gordon/Kvaal report estimates the cost of these changes at $2.17 trillion dollars over ten years. They think their estimates are conservative: for instance, they do not count increased spending on debt service.
The Wall Street Journal, everyone's favorite bastion of radical leftism, writes: "In all, his tax-cutting proposals could cost about $400 billion a year, according to estimates of the impact of different tax cuts by CBO and the McCain campaign."That would make the cost over ten years $4 trillion.
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