Posted on 10/13/2008 12:07:33 PM PDT by reaganaut1
TOLEDO — Senator Barack Obama on Monday expanded his economic platform, including proposals to spur new jobs, to give Americans penalty-free access to retirement savings to help them through the downturn, to urge a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures and to lend money to strapped local and state governments.
Mr. Obama also is calling on Congress to double $25 billion the government loan guarantees for automakers and to temporarily eliminate taxes on unemployment benefits.
...
Senator John McCain, his Republican rival, also gave an economic speech in Virginia Beach, Va., but he had no new policy prescriptions, having rejected his advisers’ options over the weekend as too gimmicky, according to one Republican close to the campaign.
...
The main new proposals would:
— for the next two years, give businesses a $3,000 income-tax credit for each new full-time employee they hire above the number in their current workforce;
— allow savers with tax-favored Individual Retirement Accounts and 401(k)’s to withdraw 15 percent of those retirement savings, up to a maximum of $10,000, without paying a tax penalty as the law currently requires for withdrawals before age 59 and a half;
— bar financial institutions that take advantage of the Treasury’s rescue plan from foreclosing on the mortgages of any homeowners who are making “good-faith efforts” to make payments;
— direct the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to create a temporary facility for loans to state and local governments, similar to the Fed’s new arrangement to loan corporations money by buying their commercial paper, which are the I.O.U.s that help businesses with daily operating expenses like payrolls.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The mortgage foreclosure moratorium, with vague terms such as "good-faith efforts" is just a way to steal from lenders and reward lawyers, who get to litigate what that means. It sets a precedent that will drive up mortgage rates towards the level of unsecured personal loans.
I am not confident that McCain or other Republicans will even try to make these points.
Where is the money going to come from? Hmmmmmm?
This was a no-brainer. Bush or McCain should have been promoting this idea two weeks ago.
McCain needs to spend the entire debate RIPPING INTO Obozo’s idiotic tax proposals.
They can make these points today, but tomorrow Hussein will be on to the next goal post he sets up.
Better to focus on the big picture.
The $3K for small businesses is nothing. Hire someone, lose them, get hit with the (Obama mandated incresed/lengthened) unemployment benies and watch your pool rise.
This man is an idiot.
A $3000 tax credit to hire new workers is a joke...it costs much more to hire a new employee than this. Business don’t decide how much they are going to save in taxes when hiring an employee. This is all smoke an mirrors in an election ploy. Few businesses if any are going to say “Hey I get a $3000 tax credit if I hire you....they hire if they need the worker—if they don’t need the worker they aren’t going to hire a new worker.
A very sneaky way of increasing tax revenues RIGHT NOW. While the tax penalty would be waved, the taxes owed on the ordinary income withdrawal would be taxed at the person's current tax rate instead of their (lower) tax rate in retirement.
Every “plan” that these nitwits come up with involve putting us deeper in debt. They are trying to put off dealing with this till after the election.
...give Americans penalty-free access to retirement savings to help them through the downturn.
Encouraging Americans to spend their nest eggs to keep houses they can’t afford is hardly the long-term solution.
right on CatOwner...that is exactly what will happen...
Did McCain campaign trick Obama into announcing this garbage?
Senator Barack Obama on Monday expanded his economic platform, including proposals to spur new jobs, to give Americans penalty-free access to retirement savings to help them through the downturn, to urge a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures and to lend money to strapped local and state governments.
lend money to the States and Local Governments???
Lend WHAT MONEY? The Federal Government is broke. The United States is over 10 TRILLION dollars in debt. It has NO MONEY So any lending that Obama suggests has to come from one source. AMERICAN CITIZEN TAXPAYERS. And as it always does the Government will not take enough from us at the beginning and will write checks that it can not cover thus growing America’ s debt to 12 Trillion 15 Trillion or more....
obama and his followers reminds me of 8 or 9 year old kids.
You know how they come up with all kinds of big ideas? Like building a space ship in the backyard. You know it’s impossible but their friends all think they can.
Also, as someone else pointed out, it would be almost a back door tax hike. Even though you wouldn't pay penalties, you would still have to pay income taxes on it.
“Good Faith” is already in effect. My brother in law who works for Wells Fargo has said they have been doing this for years. Wells Fargo just wants it’s money, and if the buyer can only pay 80% of the payment, they will “deal” with the buyer. And if 15% of your IRA is only 10k, you don’t have much money. Leave it alone and draw unemployment
This was a no-brainer. Bush or McCain should have been promoting this idea two weeks ago
I'm not sure I agree. Liquidity is the main problem right now; this would tend to take capital away from institutions and could exacerbate the problem. Also, 401k's are for retirement and should be left that way if at all possible.
People are not starving in the street; unemployment is not that great.
Until we get a system where if you don’t PAY taxes, you don’t get to vote, we will remain a hopelessly corrupt povertocracy where demagogues like the marxist bama will rule.
“good faith efforts” can’t get more vague than that. LOL!
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