Description: Leading During Financial Crisis
Candidate: Sen. Obama
Question: Do you have a question for Senator McCain about his tax cut policies?
LEHRER: Senator Obama, you have a question for Senator McCain on that?
OBAMA: Well, let me just make a couple of points.
LEHRER: All right.
OBAMA: My definition -- here's what I can tell the American people: 95 percent of you will get a tax cut. And if you make less than $250,000, less than a quarter-million dollars a year, then you will not see one dime's worth of tax increase.
Now, John mentioned the fact that business taxes on paper are high in this country, and he's absolutely right. Here's the problem: There are so many loopholes that have been written into the tax code, oftentimes with support of Senator McCain, that we actually see our businesses pay effectively one of the lowest tax rates in the world.
And what that means, then, is that there are people out there who are working every day, who are not getting a tax cut, and you want to give them more.
It's not like you want to close the loopholes. You just want to add an additional tax cut over the loopholes. And that's a problem.
Just one last point I want to make, since Senator McCain talked about providing a $5,000 health credit. Now, what he doesn't tell you is that he intends to, for the first time in history, tax health benefits.
So you may end up getting a $5,000 tax credit. Here's the only problem: Your employer now has to pay taxes on the health care that you're getting from your employer. And if you end up losing your health care from your employer, you've got to go out on the open market and try to buy it.
It is not a good deal for the American people. But it's an example of this notion that the market can always solve everything and that the less regulation we have, the better off we're going to be.
MCCAIN: Well, you know, let me just...
LEHRER: We've got to go to another lead question.
MCCAIN: I know we have to, but this is a classic example of walking the walk and talking the talk.
We had an energy bill before the United States Senate. It was festooned with Christmas tree ornaments. It had all kinds of breaks for the oil companies, I mean, billions of dollars worth. I voted against it; Senator Obama voted for it.
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