Panelists say economy worries them

Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain can tout their economic, tax and job plans all they want as they try to woo voters, but the bottom line, said Dr. Mark Phillips, a professor of economics at Keystone College in La Plume, is that the rich will benefit most from McCain’s proposals, the poor will fare better with Obama’s and it’s a mixed bag for the middle class.

Phillips said if he were grading the candidates’ platforms from the standpoint of an economics professor, he’d give them both a “B minus.”

“Their plans definitely do not look like “A’s” to me,” Phillips, of Lenoxville, said.

Dr. Anthony L. Liuzzo, a business and economics professor at Wilkes University, was much tougher with the red pen. He gave McCain, a Republican from Arizona a “C” and Obama, an Illinois Democrat, a “D.”

“I wouldn’t fail either of them because they have good intentions,” Liuzzo, of Larksville, said. He said too often candidates promise programs and actions that they know they can’t keep or that the country can’t afford.

Keith Noll, a 34-year-old from Plains Township, characterized the candidates’ plans by saying: “Both platforms are big on ideas and short on plans.”

Phillips said this is typical presidential campaigning. Try to get votes by proposing anything and everything, even if you know it won’t see the light of day if you’re elected.

“I think we’re tired of pie-in-the-sky grandiose plans. We need to be practical,” Phillips said, though he agreed there are some good ideas on both sides, specifically mentioning a plan by Obama to dedicate $60 billion over a 10-year-span to upgrade infrastructure and McCain’s pledge to eliminate the 59 cent per gallon tax for importing ethanol.

While he believes there are a few other ideas that make sense and positively impact all taxpayers, he said overall both plans increase spending, decrease revenues and add to the already bloated federal deficit. That raises a red flag and should have everyone concerned, he added.

Liuzzo said the key to breathing life into the economy is to stimulate it, not throw money at it through social programs, which he said Obama is touting. He thinks McCain’s tax relief plan offers the best hope for reviving the sluggish economy but said there are holes in McCain’s plan too, though not as many as Obama’s.

Panel members said the economy worries them, in some cases more than any other campaign issue.

“(It’s) the worst I have seen in my life, the closest thing to the Depression,” said Stephen Cheskiewicz, 44, of Monroe Township, Wyoming County. He said the economy ranks “absolute first” in terms of issues important to him this election.

Jill Rosenstock, 43, of Penn Lake Park, said she believes some parts of McCain’s plan hit the mark but overall she prefers what Obama proposes.

“McCain seems to rely too much on what Bush had instilled, like the tax cuts that benefited people who made over $1 million, more than the middle class. I am positive we need to run from anything Bush proposed, especially economically.”

Tom Hannigan, 37, of Dallas, said he favors most of the McCain plan and ripped Obama, who he said “proposes to throw government money at everything. Where is it coming from?” He said Obama’s plan moves the country toward being a welfare state.

Where does the money come from? The taxes collected from the citizens who earned more than them. That is welfare and the very definition of income redistribution. It’s never been done in this country and it’s anti-capitalism,” Hannigan said.

The Congressional Budget Office predicts a $400 billion deficit this year, and the administration is forecasting that the deficit for the budget year that begins Oct. 1 will hit an all-time high of $482 billion.

The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan cooperative between the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, projects the government’s debt would go up by $3.5 trillion under the Obama proposals and by $5 trillion over the next decade under McCain’s plan.

A poll of panel members revealed seven believed taxes are too high and four said they’re just right. But all 11 who responded said reducing the federal deficit matters to them.

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2011 Luzerne County Elections

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