John McCain has found another opportunity to offer a unneeded tax break for the wealthy in, of all places, a new "solution" to the recent plunges in stock prices.

Yesterday, in a speech in La Crosse, Wisconson, McCain proposed a new change to the tax laws:

We must also protect investors -- especially those relying on their investments for retirement.  Current rules mandate that investors must begin to sell off their IRAs and 401Ks when they reach age 70 and one half.  To spare investors from being forced to sell their stocks at just the time when the market is hurting the most, those rules should be suspended.

The reference here is to the minimum distributions required under the Internal Revenue Code for all retirement plans.  The purpose of the required distribution rules is to make sure that retirement funds are actually used for retirement and not invested tax-free indefinitely.  So, beginning with the year a person reaches age 70-1/2, the person must begin taking distributions that are calculated to spread the retirement income over the person's life expectancy.

There are several things wrong with McCain's proposal, the most important of which is that it "solves" a problem that doesn't exist, because there is nothing in the Internal Revenue Code or any regulation or ruling that says that retirement plan distributions must be made in cash.  If the owner of IRA or 401(k) wants to keep the investments instead of selling them, the investments themselves can be distributed in what is known as an "in kind" distribution.

So, contrary to what McCain claims, the present rules do not require retirees to "sell off their IRAs and 401ks".

For most retirees, the minimum required distribution rules aren't really really needed, because they need the retirement distributions as part of their retirement income.  It is the wealthy who don't need the mandatory distributions because they have other income, and it is the wealthy who don't want the mandatory distributions because they would rather defer any income tax on the distributions and continue investing the retirement funds tax-free.

Last, but not least, minimum required distributions are usually made in December, and it is difficult to believe that sales of securities to make cash distributions from retirement plans have had any impact on stock prices in the past, or will have any impact on stock prices in the future.

What we are seeing is another naked grab by the McCain campaign for another tax break for the rich, making false claims about the law and using the current state of the stock market as an excuse.

It is so plainly pandering to the wealthy as to be disgusting.

The news media seem to have picked up on Secretary Paulson's public statement about today's G7 communique on the international financial situation, but I haven't yet seen any commentary (except on BBC) about the significance of the third point of the five points contained in the communique.

The communique from the G7 states that the members of the G7 agree to:

"3. Ensure that our banks and other major financial intermediaries, as needed, can raise capital from public as well as private sources, in sufficient amounts to re-establish confidence and permit them to continue lending to households and businesses."

Given that the bailout bill enacted by Congress gives the Treasury the power to advance capital as needed to stabilize investment banks and other financial institutions, hasn't the United States made an international commitment to do just that?

In an interview with Charles Gibson on 10/9, John McCain called for Barack Obama to be "candid and truthful" with the American people about Obama's relationship with William Ayers, adding that Obama needs to be asked about the relationship, and needs to be "forthcoming."

Excuse, but hasn't Obama been asked about Ayers, and hasn't he already explained the relationship (such as it is/was)?

More importantly, if, as McCain claims, the issue is Obama's honesty, the media owes an obligation to the American public to ask McCain and his surrogates if they have any evidence that Obama was not truthful in his previous explanations.

And, if they have no evidence, the next logical question is how (or why) they can question a person's integrity with no evidence whatsoever.

Unbranded cattle became known as "mavericks" because of a Texas rancher named Maverick who refused to brand his cattle and, as a result, claimed that all unbranded cattle belonged to him.  Referring to an unbranded steer as "Maverick's" was therefore a joke, because no one really believed that all unbranded cattle belonged to the same man.

McCain is acting like a true Maverick, but not because he's unbranded.  He's voted with the Bush administration too often to make that stick.  But has shown a willingness to claim every unbranded idea has his own.

So, after Obama had been campaigning for months for "change" and, once that looked like more of a winner than "experience," McCain claimed "change" as his own.

More recently, Obama had publicly criticized the financial markets rescue plan for not providing enough oversight and relief for the homeowner while McCain remained silent.  After the rescue package was passed, McCain suddenly realized that those same ideas belonged to him.

Yes, McCain is a true Maverick, but only in the sense that he's constantly trying to claim other people's work as his own.

Missed moment of the 10/7 Presidential debate:

McCain asked (rhetorically) for the name of a President who has raised tax rates during an economic downturn.

McCain's answer was Hoover, but another possible answer was Bill Clinton. Clinton's tax increase during his first term helped move the country towards a balanced budget, which reassured bond markets, which lowered interest rates, which increased capital investment, and the boom of the 1990s was underway.

The messages from the McCain campaign today (10/6) were very different from the McCain campaign last week.  But Obama was the same person and (we assume) that McCain was the same person.  So what changed?

What changed were the poll numbers.  The McCain campaign became a different campaign once it became clear that the election was not going the way McCain wanted.

And that's an important message.  Because it shows that McCain is not a constant.  McCain is not a steady hand at the wheel.  McCain is not the sure hand on the rudder.

McCain is the loose cannon.  He is not the steady man of character.  He is the wind that blows whichever way the wind needs to blow, and the wind needs to blow the way that suits McCain.

 He is the weak and unreliable reed in the wind.

As Paul Krugman first pointed out (see ), the quotation from Ronald Reagan that Sarah Palin used at the end of the Vice Presidential debate was taken from a recording that Reagan made in the 1950s in opposition to the enactment of Medicare (aka, "socialized medicine"). I doubt the quotation was selected at random, or its relationship to the earlier health care debate was coincidental, because fear of the government has been a persistent theme of those opposed to government-paid health care.

This anti-government theme was explicit in Palin's criticism of Obama's plans for health care, which she described as a "universal government run program," adding that, "unless you're pleased with the way the federal government has been running anything lately, I don't think that it's going to be real pleasing for Americans to consider health care being taken over by the feds."

Of course, "lately" the government has been run by Republicans, but let's ignore that unintentional admission of Republican ineptitude because "government = incompetent" is still a truism for many people. Except that we now have experience with government-run health care in the United States. It's called Medicare, and people like it. Independent surveys show that people are generally more satisfied with Medicare than with private health insurance. (See, for example, "Medicare v. Private Insurance: Rhetoric and Reality" at http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.w2.311v1/DC1)

Knee-jerk opposition to all things governmental overlooks the advantages of a government-run, bureaucratic system, one of which is that the elimination of the profit motive actually makes Medicare more efficient, and more consumer-friendly, than private insurance.

A private insurance company makes a profit by charging premiums in excess of the covered medical costs of its policyholders. One way for an insurer to increase profits would be to raise premium prices, but consumers can easily shop among insurance companies by comparing premium costs, so market pressures will keep premiums competitive. The other way to increase profits is by reducing the medical benefits paid. This can be done by screening out applicants who might incur higher than average medical costs (e.g., those with "pre-existing" conditions) and by scrupulously denying claims for any benefits not absolutely required by the terms of the policy. And both screening applicants and screening claims requires more administrative oversight. (For that reason, a good way to shop among competing insurance companies is to look at both the costs of the premiums they charge and the percentage of the premiums paid in administrative costs compared to benefits paid. You're more likely to get value for your money from a company that pays a larger percentage of premiums back to its customers in the form of benefits.)

A government-run, bureaucratic system, by comparison, has no profit motive. There is therefore no incentive to screen applicants or claims more than is necessary to comply with the terms of the program. As a result, Medicare is much more efficient that private insurance companies. According to Paul Krugman (once again) in today's (10/6) column, for private insurance companies selling individual health plans, 29 percent of their total costs are administrative costs, and not medical benefits, while Medicare spends only 3 percent of its money on administration.

That's right, it is private industry that has bloated, inefficient bureaucracies, and not the government.

The other advantage to a government bureaucracy over a private bureaucracy is that the government bureaucrat doesn't really care whether he (or she) grants or denies your claim for benefits. It's not his money, so what does he care?

The private bureaucrat does care, because the profitability of his employer is at stake. In fact, investigation often find that private insurance companies provide implicit incentives for their employees to deny claims for benefits and disincentives to allowing claims. By contrast, government workers are often rated by the volume of claims processed without regard to whether the claim is allowed or denied. So a government bureaucrat may have an incentive to pay a large number of claims quickly, while a private bureaucrat has an incentive to pay fewer claims slowly.

Bottom line: We mustn't let soundbite appeals to knee-jerk ideologies obscure the reality that "socialized medicine" works in other countries and it works here too.

The Bush Doctrine (for the benefit of Sarah Palin and others who might not know) is the position that the United States should be able to attack potential enemies, initiate "regime change," while the threat is only potential and not yet imminent.  It is a doctrine of preventive war and not preemptive strikes.

In its most extreme corollary, the Bush Doctrine might be called the "one percent solution," based on statements by Vice President Richard Cheney that the United States had the right to invade or attack another country if there was as much as a 1% chance that the other country might be a threat to the United States.

I would now like to propose a new doctrine that I would call the "Palin Doctrine," which is that if there is as much as a 1% chance of someone becoming President of the United States and causing irreparable harm to the United States, there should be the option of pre-emptive impeachment.

To quote another member of the Bush Administration, we should not need to wait for the "smoking gun" to become a mushroom cloud.

The McCain-Palin campaign is offering the American people a variety of different John McCains to vote for.

You can vote for the McCain who promises to "change Washington," or you can vote for the McCain that has spent 26 years in the Senate in Washington and has voted along with the Bush administration 90% of the time over the last seven years.

You can vote for the McCain who says that the Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, is not qualified to be President after only four years in the U.S. Senate, or you can vote for the McCain who says that his running mate, Sarah Palin, is qualified to be President after two years as the governor of the fourth-smallest state (by population).

You can vote for the McCain who is knowledgeable about foreign policy, or you can vote for the McCain who can't remember whether Iran is arming Sunni muslims or Shia muslims in Iraq.

You can vote for the McCain who opposed the Bush tax cuts, or you can vote for the McCain who now wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.

You can vote for the McCain who supports deregulation and blocked regulators looking into the machinations of Charles Keating, or you can vote for the McCain who now pledges to "clean up Wall Street" and "reform the regulatory bodies of government."

You can vote for the McCain who wants to promote bipartisanship, or you can vote for the McCain who runs attack ads comparing Obama to Paris Hilton.

You can vote for the McCain who piloted the "straight talk express" or you can vote for the McCain who makes fantasies and fabrications into routine talking points.

So many choices.