Carly Fiorina Steps In It Again!!! For McCain!!!

Ben Smith at Politico notes that Carly Fiorina, McCain's top surrogate, has stepped in the proverbial mud again with her recent comments in Bloomberg.com
on McCain's tax policies.

Here's what Carly Fiorina said:

In an interview, Carly Fiorina, a top adviser, explains that any tax increases on ``middle- and working-class'' Americans are off limits. She says if a bipartisan coalition is ``creative enough'' to fashion tax increases on wealthier Americans, that may prove palatable.

That's encouraging, until you consider that McCain doesn't always listen to his economic advisers. A few months ago, his top advisers counseled him that any reduction in the gasoline tax was bad energy and economic policy. A short while later, he advocated suspending the 18-cent-a-gallon tax for the summer.

Isn't it quite funny that Senator Barack Obama's plan gives a $1,459 tax cut for the working middle class that make less than $250,000 a year? And that...

The top 1 percent, mostly Americans averaging more than $1 million a year, would get a $38,389 tax increase under Obama, compared to a $126,951 tax cut under McCain.

And here's why McCain's full-throated support of the death tax is so bad:

The estate tax, or ``the death tax'' as the Republicans, in a public relations coup have labeled it, is assessed on fewer than 2 percent of the wealthiest Americans. For a couple, the first $7 million is exempt in 2009, as is anything given to charity; there are numerous loopholes around what's left.

McCain would raise that exemption to $10 million and lower the rate to 15 percent. Democrat Barack Obama would keep the 45 percent rate on estates over $7 million.

The McCain approach would cost the government $175 billion over 10 years more than Obama's, and most of the benefit would go to wealthy heirs who've done little to earn it -- affirmative action for the rich.