With Americans facing gasoline prices of $4 a gallon, record home foreclosures and fears about unemployment, presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama are increasing their focus on economic policy in their campaigns for the presidency.
For the most part, the positions of the presumptive nominees, Republican McCain and Democrat Obama, fall along traditional party lines: Obama leans more toward government involvement in the economy, while McCain's proposals rely on private sector solutions. Both plans, however, would certainly add to already troubling deficits, according to Wharton faculty and economic policy analysts who point to worrisome elements of both candidates' plans.
"It's early in the election cycle. Both candidates have an opportunity to refine -- and rethink -- their economic policies," says Wharton finance professor Richard Marston. "Both had better do more rethinking before one of them becomes president."
Voters are growing increasingly concerned about the nation's financial situation. More than half of Americans, 56%, describe the country's economic condition as poor, while 33% say the economy is only fair, according to The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
"People are very attuned to the economy. In the polls, it has taken precedence over the Iraq war, which has perhaps faded to a dull roar in people's consciousness," says Brooks Jackson, director of Annenberg Political Fact Check, a group based at Penn's Annenberg Public Policy Center that monitors the accuracy of statements by major U.S. political players. "We're going through an unprecedented and very scary period with home prices and an unprecedented increase in energy prices. Nobody knows where it's going to stop."
The divide between the two major candidates is clear in tax policy. Obama wants to let the Bush Administration's tax cuts expire, as scheduled, at the end of 2010 and provide new tax breaks for low-income workers, senior citizens, students and start-up companies.
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