McCain’s vision for a new ‘war on poverty’

from the Carpetbagger Report
Posted April 24th, 2008

John McCain recently acknowledged, “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.” That’s a perfectly accurate self-assessment, but McCain would almost certainly be better off if he didn’t spend so much time highlighting his lack of knowledge on the subject.

For example, yesterday, the Republican presidential candidate had the gall to talk up his concerns about poverty.

Republican John McCain, saying the nation is in a recession and “families are hurting,” retraced Lyndon Johnson’s steps in eastern Kentucky and pledged to mount a war on poverty different from that waged by the former Democratic president.

“I have no doubt President Johnson was serious and had the very best of intentions” in 1964, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said at a town-hall event in Inez today as he continues his week-long courtship of voters in America’s economically hard-pressed areas.

“Government has a role to play in helping people who, through no fault of their own, are having a hard time,” McCain, an Arizona senator, said. He defined that role as offering choices on education, health care and job training, rather than providing handouts.

First, this rhetoric might have carried more salience if the comments weren’t a couple of decades out of date. The Republican presidential candidate railing against “handouts”? Is this 2008 or 1988?

Second, McCain has a lot of nerve showing up in one of the poorest, most impoverished communities in Appalachia, railing against government handouts, while simultaneously touting one of the most regressive economic agendas imaginable.

Consider this WSJ item that ran earlier this week.

(Continued here.)