McCain's fuzzy economics

In a sit-down with the Wall Street Journal, Republican presidential hopeful John McCain confirmed the popular impression that he's not really sure what he's doing when it comes to economic issues. He backed away from the Social Security plan touted on his own Website, and instead touted a bolder proposal he made in 2000 to allow workers to divert a portion of Social Security payroll taxes to fund private accounts. He also gave himself some wiggle room on a pledge he recently made to never raise taxes, instead saying, "I'm not making a 'read my lips' statement, in that I will not raise taxes. But I'm not saying I can envision a scenario where I would, OK?"

It's encouraging that McCain is still open to letting Americans partially opt out of the doomed scam that is Social Security. The sooner people are encouraged to make their own provisions for the future, the less traumatic will be the ultimate failure of FDR's longest-lasting hoodwink. It'd be nice if he didn't have to contradict his own campaign literature to make this point, however.

Less benign is McCain's early backpedaling on the tax issue. Can't he even wait for the election to admit that he's full of shit when he promises to keep his sticky fingers out of our wallets?

The overall impression left by the WSJ interview is that McCain is not on top of economic issues. And that's troubling for a presidential candidate -- especially one who's likely to have to field tax and spending questions during a recession.

It might be less troublesome if John McCain hadn't openly admitted that he "[doesn't] know much about the economy." Or if he hadn't repeatedly shown disdain for the private sector and boasted that his life was "not for profit, but for patriotism." OK, medal boy, but who do you think pays for those fancy uniforms and all the stuff that goes BANG?

Unfortunately, submission of the individual to the state has been a long-running McCain theme.

So far, McCain has been pretty strong on free trade -- or what passes for "free" trade in a world ruled by bilateral and multilateral agreements. That's in stark contrast to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton who oppose free trade, except when they're assuring the Canadian government otherwise.

Come to think of it, this year's presidential race looks ... ummm ... less than encouraging for anybody who cares about economic liberty.