Americans must look at gas prices, foreclosures and unemployment figures all rising — particularly the spike in May’s jobless rate which was the largest since the mid-1980s — and ask themselves which of the two candidates for president is best qualified to spiral those statistics back down.

Both candidates now claim to be running on a platform of change. The presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, who was raised by a single mother and who helped unemployed steelworkers after he graduated from college, launched his campaign on a change-Washington-movement.  The presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, whose family is wealthy, has recently begun to claim that he, in fact, is not just a maverick but also the agent-of-change candidate.

Americans must decide which one can truly alter the faltering economy that the Bush Administration bequeathed to this country.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday that the jobless rate leapt up a half percent in May, from 5 to 5.5. This comes after months of gasoline price increases that contribute to rises in costs for food and airline tickets and paint. And it comes after a year in which neighbors watched in horror as friends and family members were evicted from foreclosed homes.

McCain’s response to that financial situation in a GOP debate in January was this: “I don’t believe we’re headed into a recession. I believe the fundamentals of this economy are strong, and I believe they will remain strong.”

Of course, this is from the same presidential candidate who said a month earlier, to the Boston Globe, “The issue of economics is something that I’ve really never understood as well as I should.”

This is a Senator who voted against extending federal unemployment insurance benefits for jobless workers. This is a Senator who was in Washington, D.C. when the vote was taken to provide taxpayers with those $600 income tax rebate checks intended to stimulate the economy, but who deliberately skipped the vote. Can a guy who doesn’t understand the value of $600 to a working family really relate to the middle class in this country; can he really represent their interests?

By contrast, Sen. Obama wants to extend unemployment insurance and expand eligibility to more workers, including many part-time employees currently excluded from the program. Also, Sen. Obama made a point of being in Washington, and in the Senate itself and of voting in favor of the economic stimulus package that ultimately provided the $600 income tax rebate checks.

And he knows that’s not enough because he understands that although some economists contend the country’s not “officially” in a recession, most workers “officially” feel like they’re in one. So to deal with the unofficial recession, Obama plans to provide additional tax cuts for working families. McCain has said he would preserve Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.

On the mortgage crisis, McCain has said he wants to crack down on predatory lenders, but when it came to voting on a measure to discourage it, he voted against it. Obama wants to create a $10 billion foreclosure fund to help Americans keep their homes.

Then there’s the price of gas. McCain does want to give American’s a break there. A summer gas tax break. Economists estimate it’s worth about $30. Obama refused to buy into it. He called it political pandering. He said Americans wanted real, long-term solutions to the gas crisis, not a quick summer fling. He said they wanted an answer that would enable them to afford to buy gas next summer, and the summer after, and that’s what he planned to work toward.

The Bush Administration got this country into this economic mess. Last year, according to Congressional Quarterly, McCain voted 95 percent of the time exactly as the Bush Administration requested. So the “maverick,” is hardly different from George W. Bush himself. Well, to pin it down, he’s five percent different. This year, since he has become the presumptive Republican nominee, “maverick” be damned, McCain has voted with Bush 100 percent of the time.

Is that the “change” America is seeking? Is that the change America needs to turn those economic numbers around — a change of somewhere between zero and five percent?

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 9:33 am and is filed under Politics, Economy/Budget .