Cindy McCain federal tax rate is around 27 to 29%

Cindy McCain released her taxes yesterday, Friday Oct 18, 2008. In 2007, she paid 1,138,189 in taxes on 4,197,028 in income. In 2006, she paid 1,746,445 in taxes on 6,066,431 in income. That's all US Dollars.

She made more than I do both years. In fact, in 2006 she made more than I will likely make in my lifetime.

Not adjusted for inflation, natch.

Her marginal tax rates were 27.1% and 28.8% in 2007 and 2006 respectively.

Her marginal tax rates are lower than her husband's, which according to his press release were 32.6% and 33.8% respectively. Here's the direct quote about his taxes:

For 2006, Senator McCain paid $72,771 in federal income, alternative minimum, and self-employment taxes (LINES 57 and 58) on taxable income of $215,304 (LINE 43), which is a 33.8% tax rate.

For 2007, Senator McCain paid $84,460 in federal income, alternative minimum, and self-employment taxes (LINES 57 and 58) on taxable income of $258,800 (LINE 43), which is a 32.6% tax rate.

It's kind of crazy that John pays taxes at a higher rate than his wife.

What do you suppose will happen to Cindy's taxes under John McCain's tax plan? She'll pay even less taxes than she's paying now. John might pay more or less taxes under Obama's plan, depending on the year.

I couldn't find the exact figures for McCain's tax plan, but I did find this link suggesting that Cindy will get a 4.4% decrease in taxes under John's plan, while she will see a 11.5% increase under Obama's.

No wonder Cindy is so in the tank for John! That's a 15.9% swing! Taking those numbers at strictly face value (which is unlikely to be a true picture of things, let's be honest here), Cindy is going to pay $277,685 and $180,972 more in taxes under an Obama plan than under a John plan.

Ask a Trashy Question

The ABC silly-debate discussion is still reverberating around the blogosphere. I hope the echo deafens Gibson and Stephanopoulos.

The next time a moderator asks a stupid gotcha question, the candidate should turn the question around and accuse the moderator of promoting that repugnant point of view. If you ask gotcha questions, you are promulgating those canards. Moderator asks: You know someone who said something mean. (Implying therefore you're mean). How do you respond senator? (Or more likely, disavow this person Senator!)

Senator: Well Mr. Moderator, you should not be bringing up nasty bits of meanness unless you seriously endorse it. You are directly promoting the position of those people who are bringing this issue up over and over. Is that your intention? The people banging this issue like a drum are not interested in the answer to your question. They are interested in occupying my time with inanities and filling the voters ears with fear mongering hate messages. They are interested in obscuring the profound policy differences between me and my opponents. They and you are not interested in any answer to any foul canard posed as a question. They are solely interested in sliming me so as to steal from the American people an otherwise easily won on the merits of my positions election. (ok, so not that last in so many words).

By raising the issue you are lowering the quality of our national debate. You should be asking us important questions about Iraq and international policy, global warming and the environment, how I will run my White House, what goals I will set for my administration. Why are you asking about the nasty remarks made by that person? Do you ask John McCain about Reverend Hagee? Will you? Would you? If not, and I doubt you will, then you are engaging in partisan politics, under the false guise of non-partisan-pretense.

You should be ashamed of your self Mr. Moderator. Slimy attacks do not make America a better country and your pretense that these attacks go to my electibility are not obscuring your partisanship to the American people.

October Surprise:Iran

Someone important thinks that we're in for a Fall, possibly October surprise. Pat Buchanan thinks we're likely to start bombing Iran.

Another possible October surprise: From the LA Times: Finding Bin Laden.

The Bush administration may go for a twofer. Both will substantially help McCain over the Democratic nominee.

Crook to Prosecutor: The 2009 White House Changeover

Supposing a democrat wins the election, are we all certain that Bush and Cheney are going to go gently into that dark night?

The next president, if democrat, will be picking up the pieces of the last 8 years of policies that he or she strongly disagrees with. At least some of those policies are going to appear to be covering criminal activity: those billions of dollars going in airplanes to Iraq, nobid contracts to Halliburton, signing statements, torture, Cheney's secret energy negotiations, vice presidential visitor logs, paying reporters to report biased news, leaking CIA agent's identities, lost emails, cronyism. The list will be long.

Cheney and Bush and advisers might well be worried about criminal prosecutions. From the Cheney-Bush perspective, the cats will now be in charge of the hen house.
While deleting lots of emails is one way to interfere with prosecution, and taking massive quantities of documents with them is another, there is still likely to be plenty of evidence lying around. Its hard to commit crime on this massive of a scale without leaving some evidence lying around.

I recall a statement in the news from someone at the Pentagon during the night that Nixon resigned. The statement was to the effect that the Pentagon was making certain that all troop movements were authorized and previously scheduled, and that no extra commands that skipped the normal chain of command.
Presumably we will have the same situation in 2009.