Around the country today, millions of us are making last-minute trips to post offices to drop off tax forms. And AFL-CIO union members will be there as well—to let people know that if Sen. John McCain is elected president, our tax bills may be a lot higher next year.
McCain has proposed a health care plan that would force working families to pay taxes on more than just our wages. His plan would tax our health care benefits.
But while millions of us would find it harder to pay for our health benefits under McCain’s plan, the same would not be true of the top 10 insurance companies: They would rake in nearly $2 billion in tax cuts. Just five oil companies, meanwhile, would see nearly $4 billion in tax cuts.
What’s more, McCain’s changes to the tax code could lead employers to drop health care benefits altogether, leaving working families at the mercy of a private health care market plagued by high costs, bias against pre-existing conditions and outright denials. (See the AFL-CIO’s 2008 Health Care for America Survey for the real story on America’s health care system.)
Indeed, McCain’s decades of voting in Washington and the proposals he’s laid out are dangerously stacked against working families. McCain has bought into the Bush agenda of tax cuts aimed at helping the absolute wealthiest, while undermining the ability of workers to have security and a shot at the middle class.
He’s voted to cut billions from Medicare and Medicaid.
He’s voted against prevailing wage laws and overtime pay, and even supported abolishing the minimum wage.
He supports privatizing Social Security, putting our retirement at risk.
In short, McCain—the ninth-wealthiest member of Congress—still doesn’t get it when it comes to sticking up for working families.
Union members in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa are handing out leaflets and educating working people about the costs of McCain’s agenda.
McCain has a choice to make. Will he offer working families in need hollow words that obscure the consequences of his policy prescriptions, or will he change course and offer real solutions to the problems in health care and throughout the economy?