Trickle this

Let’s be clear, federal deficits are going to grow big time no matter who wins the election. The United States is going to embark on a huge public works program centered on roads, highways, bridges and other public infrastructure. It can’t be otherwise; it’s the fastest way to jump start the creation of jobs and for getting money – lots of money - flowing again. These programs will begin even before the new president is inaugurated, and a special session of Congress to implement such a push after the election is already being discussed – and lamented by republicans.

This doesn’t mean that John McCain has turned democrat or that Barack Obama is a hopeless leftist. It means that your new president and the Congress understand that this is a crisis and that they better get cracking. If you’re looking for a government job, start at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving; they’ll be cranking out greenbacks faster than Michael Phelps swims laps.

Tonight John McCain has to jump start his campaign if he’s to win the election, but he signaled earlier this week that he represents four more years of the **** presidency. He told the world that he’s no maverick and that his main economic thrust would be to cut taxes, all taxes. He was very clear that he supports the policies of the past eight years and would rely on the rich to create the jobs – beyond the public works program that is coming regardless of how painful it will be for him to endorse it.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, will embrace the spending on infrastructure and he will think up or go along with other measures to get money into the hands of the middle class. His tax cut proposal that was unveiled even before the meltdown of the financial market is a great example of how he thinks that the economy must grow from the bottom up. On this, his policy couldn’t be much clearer.

McCain is very clear that trickle down economics is still his game. And, of course, there’s more than a little something to the trickle down theory, if you like working as housekeepers and groundskeepers on neo-golden age mansions on the Hamptons and in Newport. For the last decade middle class wages have been stagnant at best while the rich have gained a far greater share of the national wealth, and they showed a great willingness to spend it on bashes on Long Island and in Steamboat Springs. So if you look good in a uniform and don’t shake while pouring, there’ll be work out there for you.

Make no mistake, this election is about power, naked power. As all the wags in the swamp on the Potomac know, government is about who gets and who pays. John McCain sheds tears over the class warfare symbolized by taking money from the top one percent of earners and giving it to you in the form of the tax refunds proposed by Barack Obama. If you haven’t figured out that you’re not in the group favored by McCain stop reading and go check your latest retirement account statement.

The republicans have been geniuses at convincing middle class people they’re part of the ruling elite. Get with it; they’ve been playing footsie with the masters of the universe on Wall Street who’ve been getting rich while you thought that you were, too. Sorry about that; it’s sad to realize that as you were using your house as an ATM machine to pay for what appeared to be an increase in your standard of living, they were selling all your paper to parties unknown and pulling their bonuses as the storm was building and which pumped up your 401- but not forever.

So if John McCain can convince you that every small business owner makes more than a quarter of a million dollars a year and that if Barack Obama is elected you’re mother will be laid off down at the local Dunkin Donuts, go for it. Me, I already voted for Obama and won’t need any more convincing why I did.

And I ain’t b.s.n’ ya.