The Democratic Party has an ad airing currently on cable which features an excerpt from a January Republican Primary debate. The ad shows Senator McCain answering the question "are Americans better off than they were eight years ago," by saying "you could argue that Americans overall are better off." It also features imagery of foreclosures, high gas prices, and other cheery signs of being better off.
As is often the case with Senator McCain, full excerpting provides a more accurate view.
Anderson Cooper: "Senator McCain, are Americans better off than they were eight years ago?"
Senator McCain: "I think you could argue that Americans overall are better off, because we have had a pretty good prosperous time, with low unemployment and low inflation and a lot of good things have happened. A lot of jobs have been created."
But let's have some straight talk. Things are tough right now. Americans are uncertain about this housing crisis. Americans are uncertain about the economy, as we see the stock market bounce up and down, but more importantly, the economy particularly in some parts of the country, state of Michigan, Governor Romney and I campaigned, not to my success, I might add, and other parts of the country are probably better off."
But I think what we're trying to do to fix this economy is important. We've got to address the housing, subprime housing problem. We need to, obviously, have this package go through the Congress as quickly as possible. We need to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, which I voted for twice to do so. I think we need to eliminate the alternate minimum tax that sits out there and challenges 25 million American families."
Cooper: "It sounds like you're saying we're not better off."
McCain: "I think we are better off overall if you look at the entire eight-year period, when you look at the millions of jobs that have been created, the improvement in the economy, et cetera. What I'm trying to emphasize, Anderson, that we are in a very serious challenge right now, with a lot of Americans very uncertain about their future, and we've got to give them some comfort. We've got to give them some stimulus."
We've got to give them some tax relief. We've got to stop this outrageous squandering spending that causes us to have to borrow money from China, and we've got to get our fiscal house in order. I think we went on a spending spree that, frankly, betrayed Ronald Reagan's principles about tax cuts and restraint of spending."


