Will 'kitchen sink' plan work for kitchen table issues?

Throughout his campaign, John McCain has struggled to define his economic platform.

Opponents have accused the Republican nominee of callousness toward hurting Americans -- down to his inability to say offhand how many houses he owns -- and clueless about how to improve the country's shaky fiscal condition. And as the campaign has progressed, the economy has become the dominant issue, displacing Iraq.

Now the Republican National Convention gives McCain his best shot yet to explain to the American public his plan to jump-start the economy.

Critics say McCain has virtually adopted President Bush's fiscal plan, a potentially risky road at a time when the economy teeters on the brink of a recession after eight years under Bush's stewardship.

Republicans spent part of Wednesday hammering home the theme that McCain has the right prescriptions. In a news conference, top Republicans pushed McCain's energy policy as a way to help those trying to fill gas tanks and pay heating bills.

"This isn't a joke to American families," said Republican U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota's Sixth District. "We want the people to be free from the high price of energy."

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman said McCain has the plan and experience to turn the economy around, starting from a "kitchen-sink approach" to reducing the high cost of energy by promoting numerous alternative fuels at once.

During a featured speech, Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay, acknowledged: "We all know Americans are hurting. We live in a time of economic anxiety and hardships. The cost of everything from gasoline to groceries to health care has gone up, while the value of our homes and investments have gone down."

But, she said, McCain "understands hardship in a way that few of us have ever known."

McCain, who has been haunted this year by a 2005 quote in which he confessed to knowing "a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues,'' has sketched out some details of his economic plan over the past months. He wants to extend Bush's tax cuts, although initially he voted against them. He proposes a plan letting people supplement Social Security with personally managed accounts. He would cut the corporate income tax rate from 35 to 25 percent.

He also has announced a plan to repeal the alternative minimum tax, saving $60 billion for taxpayers, and suggested making tax increases harder by requiring a three-fifths majority in Congress.

McCain once promised to balance the budget in his first term. In July, he said that would happen in 2013 under his leadership. He has repeatedly vowed to cut the budget by eliminating "earmarks," when members of Congress deliver federal cash for pet projects back home.

His selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate raised eyebrows on that issue, since she drew more than $27 million in earmarks as mayor of her tiny Alaskan town, according to reports this week.

McCain has relied on various people for fiscal advice, especially Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, and Whitman and Carly Fiorina, formerly of Hewlett-Packard.

The numbers indicate McCain has an uphill battle arguing his economic case:

The new president will face a projected deficit of $482 billion. The gap between high and low-income families was more than 10 percent greater in 2005 than in 1993. Growth in real median household income grew 14.5 percent from 1993-2000, but only 1.6 percent from 2001-2007, according to the U.S. Census. Average monthly job growth dropped from 152,000 from 1993-2000 to 50,000 from 2001-2008, according to the Department of Labor.

An Aug. 21 New York Times/CBS poll found that the economy was the most important issue to voters (40 percent versus 15 percent who said the war), and more Americans said they trusted Obama on pocketbook issues.

C. Ford Runge, an economist at the University of Minnesota and an Obama supporter, believes that McCain has "an extremely limited grasp of economics in general."

"Of course a president cannot be expected to know about everything," Runge said. "But you could argue that the economy is at least the second most important responsibility, after foreign affairs, that a president has. For a modern-day candidate to say he doesn't know much about it is disturbing."

McCain's desire to "get the job done" in Iraq also undermines his economic goals, Runge said. "To suggest the war isn't draining the capital and resources of the economy is ridiculous," he said.

Bahram Akradi, CEO of Minnesota-based Life Time Fitness, is one of the hosts of the RNC. Akradi, who considers himself a moderate, thinks McCain's experience and pragmatism would benefit the economy more than Obama's promise.

"I think the appeal of McCain is that he is logical and he has wisdom," Akradi said. "People want change from George Bush, but I think we're going to get that change with McCain." Jon Tevlin • 612-673-1702