The Washington Post contrasted the economic policies of Senators McCain and Obama by telling readers that "one of the starker contrasts between McCain's emphasis on job creation and reducing regulation and Obama's focus on immediately easing financial problems." While Obama has certainly made a point of crafting policies that are intended to ease the financial problems of low and moderate income families, most notably providing universal health care, it would be difficult to characterize Senator McCain's agenda as focusing on job creation. Senator McCain's economic proposals center on maintaining the tax cuts put in place under the Bush administration. The economy has sustained the slowest pace of job creation on record during the Bush years, creating jobs at annual rate of just over 700,000 a year (0.5 percent). By contrast, it created jobs at almost a 3 million annual rate during the Clinton years. It would be wrong to attribute the entire falloff in the pace of job creation between the Clinton and Bush administrations to President Bush's tax cuts, but it would be difficult to argue that an economic policy that centers on maintaining these tax cuts has a "emphasis on job creation" as the Post told readers.
--Dean Baker [addendum: as correctly noted in the comments, Obama's plan will not provide universal health care coverage. It will extend health care coverage. There is a big difference.]
