If McCain Becomes President, Here Is the Quality of Advice He Would Receive on the Economy, the Issue Most Important to the Majority of American Voters
Update: On Friday Phil Gramm resigned his position as co-chair of the McCain presidential campaign. However, Gramm will undoubtedly continue to offer advice on economic policy to McCain. And there still may be a top economic post in government for Gramm if McCain is elected president.
This past week former U.S. senator from Texas Phil Gramm said that the United States is in a “mental recession.” Gramm added, “Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspapers. We have sort of become a nation of whiners.”
It might be easy to dismiss these insensitive and stunningly false remarks except for the fact that Phil Gramm is the top economic adviser to John McCain. The GOP nominee has publicly admitted that the economy is not his strong suit. On economic issues McCain generally turns for advice to Gramm. It is generally assumed that Gramm will be offered the position of secretary of the Treasury or another top post in the executive branch if McCain wins the presidency.
Gramm’s vision is all the more remarkable since he is vice chair of the Union Bank of Switzerland, a firm whose stock in the past year has dropped from $58 a share to the present price of $19 a share.
The prospect of Phil Gramm in a top economic post offers the Obama campaign a potent weapon in the campaign to defeat McCain. Gramm’s callous and outrageously foolish words underscore a situation in which both the Republican candidate and his top economic adviser have no understanding of economic conditions in the United States. And this is the issue of most concern to American voters.
At a time when millions of Americans are struggling to put food on the table and gas in their cars, Gramm’s foot-in-mouth comments are an unexpected gift to the Obama campaign. McCain distanced himself from Gramm’s comments, but that doesn’t mean that Gramm is not still a top adviser and won’t be a key player in a McCain administration.
Perhaps the best reason to keep Gramm from a powerful post where his economic decisions will endanger the lives of 300 million Americans was uttered by Gramm himself when he told the following joke: “A certain group of voters offered to buy me an artificial heart. I refused. I told them, ‘I’m doing fine without one.’”
Other Voices (Click to be directed to particular article)
Ok, and who is Obama’s economic advisors?