MSNBC.com: Economic Plans and Picture Perfect Lives

Jaime Baker
jb220705@ohio.edu


The last two days have produced big announcements of economic plans for the presidential candidates. Monday, Barack Obama proposed putting house foreclosures on hold and giving tax breaks to businesses to help creat jobs. These new proposals included a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures by some banks, a $3,000 tax credit for each new job created, and a plan to let voters withdraw without tax penalties up to a maximum of $10,000, from their retirement savings plans through the end of next year.



John McCain fired back on Tuesday with his own plan. McCain set out a $52.5 billion plan to help the economy. He called for the elimination of taxes on unemployment benefits, lowering what the government takes from seniors as they draw on retirement accounts and accelerating tax deductions for people forced to sell assets at a loss in the troubled market. McCain also said that if he is elected president, he would make sure the Treasury Department guarantees 100 percent of all savings over the next 6 months.



Candidates Lives in Pictures
One of my favorite new parts of MSNBC's website in their section that includes pictures of the candidates throughout their lives. Barack Obama's photos were more focused around his childhood and his family life. John McCain's photos had very few family pictures, but a lot of pictures from his time in the military.





I found this very interesting, because Obama has made a very big point of putting his family in the limelight to show how family-oriented he is. But McCain has used a lot of his military past as an argument as to why he should be elected. These pictures match almost perfectly to some of the campaigning tactics they've been using.