Reply #14: Obama just issued a response to this and it is excellent

[rinsd]

The Illinois senator summed up his plans for how to help struggling families, including through a middle class tax cut and the $50 billion second stimulus package he has urged Congress to pass among other already announced proposals.

And he answered the criticisms from McCain and his rivals today and recently, who have accused him of wanting to raise taxes, even on lower income people.

“If Sen. McCain wants a debate about taxes in this campaign, then it is a debate I’m happy to have. Because if you’re a family making less than $250,000, my plan will not raise your taxes -- not your income tax, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes," Obama told reporters at a hastily arranged press conference at the Drury Inn after his flight to Charlotte, NC was diverted here for mechanical reasons. "In fact, what Senator McCain’s gonna need to explain is why his tax cut for the middle class would leave out 101 million households, and why, the families who are lucky enough to get a tax cut under his plan, it would be worth only about $125 in the first year. The difference is -- he trusts that prosperity will trickle down from corporations and the wealthiest few to everyone else. I believe that it’s the hard work of the middle-class American family that fuels this nation’s prosperity."

During the roughly half hour presser, Obama also talked about the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies and scoffed at the new ad by McCain’s “surrogates” touting the Arizona senator's energy plan, arguing his energy policy was in line with failed George Bush policies.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/07/1185362.aspx