Taxes and Social Security Percolating as Campaign Issues

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve noticed that Obama and McCain have started to beat upon one another on various dimensions of the issues of taxation and Social Security.

Annoyingly, real life has prevented me from offering my €0.02 worth until now.

Oversimplifying, the discussion seems to be focused around Obama’s various plans to increase taxes on individuals earning more than $250,000 year, both through income/capital gains taxes, as well as Social Security payroll taxes.   McCain is publicly calling for making the Bush tax cuts permanent, reining in spending, and promising to work across the aisle on Social Security reform.

A few thoughts come to my mind:

• A hat tip goes in Obama’s general direction for daring to broach the subject of Social Security.  It takes political chutzpah to touch such a sensitive subject on the campaign trail and daring to make a specific proposal, and I respect Obama for having done so.  It’d be nice if McCain would offer some specific ideas, rather than just railing against the hit to the $250k+ income crowd.
   
• Having said that, I can’t help but wonder if anyone’s thought through the potential implications to the economy of imposing such a potentially large shock to the super-affluent crowd.  Granted, such folks are already making plans for the lapsing of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2011, but I do wonder about unintended consequences of major, short-notice changes to tax law.
   
• I am disappointed that so much of the public debate seems solely focused on the tax side of the equation.  Surely I’m not the only person concerned about the unsustainability of our current spending spree.  Yet I don’t think I’ve heard much discussion on just what the two candidates are thinking of doing about that problem, other than bickering over tax policy.