In today's pages...
The Times continues its editorial-page series of position papers on the presidential election with an examination of what has become the central issue: the economy. The editorial board parses through the policy differences between John McCain and Barack Obama in the wake of the mortgage meltdown and resulting Wall Street shock. McCain scores high for his plan for government refinancing of failing mortgages, Obama for extending unemployment benefits and aid to state and local governments. And then there is taxation:
By sticking largely to the current framework for taxation, the candidates have squandered the chance to build support for a much simpler and fairer approach. The looming expiration of the Bush tax cuts presents a rare opportunity for overhaul, and it's a shame that neither McCain nor Obama has offered any big ideas on that front. More significantly, both candidates' tax plans could expand Washington's budget deficit, which is already unsustainable. Neither McCain nor Obama has offered a realistic proposal for reducing spending enough in the long run to offset lost revenue and close the existing shortfall. The biggest budgetary headaches aren't the discretionary programs that McCain has proposed to freeze, but retirement, health and defense spending. Restraining the growth in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid expenses will take far more political will and creativity than the candidates have demonstrated so far.
The board also takes a look at the National Rifle Association and its disdain for Obama.
On the other page, Oscar-winner Diane Keaton remembers the now-demolished Ambassador Hotel and argues that destroying historic buildings is akin to filling landfills with waste:
We've treated old buildings like we once treated plastic shopping bags -- we haven't reused them, and when we've finished with them, we've tossed them out. This has to stop. Preservation must stand alongside conservation as an equal force in the sustainability game. More older and historic buildings have to be protected from demolition, not only because it affects our pocketbooks but more important because it threatens our environment. Let's face it, our free ride at the expense of the planet is over.
Columnist Gregory Rodriguez takes a poke or two at the popularity of populism and warns that Sarah Palin could haunt the Republican Party for some time to come -- especially if Obama beats McCain.
Finally, Russell Baker walks through the generational differences that resonate in the McCain and Obama candidacies and remembers what it was like for the nation to grapple with a youthful John F. Kennedy when most presidents were grandfatherly types:
At first, everything seemed wrong about Kennedy. His speeches were too short. His accent was funny. His tailoring was too elegant. Above all, he was simply too young for a nation that thought presidents should look like Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt or Hoover. He was 43 years old. Many thought it amazing that a Catholic could be elected president.
It's the last line of the piece that's the real eyebrow-raiser. I'll let you read it for yourself.
Photo: Paul F. Richards, AFP/Getty Images
