Perhaps the media's Obama lovefest isn't as infectious as previously thought - at least in some corners of the financial media. For the second day in a row CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera noted low taxes - a conservative economic ideal - trumps those of the left, both economically and politically.
Caruso-Cabrera and "Squawk Box" co-anchor Joe Kernan interviewed Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the chief economic policy adviser for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, on August 15. The day before, the two interviewed Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's senior economic adviser Austan Goolsbee.
"You know what I just love, Doug?" Caruso-Cabrera asked. "Everybody and their mother, whenever they want to endorse their tax plan - they want to cite the almighty Ronald Reagan, right? I mean, everybody wants to dump all over the Republicans, but when they want to tout their economic and their tax plan, who do they go back to? The guy who cut taxes and cut taxes."
Caruso-Cabrera was referring to Goolsbee's eagerness to use the name of Reagan when touting the Obama tax plan. He had justified Obama's tax proposals by saying the rates would amount to a lower percentage of gross domestic product than under Reagan.
Holtz-Eakin noted the Obama campaign had backed off of its initial plan and came out with a plan with significantly lower tax rates. However, he blamed it on political expediency and not a revelation learned by examining the history of Reagan.
"Well, I mean we learned a great lesson and in the larger scope of economic events - we won," Holtz-Eakin said. "We don't think anyone who's trained in economics wants to go back to marginal tax rates of 70- to- 80 percent. That was the original Obama plan and you can that see he's dialing it back because
