McCain Releases His Taxes

This is just one more reason I'll never run for president. My taxes are in poor shape. But Senator McCain is doing a little better than I am. His press office just sent me this.

Senator McCain's tax returns show that he paid $157,231 in federal taxes for 2006 and 2007.  In the past two years, Senator and Mrs. McCain have contributed $340,323 to charitable causes. Below please find summary information about Senator McCain's 2006 and 2007 tax returns.
To view the relevant documents, please see: http://www.johnmccain.com/mccainfinancial
BACKGROUND ON THE 2006 AND 2007 TAX RETURNS
Senator and Mrs. McCain have kept their personal finances separate throughout their 27-year marriage. Accordingly, they have for many years filed separate tax returns. However, their home state of Arizona is a community property jurisdiction.  In community property states, individuals maintain a separation of all property brought to the marriage, or inherited during it, but share financial responsibility for other assets acquired through the efforts of each spouse during the marriage. This means that their tax returns report one half of each of their community property income and expenses (such as income each of them earn as salaries, Senator McCain's book royalties, and expenses attributable to both of them such as charitable contributions from community assets).
Accordingly, Senator McCain's 2006 and 2007 tax returns contain a detailed "Statement A" showing the allocation of his and Mrs. McCain's community property income and expenses to their respective tax returns (2006 - 2007). John McCain's 2006 and 2007 tax returns, including the community property income and expense allocation, are available for download below. (2006 - 2007)
Publication 555 from the Internal Revenue Service is also available for download below. This publication explains the community property filing rules for various states (including Arizona) and their effects on married taxpayers filing separate returns. View
SUMMARY OF TAX RETURNS
Taxes Paid:
For 2006, Senator McCain paid $72,771 in federal income, alternative minimum, and self-employment taxes (LINES 57 and 58) on taxable income of $215,304 (LINE 43), which is a 33.8% tax rate. View
For 2007, Senator McCain paid $84,460 in federal income, alternative minimum, and self-employment taxes (LINES 57 and 58) on taxable income of $258,800 (LINE 43), which is a 32.6% tax rate. View
Charitable Contributions:
Senator McCain donates his royalties from his books to charitable organizations. This sum has totaled over $1,800,000 since 1998 when he signed his first book deal. Senator McCain's book income of $256,898 for 2006 and 2007 is comprised of earnings for Faith of My Fathers, Worth the Fighting For, Why Courage Matters, Character is Destiny, and Hard Call.
Beginning in 1991, Senator McCain has also donated the increase in his Senate salary for that year and each subsequent year to charity because he opposed the Congressional pay increase at that time and pledged not to accept the pay raises. The cumulative total of these donations is over $450,000.
2006
In 2006, Senator and Mrs. McCain donated $129,390 from community assets to charity, of which Senator  McCain's one-half allocation was $64,695. This is 19% of his adjusted gross income.
2007
In 2007, Senator and Mrs. McCain donated $210,933 from community assets to charity, of which Senator McCain's one-half allocation is $105,467. This is 27.2% of his adjusted gross income for the year.
Most of Senator McCain's contributions were made to the John and Cindy McCain Family Foundation, which makes direct contributions to charities. The Foundation's tax returns for 2006 and 2007, which include a list of the charities to which Senator and Mrs. McCain contributed through the McCain Family Foundation in 2006 and 2007, are available for download below. (2006 - 2007)
SUMMARY OF SENATOR MCCAIN'S ACTUAL (NOT COMMUNAL) INCOME
[FROM STATEMENT A OF TAX RETURN]

2006
2007
Senate Salary:
$161,675
$161,708
Book Royalty Income:
$80,390
$176,508
Social Security Income:
$22,104
$23,157
US Navy Pension*:
$56,496
$58,358

* [Non-Taxable and therefore not reported as income on Statement A]

Note About Mrs. McCain's Financial Information:
Since the beginning of their marriage, Senator McCain and Mrs. McCain have always maintained separate finances.  As required by federal law and Senate rules, Mrs. McCain has released significant and extensive financial information through Senate and Presidential disclosure forms.  In the interest of protecting the privacy of her children, Mrs. McCain will not be releasing her personal tax returns.

Note About Hensley & Company:
In her role as Chairman of Hensley & Company, a privately-held business founded by her parents, Mrs. McCain's main areas of responsibility focus on strategic planning and corporate vision.  Having served the greater Phoenix area since 1955, Hensley & Company is widely respected as an exemplary corporate citizen, and makes significant charitable contributions of its own.

STATEMENT BY JOHN MCCAIN ON THE COLOMBIA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

"I am profoundly dismayed by events in Congress that prevent an up or down vote on the Colombian Free Trade Agreement. It is critical that the United States meet its obligations and support an important ally in the battle against international narco-terrorism and a bulwark of democracy in Latin America.

"Colombia is a beacon of hope in a region where others are actively seeking to thwart economic progress and democracy. We must not turn our back on fledgling democracies in this region, and we must not turn our back on American workers when all they want is the right to sell them in other countries.

"This agreement was negotiated in good faith by Colombia and the United States. Members of Congress from both parties were consulted extensively throughout the negotiation process. Delaying approval of the Colombian Free Trade Agreement will not create one American job or start one American business. But rejecting this agreement will undercut America's standing with our allies not only in a critical region but also across the world."

McCain's plan

JOHN MCCAIN OUTLINES NEW INITIATIVES TO PROVIDE IMMEDIATE HELP FOR AMERICAN FAMILIES



Today, John McCain Outlined Several New Initiatives To Provide Immediate Help For American Families. Across the country, families are facing economic challenges. Gas prices are rising, mortgages are threatened, and thousands have lost their jobs. Now is the time to act and John McCain outlined several near-term, tangible plans to address some of the challenges confronting Americans today.

Bolstering Job Security:

John McCain Will Reform The Unemployment Insurance (UI) System To Better Assist Displaced Workers. Job security may well be the most pressing problem confronting Americans. Jobs are in jeopardy and the government backstop is not up to the task. For more than year, John McCain has been calling for comprehensive reform of our unemployment insurance and displaced worker programs.

John McCain Believes We Should Have A Single, Seamless Approach To Job Transition Assistance. The UI system must be more effective in helping those who have lost a job. John McCain will modernize and transform our current programs by consolidating redundant federal programs, strengthening community colleges and technical training and giving displaced workers more choices to find their way back to productive and prosperous lives.

· Our Unemployment System Should Support Lifelong-Education And Build The Financial Resources To Guard Against Any Job Loss.

· The Unemployment System Should Encourage Work And Minimize The Time Spent On Government Programs. Workers that get back to work faster and have a strong track record of employment should be rewarded more.

John McCain Will Reform The UI System So That A Portion Of Each Worker's Unemployment Insurance Tax Is Deposited Into A Lost Earnings Buffer Account (LEB). If an individual becomes unemployed, the LEB may be used to cover needed expenses, with a backstop of traditional UI if the account is exhausted before 26 weeks. Workers will have an incentive to preserve their LEB by getting back to work quickly, and may be eligible for a re-employment bonus if they get a new job quickly. The LEB will be portable, and upon retirement, the property of the worker.

John McCain Will Reform Training Programs To Provide Quick Assistance To Workers Seeking New Skills. Workers will have access to a flexible training account that permits them to pay for training at a community college and use leftover funds to keep their health insurance.

John McCain Will Provide Special, Targeted Assistance For Older Workers. Because training is often inefficient for older workers, those 55 years of age and older who have built up an LEB will be eligible for a Lost Earnings Supplement. The supplement of up to 50 percent of their earnings loss (up to a maximum of $10,000) for two years will be rewarded for those who find work inside 26 weeks.

Helping Americans Confront Higher Living Costs:

John McCain Will Help Americans Hurting From High Gasoline And Food Costs. Americans need help right now and relief from high gasoline prices. John McCain will act immediately to reduce the pain of high gas prices.

· John McCain Will Stop Filling The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) To Reduce Demand. International demand for oil is bolstered by federal purchases for the SPR. There is no reason to fill it when oil is so expensive, the overall SPR is of adequate size, and when it places further upward pressure on prices.

· John McCain Will End Policies That Contribute To Higher Transportation And Food Costs. Ethanol subsidies, tariff barriers and sugar quotas drive up food prices and hurt Americans. However, we cannot take the wrong direction and cut off trade for American goods.

· As President, John McCain Will Pursue A National Strategy To Address Higher Energy Costs.

Helping Americans With The Housing Crisis:

John McCain Believes There Is Nothing More Important Than Keeping Alive The American Dream Of Owning A Home. Priority number one is to keep well-meaning, deserving home owners who are facing foreclosure in their homes.

John McCain's Approach To Helping Sub-Prime Or Other Financially Strapped Mortgage Borrowers Is Built On Sound Principles:

· No Taxpayer Money Should Bail Out Real Estate Speculators Or Financial Market Participants Who Failed To Perform Due Diligence In Assessing Credit Risks. Any assistance for borrowers should be focused solely on homeowners and any government assistance to the banking system should be based solely on preventing systemic risk.

· Any Policy Of Financial Assistance Should Be Accompanied By Reforms That Promote Greater Transparency And Accountability To Ensure We Never Face This Problem Again.

John McCain Is Proposing A New "HOME Plan" To Provide Robust, Timely And Targeted Help To Those Hurt By The Housing Crisis. Under his HOME Plan, every deserving American family or homeowner will be afforded the opportunity to trade a burdensome mortgage for a manageable loan that reflects their home's market value.

· Eligibility: Holders of a sub-prime mortgage taken after 2005 who live in their home (primary residence only); can prove creditworthiness at the time of the original loan; are either delinquent, in arrears on payments, facing a reset or otherwise demonstrate that they will be unable to continue to meet their mortgage obligations; and can meet the terms of a new 30 year fixed-rate mortgage on the existing home.

· How It Works: Individuals pick up a form at any Post Office and applies for a HOME loan. The FHA HOME Office certifies that the individual is qualified, and contacts the individual's mortgage servicer. The mortgage servicer writes down and retires the existing loan, which is replaced by an FHA guaranteed HOME loan from a lender.

John McCain Calls For The Immediate Formation Of A Justice Department Mortgage Abuse Task Force. The Task Force will aggressively investigate potential criminal wrongdoing in the mortgage industry and bring to justice any who violated the law. The DOJ Task Force will offer assistance to State Attorney Generals who are investigating abusive lending practices.

John McCain Will Bolster Groups Like Neighborworks America That Provide Mortgage Assistance To Homeowners In Their Communities.

McCain comments on China, Olympics

"Our relationship with China is important, and we value our ability to cooperate with the Chinese government on a wide variety of strategic, economic, and diplomatic fronts. But the Chinese government needs to understand that in our modern world, how a nation treats its citizens is a legitimate subject of international concern. China has signed numerous international agreements that make China's treatment of its citizens a subject of legitimate international concern, not just a matter of national sovereignty. To be a responsible stakeholder in the modern world, a government must also be responsible at home, in protecting, not trampling, the rights of its people.

"I deplore the violent crackdown by Chinese authorities and the continuing oppression in Tibet of those merely wishing to practice their faith and preserve their culture and heritage. I have listened carefully to the Dalai Lama and am convinced he is a man of peace who reflects the hopes and aspirations of Tibetans. I urge the government of the People's Republic of China to address the root causes of unrest in Tibet by opening a genuine dialogue with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, aimed at granting greater autonomy. I urge the Chinese authorities to ensure peaceful protest is not met with violence, to release monks and others detained for peacefully expressing their views and to allow full outside access to Tibet.

"I understand and respect Prime Minister Brown's decision not to attend the Olympic opening ceremonies. I believe President Bush should evaluate his participation in the ceremonies surrounding the Olympics and, based on Chinese actions, decide whether it is appropriate to attend. If Chinese policies and practices do not change, I would not attend the opening ceremonies. It does no service to the Chinese government, and certainly no service to the people of China, for the United States and other democracies to pretend that the suppression of rights in China does not concern us. It does, will and must concern us."

Democrats are a Disaster

From Ralph Nader:


Ralph Nader for President 2008

April 3, 2008
www.votenader.org

The Democrats are just another corporate party.

As such, they are a disaster for the American people.

If you had any lingering doubts about this, check out the front page of the Wall Street Journal yesterday.

Too Much Corporate Power? The article is titled: Business Donors Bypass McCain, Democrats Rake In Cash From Industry by Brody Mullins.

Mullins reports that both Obama and Clinton have been cleaning McCain's clock "among business interests that give mainly to Republicans."

Of seven major industries that have been the most reliable Republican resources, McCain has raised $13.1 million through February, compared with $22.5 million for Obama and $27.1 million for Clinton, the Journal reported.

Now, ask yourself - if the Democrats were the party of the people, if they were truly going to make the corporations serve the American people, would the corporate executives be dumping millions into their campaigns?

No they would not.

Right now, the American people are subservient to the corporations and their puppet politicians in both parties.

Nader/Gonzalez would turn that around.

Under Nader/Gonzalez, the corporations would serve the people.

That's the message Nader/Gonzalez is taking to every state in the union in this 2008 election campaign.

Today, our volunteers will be turning in 2,000 signatures in Hawaii - more than three times the required number - to get Nader/Gonzalez on the ballot in the Aloha state.

One by one, we're working the states.

Right now we're focusing on Kansas.

In Kansas, we need to raise $15,000 to get Nader/Gonzalez on the ballot there.

In response to our initial appeal yesterday, 49 of you donated $3,790 - an average of $77 a donation.

So, already, we're a quarter of the way to our goal in Kansas.

Thank you.

Now we need another 110 of you to donate $100 or more each - and once we meet our goal, we'll give the marching orders to our folks in Kansas.

New Mexico - done.

Hawaii - plan on turning in our signatures later today.

Next up Kansas.

One by one, we'll give the voters of this country a chance to vote for a candidacy that puts people before corporations.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Onward.

The Nader Team

Another Video: It's 3 a.m. and . . .

MSNBC'S JOE SCARBOROUGH: "Barack Obama specifically continuing to talk about the fact that you want to keep us at war in Iraq for 100 years. Now, you've explained this time and time again, but they keep bringing it up. Do you think you're gonna be hearing this through November?"

JOHN MCCAIN: "I don't know, but it's been condemned by every objective media observer, these people who look at these things. And clearly, Senator Obama is being disingenuous because he knows better. Anybody who looks at the entire clip of the exchange I had with the gentleman at the town hall meeting in New Hampshire, clearly I said right after that, just as we've been in South Korea, Germany, Japan, et cetera. That's a presence after we win the war. But I don't think the American people will buy it.

"But, you know, Senator Obama in the last few days said he wanted a, quote, 'strike force' -- a 'strike force' in Iraq. I really would be interested, Joe, in hearing what exactly that means after he has continuously said he would withdrawal immediately or yesterday or whatever it is. But the point is, the American people know that I have said that I would much rather lose a campaign than lose a war and that there would be ups and downs. ... But see, [Senator Obama] just said you could have a strike force. So we really don't know. I think somebody ought to ask what in the world he's talking about, especially since he has no experience or background at all in national security affairs."

Watch John McCain On MSNBC's "Morning Joe"

John McCain On His Pro-Growth Economic Agenda:

CNN'S KIRAN CHETRY: "Much has been made, of course, of the comments that you made back in December that the economy wasn't your strong suit, but specifically how would you grow jobs in the climate we're in now?"

JOHN MCCAIN: "Well, first of all, let's clear that up. I said it wasn't my strongest because I spent 22 years in the military, and I have been a member of the Armed Services Committee and involved in every major national security challenge in the last 20 years. I've been involved as Chairman of the Commerce Committee. I have been involved as part of the Reagan Revolution where we cut taxes and restrained spending and embarked on one of the strongest periods of economic growth in the history of this country. I know economics very well, certainly better than Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. So let's clear up that.

"Obviously we've got to restrain spending. Obviously we need to give middle income Americans more tax cuts rather than less. We have to have balanced budgets. We can't keep borrowing money from China. We have to exercise fiscal discipline and make sure that every earmarked project and pork barrel project is vetoed and not allowed. And someone right now will say that's only a small part of the budget, that kind of spending has led to corruption, and it has led to members of Congress that are now residing in federal prison. We're going to have to sit down together and fix Social Security and fix Medicare and balance our budgets and exercise the kind of fiscal discipline that kept us and caused us and kept us to be on a very long period of economic prosperity. Right now Americans are hurting. So we have to make sure that people keep their homes and that we create more jobs and, by the way, I am a strong believer in free trade."

And here some talk from McCain today in Jacksonville.

For many years in my life, I lacked a fixed address for any significant length of time. Jacksonville came closer to being a hometown for me than any place in the country. My family lived here before I went to war, and this is the place I came home to after the war. We lived here again in 1974 for two years, when I was Executive Officer, and then Commanding Officer of VA 174, the Replacement Air Group at Cecil Field. So it always feels a bit like a homecoming whenever I return here.

This place was never more special to me than during my unexpectedly long deployment overseas, when the good people of this place looked after my family in my absence. I have always been indebted to Florida friends and neighbors in Orange Park for taking such good care of my family while I was away.

Our neighbors in Orange Park, many of whom, but not all, were Navy families, were extraordinarily kind and generous while I was in Vietnam. They were the mainstay of my family's support. They helped with the maintenance of our home, took my children to sporting events, offered whatever counsel and support was needed, and generally helped keep my family together, body and soul, until I could get back to them. They were nothing less than an extended family to my family, and their love and concern were as much a mark of their good character as it was a blessing to the people they helped.

My daughter, Sidney, was an infant when I first left for Vietnam. She did not know me, or I her very well, when I returned many years later to find a bright and cheerful six year old little girl waiting for me. I, too, was a different person when we were reunited than I had been when we parted. Not in every respect, but certainly in important ways.

In the upheaval of war, that great leveler of ego and distinction, things change. War is a remorseless scavenger, hacking through the jungle of deceit, pretense, and self-delusion to find truth, some of it ugly, some of it starkly beautiful; to find virtue and expose iniquity where we never expected them to reside. No other human experience exists on the same plane. It is a surpassing irony of war, for all the horrors and heroism it occasions, it provides the soldier with every conceivable human experience. Experiences that usually take a lifetime to know are all felt, and felt intensely, in one brief passage of life. Anyone who loses a loved one knows what great sorrow feels like. And any one who gives life to a child knows what great joy feels like. The combat veteran knows what great loss and great joy feel like when they occur in the same moment, the same experience. It can be transforming.

In Vietnam, where I formed the closest friendships of my life, some of those friends never came home to the country they loved so well. I detest war. It might not be the worst thing to befall human beings, but it is wretched beyond all description. Not the valor with which it is fought nor the nobility of the cause it serves, can glorify war. Whatever gains are secured, it is loss the veteran remembers most keenly. Only a fool or a fraud sentimentalizes the merciless reality of war. However heady the appeal of a call to arms, however just the cause, we should still shed a tear for all that is lost when war claims its wages from us.

However glorious the cause, it does not define the experience of war. War mocks our idealized conceptions of glory, whether they are genuine and worthy or something less. War has its own truths. And if glory can be found in war, it is a different concept altogether. It is a hard-pressed, bloody, and soiled glory, steely and forbearing. It is decency and love persisting amid awful degradation, in unsurpassed suffering, misery, and cruelty. It is the discovery that we belong to something bigger than ourselves.

In the immediacy, chaos, destruction and shock of war, soldiers are bound by duty and military discipline to endure and overcome. Their duty and loyalty belong to their country. They find solace in their faith in God. But their strongest loyalty, the bond that cannot break, is to the cause that is theirs alone each other. It is through loyalty to comrades in arms that they begin to understand that to love one's country is to love one's countrymen, and to serve the national ideal that commenced their personal transformation. When war is over, they might have the largest but not exclusive claim on the success of their nation's cause and seldom share in the blame for its failure. But their claim is shorn of all romance, all nostalgia for the suffering with which it was won. From that crucible they have but one prize, one honor: that they had withstood the savagery and losses of war and were found worthy by the men who stood with them.

This is the truth of war, of honor and courage. Before I went to war its meaning was obscure to me, hidden in the spare language of men who had gone to war before me and been changed forever by the experience. The Naval Academy, with its inanimate and living memorials to fidelity and valor, tried to teach this truth to me. But I had interpreted the lesson, as I had interpreted my father's example, within the limits of my vanity. I thought glory was the object of war, and all glory was self-glory.

No more. For I had learned the truth: there are greater pursuits than self-seeking. Glory is not a conceit. It is not a decoration for valor. It is not a prize for being the strongest, the most clever, or the boldest. Glory belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself, to the cause, to your principles, to the people on whom you rely, and who rely on you in return. No misfortune, no injury, no humiliation can destroy it.

The quality of persevering for your own sake, for your reputation or your sense of personal honor is good but over valued. Persevering with others for a common goal is not only more satisfying in the end, but teaches you something about life you might not have known before, and can influence your direction in ways your own fortitude never could. I once thought I was man enough for almost any confrontation. In prison, I discovered I was not. I tried to use every personal resource I had to confound my captors, and it wasn't enough in the end. But when I had reached the limit of my endurance, the men I had the honor of serving with picked me up, set me right, and sent me back into the fight. I became dependent on others to a greater extent than I had ever been before. And I am a better man for it. We had met a power that wanted to obliterate our identities, and the cause to which we rallied was our response: we are free men, bound inseparably together, and by the grace of God and not your sufferance we will have our freedom restored to us. I have never felt more powerfully free, more my own man, than when I was a small part of an organized resistance to the power that imprisoned us.

That lesson made me a better officer, too. When I came to Cecil Field and eventually assumed command of VA 174, the largest squadron in the Navy, the state of military readiness in the United States was very low. And my squadron's readiness was no exception. We had about fifty planes, and nearly half of them were in such bad shape they had been grounded. I was determined to improve the situation, but I knew my own determination wouldn't be sufficient to do so. I struck a deal with my superiors that if they allowed me to move parts from one plane to another, before my tour was finished we would have every one of them in the air. No plan to restore the squadron's readiness could have succeeded without the extraordinary determination and resourcefulness of the pilots, staff and crew I served with. They numbered nearly a thousand, and they were as highly committed, hardworking, innovative people as any officer ever had the honor to command. They worked diligently toward a common goal, and took pride in the achievements of a team and didn't view individual accomplishment as the primary focus of their energy. Of course, the squadron's purpose was to train aviators, but the men and women of VA 174 knew that they were serving a greater purpose: to demonstrate the resolve of the United States Navy to overcome the decline in morale and readiness that temporarily afflicted the military after the Vietnam War.

On the last day of my command, my Executive Officer and friend, Carl Smith, kept my promise to my superiors and took off in the last of the squadron's grounded planes. The plane was barely ready for the test and flew with its landing gear down. But we had achieved our goal. We had gotten every airplane off the ground, set a record for the longest flying hours without an accident, and received the first Meritorious Unit Citation ever awarded VA 174. The experience was the most rewarding assignment of my Navy career.

There are many qualities to military service that make it such a special profession. But among the most important is the ability to get things done no matter how difficult, confused or unexpected the situation. There is an old military maxim that battle plans never survive the first encounter with the enemy. Soldiers are taught to expect the unexpected and accept it, and revise, improvise, and fight their way through any adversity. That doesn't mean the soldier doesn't grumble or complain about unexpected changes in their fortunes, but they are trained to get things done no matter the circumstances.

That is an ethic that should imbue all public service in this country, and it should be the quality all Americans demand from their elected leaders. We are the most accomplished nation in history, and our system of government is superior to any other. But we have much to do in this historically pivotal era of great change and challenge, to ensure, as every preceding American generation has, that the country we leave our children is even better than the one we inherited.

To keep our nation prosperous, strong and growing we have to rethink, reform and reinvent: the way we educate our children; train our workers; deliver health care services; support retirees; fuel our transportation network; stimulate research and development; and harness new technologies.

To defend ourselves we must do everything better and smarter than we did before. We must rethink, renew and rebuild the structure and mission of our military; the capabilities of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies; the purposes of our alliances, the reach and scope of our diplomacy, and the capacities of all branches of government to defend us against the peril we now face. We need to marshal all elements of American power: our military, economy, investment, trade and technology. We need to strengthen our alliances, and build support in other nations, which must, whether they believe it or not, confront the same threat to their way of life that we do.

We must also prepare, across all levels of government, far better than we have done, to respond quickly and effectively to another terrorist attack or natural calamity. I am not an advocate of big government, and the private sector has an important role to play in homeland security. But when Americans confront a catastrophe, either natural or man-made, their government, across jurisdictions, should be organized and ready to deliver bottled drinking water to dehydrated babies and rescue the aged and infirm trapped in a hospital with no electricity.

We can leave these difficult problems to our unlucky successors, after they've grown worse, and harder to fix. Or we can bring all parties to the table, and hammer out principled solutions to the challenges of our time:

to strengthen our military, intelligence, diplomacy, and law enforcement and use the power of American ideals and commerce to win the war against violent extremists, and help the majority of Muslims who believe in progress and peace to win the struggle for the soul of Islam;

to balance the federal budget not with smoke and mirrors but by encouraging economic growth and preventing government from spending your money on things it shouldn't; to hold it accountable for the money it does spend on services that only government can provide in ways that don't fail and embarrass you;

to save Social Security and Medicare on our watch without the tricks, band-aid solutions, lies and posturing that have failed us for too long while the problem became harder and harder to solve;

to make our tax code simpler, fairer, flatter, more pro-growth and pro-jobs;

to reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign sources of oil with an energy policy that encourages American industry and technology to make our country safer, cleaner and more prosperous by leading the world in the use, development and discovery of alternative sources of energy;

to open new markets to American goods and services, create more and better jobs for the American worker and overhaul unemployment insurance and our redundant and outmoded programs for assisting workers who have lost a job that's not coming back to find a job that won't go away;

to help Americans without health insurance acquire it without bankrupting the country, and ruining the quality of American health care that is the envy of the world;

to make our public schools more accountable to parents and better able to meet the critical responsibility they have to prepare our children for the challenges they'll face in the world they'll lead.

We are not a perfect nation. Our history has had its moments of shame and profound regret. But what we have achieved in our brief history is irrefutable proof that a nation conceived in liberty will prove stronger, more decent and more enduring than any nation ordered to exalt the few at the expense of the many or made from a common race or culture or to preserve traditions that have no greater attribute than longevity.

But as blessed as we are, no nation complacent in its greatness can long sustain it. We, too, must prove, as those who came before us proved, capable of the work history has assigned us. Nothing is inevitable in America. Nothing. We're the world's leader, and leaders don't pine for the past and dread the future. We make the future better than the past. We don't hide from history. We make history. That, my friends, is the essence of hope in America, hope built on courage, and faith in the values that have made us great. I intend to make my stand on those principles and help move this country forward, to our future greatness, and trust in the judgment, decency and resolve of the people I have served all my life.

Thank you.

McCain Update, New Video

McCain has a new video out--http://www.johnmccain.com/service/day3_webvideo.htm

And he did two talks today. Here is the text.

U.S. Senator John McCain will deliver the following remarks as prepared for delivery during the third stop of his "Service to America" tour today at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland at 9:15 a.m. EST:

Thank you. I am very happy to be here. Annapolis holds a special place in my life, and in the years that have passed since my father drove me to the gates of the Naval Academy to begin my plebe year, memories of my experiences here are often bathed in the welcome haze of nostalgia for the time when I was brave and true and better looking than I am at present. But witnesses to my behavior here, a few of whom are present today, as well as a nagging conscience, have a tendency to interrupt my reverie for a misspent youth, and urge a more honest appraisal of my record and character here. In truth, my four years at the Naval Academy were not notable for exemplary virtue or academic achievement but, rather, for the impressive catalogue of demerits I managed to accumulate. By my reckoning, at the end of my second class year, I had marched enough extra duty to take me to Baltimore and back seventeen times -- which, if not a record, certainly ranks somewhere very near the top.

Never in my wildest flights of youthful fancy did I imagine I would one day be honored to give the commencement address at the Academy as I was some years ago. And, certainly, no matter how inflated was my self-regard as a midshipman, it could never have admitted the prospect that I would someday return to the banks of the Severn as a candidate for President of the United States. My old company officer, who for four years devoted himself to tracking my nocturnal sojourns outside the walls of the Academy and my other petty acts of insubordination, would have certainly shared my skepticism. But in the intervening years and experiences, I have learned what a young man seldom appreciates: that life is rich with irony and unexpected twists of fate, and is all the more fascinating for them. And I learned this, too: that my accomplishments are more a testament to my country, the land of opportunity, than they are to me. In America , everything is possible.

I had a difficult time my plebe year adjusting to the discipline imposed on me, which included, of course, deference to officers and instructors, but to other midshipmen, whose only accomplishment entitling them to my obedience, I thought at the time, was to have been born a year or more before me. I was something of a discipline problem to begin with. The problem being, I didn't like discipline. And that childish impulse that seemed then so important to my self-respect; to protecting the individualism I had been at pains to assert throughout my itinerant childhood, encouraged my irreverence to some of the customs of this place.

It's funny, now, how less self-assured I feel later in life than I did when I lived in the perpetual springtime of youth. Some of my critics allege that age hasn't entirely cost me my earlier conceits. All I can say to them is they should have known me then. But as the great poet, Yeats, wrote, "All that's beautiful drifts away, like the waters." I've lost some of the attributes that were the object of a young man's vanity. But there have been compensations, which I have come to hold dear.

If I had ignored some of the less important conventions of the Academy, I was careful not to defame its more compelling traditions: the veneration of courage and resilience; the honor code that simply assumed your fidelity to its principles; the homage paid to Americans who had sacrificed greatly for our country; the expectation that you, too, would prove worthy of your country's trust.

Appearances to the contrary, it was never my intention to mock a revered culture that expected better of me. Like any other midshipman, I wanted to prove my mettle to my contemporaries and to the institution that figured so prominently in my family history. My idiosyncratic methods amounted to little more than the continued expressions of the truculence I had used at other schools to fend off what I had wrongly identified as attacks on my dignity.

The Naval Academy was not interested in degrading my dignity. On the contrary, it had a more expansive conception of human dignity than I possessed when I arrived at its gates. The most important lesson I learned here was that to sustain my self-respect for a lifetime it would be necessary for me to have the honor of serving something greater than my self-interest.

When I left the Academy, I was not even aware I had learned that lesson. In a later crisis, I would suffer a genuine attack on my dignity, an attack, unlike the affronts I had exaggerated as a boy, that left me desperate and uncertain. It was then I would recall, awakened by the example of men who shared my circumstances, the lesson that the Academy in its venerable and enduring way had labored to impress upon me. It changed my life forever. I had found my cause: citizenship in the greatest nation on earth.

Like most people, when I reflect back on the adventures and joys of youth, I feel a longing for what is lost and cannot be restored. But though such happy pursuits prove ephemeral, something better can endure, and endure until our last moment on earth. And that is the honor you earn and the love you give when you sacrifice with others for a cause greater than yourself.

Our civilization's progress is accelerated by the information-technology revolution that ranks with the industrial revolution as a great pivot point in history. All around the world, the dynamics of the new economy: the internet, the communications revolution and globalization are transforming the way we work and create value; the way we govern ourselves -- or others presume to govern us; the way we live.

But even as we stand today, at the threshold of an age in which the genius of America will, I am confident, again be proven -- the genius that historian Frederick Turner called "that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism ... that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom" -- many Americans are indifferent to or cynical about the virtues that our country claims. In part, it is attributable to the dislocations economic change causes; to the experience of Americans who have, through no fault of their own, been left behind as others profit as they never have before. In part, it is in reaction to government's mistakes and incompetence, and to the selfishness of some public figures who seek to shine the luster of their public reputations at the expense of the public good. But for others, cynicism about our country, government, social and religious institutions seems not a reaction to occasions when they hav e been let down by these institutions, but because the ease which wealth and opportunity have given their lives led them to the mistaken conclusion that America, and the liberties its system of government is intended to protect, just aren't important to the quality of their lives.

I'm a conservative, and I believe it is a very healthy thing for Americans to be skeptical about the purposes and practices of public officials. We shouldn't expect too much from government -- nor should it expect too much from us. Self-reliance -- not foisting our responsibilities off on others -- is the ethic that made America great.

But when healthy skepticism sours into corrosive cynicism our expectations of our government become reduced to the delivery of services. And to some people the expectations of liberty are reduced to the right to choose among competing brands of designer coffee.

What is lost is, in a word, citizenship. For too many Americans, the idea of good citizenship does not extend beyond walking into a voting booth every two or four years and pulling a lever. And too few Americans demand of themselves even that first obligation of self-government.

But citizenship properly understood is what Ronald Reagan was talking about when he said that Americans "are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around." Citizenship is not just the imposition of the mundane duties of democracy. Nor is it the unqualified entitlement to the protections and services of the state.

Citizenship thrives in the communal spaces where government is absent. Anywhere Americans come together to govern their lives and their communities -- in families, churches, synagogues, museums, symphonies, the Little League, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the Salvation Army or the VFW -- they are exercising their citizenship.

Citizenship is defined by countless acts of love, kindness and courage that have no witness or heraldry and are especially commendable because they are unrecorded.

Although it exists apart from government, citizenship is the habits and institutions that preserve democracy. It is the ways, small and large, we come together to govern ourselves. Citizenship is the responsible exercise of freedom, and is indispensable to the proper functioning of a democracy.

The English writer G.K. Chesterton once wrote that America is a "nation with the soul of a church." What he meant is that America is not a race or a people but an idea -- a place where the only requirement for membership is a belief in the principles of liberty, opportunity and equality under the law on which this nation was founded.

Citizenship is our acceptance of -- and our protection of -- these principles. It is the duties, the loyalties, the inspirations and the habits of mind that bind us together as Americans.

We are the heirs and caretakers of freedom; a blessing preserved with the blood of heroes down through the ages. One cannot go to Arlington Cemetery and see name upon name, grave upon grave, row upon row, without being deeply moved by the sacrifice made by those young men and women.

And those of us who live in this time, who are the beneficiaries of their sacrifice, dare not forget what they did and why they did it, lest we lose our own love of liberty.

Love of country, my friends, is another way of saying love of your fellow countrymen -- a truth I learned a long time ago in a country very different from ours.

That is the good cause that summons every American to service. If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you are disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. I hope more Americans would consider enlisting in our Armed Forces. I hope more would consider running for public office or working in federal, state and local governments. But there are many public causes where your service can make our country a stronger, better one than we inherited. Wherever there is a hungry child, a great cause exists. Where there is an illiterate adult, a great cause exists. Wherever there are people who are denied the basic rights of Man, a great cause exists. Wherever there is suffering, a great cause exists.

The good citizen and wise person pursues happiness that is greater than comfort, more sublime than pleasure. The cynical and indifferent know not what they miss. For their mistake is an impediment not only to our progress as a civilization but to their happiness as individuals.

As blessed as we are, no nation complacent in its greatness can long sustain it. We, too, must prove, as those who came before us proved, that a people free to act in their own interests, will perceive those interests in an enlightened way, will live as one nation, in a kinship of ideals, and make of our power and wealth a civilization for the ages, a civilization in which all people share in the promise and responsibilities of freedom.

Should we claim our rights and leave to others the duty to the ideals that protect them, whatever we gain for ourselves will be of little lasting value. It will build no monuments to virtue, claim no honored place in the memory of posterity, offer no worthy summons to the world. Success, wealth and celebrity gained and kept for private interest is a small thing. It makes us comfortable, eases the material hardships our children will bear, purchases a fleeting regard for our lives, yet not the self-respect that, in the end, matters most. But sacrifice for a cause greater than yourself, and you invest your life with the eminence of that cause, your self-respect assured.

All lives are a struggle against selfishness. All my life I've stood a little apart from institutions that I had willingly joined. It just felt natural to me. But if my life had shared no common purpose, it would not have amounted to much more than eccentric. There is no honor or happiness in just being strong enough to be left alone. As one of my potential opponents often observes, I've spent fifty years in the service of this country and its ideals. I have made many mistakes, and I have my share of regrets. But I've never lived a day, in good times or bad, that I wasn't grateful for the privilege. That's the benefit of service to a country that is an idea and a cause, a righteous idea and cause. America and her ideals helped spare me the worst consequences of the deficiencies in my character. And I cannot forget it.

When I was a young man, I thought glory was the highest attainment, and all glory was self-glory. My parents had tried to teach me otherwise, as did the Naval Academy. But I didn't understand the lesson until later in life, when I confronted challenges I never expected to face.

In that confrontation, I discovered that I was dependent on others to a greater extent than I had ever realized, but neither they nor the cause we served made any claims on my identity. On the contrary, they gave me a larger sense of myself than I had ever had before. And I am a better man for it. I discovered that nothing in life is more liberating than to fight for a cause that encompasses you but is not defined by your existence alone. And that has made all the difference, my friends, all the differences in the world.

Thank you.

ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain will deliver the following remarks as prepared for delivery during the fourth stop of his "Service to America" tour today at the Pensacola Junior College in Pensacola, Florida at 4:00 p.m. EST:

Thank you. On the day I graduated from the Naval Academy and received my commission, I listened to President Eisenhower deliver the commencement address. I admired President Eisenhower very much. But I must admit I remember little of his remarks, impatient as I was to enjoy the other celebrations of the day and mindful that given my undistinguished class standing I would not have the privilege of shaking the President's hand. I do recall, vaguely, that he encouraged his audience of Navy ensigns and Marine lieutenants to become "crusaders for peace."

I came to Pensacola to become an aviator, and, eventually, an instrument of war for my country. I have very happy memories of my time here. It is hard to imagine how I could not have happy memories of this place. I was a very young man entering a very exciting profession with few priorities greater than my own amusement. Of course, my interests then were focused more on cultivating the image of a naval aviator that strongly appealed to my vanity than on becoming proficient in my chosen profession and understanding the purposes and full meaning of the duty to my country that came with my commission. I wanted to live the life of a daring, brash, fun-loving flyer, indifferent to the hazards of his profession, calm and stoic when the adrenalin flowed, fatalistic about life and death situations, and determined to live every non dangerous moment of his life to the fullest.

I thought that image, which I doubt I ever quite perfected, would prove irresistible to everyone I knew, and especially so to girls whose attention I sought. There are compensations to growing older, my friends, but the late discovery that you were probably not quite the charming, irresistible young man you once believed you were, but rather callow, conceited and often stupid is not among them. In truth, the image I aspired to was, in the end, only irresistible to one person -- me, and it was a very childish attraction. It was little different than playing soldiers when I was a boy, except the government provided me an attractive uniform, a small salary, and a real and expensive airplane, which they eventually let me fly, catapulting me from the deck of a pitching aircraft carrier and expecting me, and more importantly my airplane, to return safely to the same place. I know better now what I was really being prepared to bec ome. But that sign of maturity, like so many others, had to wait for the self-awareness that comes from having a place in a real, not an imaginary world; a world that made short work of childhood dreams of glamour. That is not to say, however, that my time in Pensacola wasn't as fun as I thought it was at the time. My memories of this place are happy ones for a reason. I enjoyed every single moment of my life here, from learning to fly to blowing my pay at Trader Johns. But I was sent here for more serious purposes than that, and it would take me a while to understand that.

It will surprise no one that I think service in the United States Armed Forces to be among the highest expressions of patriotism and the most personally rewarding experiences. For many years the United States Navy was the only world I knew, and, all these years later, it is still the world I know best and love most. After I earned my wings, I served in squadrons in the Atlantic Fleet, on board the Intrepid and Enterprise. Mediterranean cruises and their ports of call in Europe were pleasant duty for young, single aviators, and I made the most of it. And much of my affection for the Navy, and my love of flying off carriers was still a reflection of childhood daydreams, stimulated by long afternoons in my grandmother's house reading about the exploits of heroes, fictional and real, and craving the kinds of adventures they had. I had wanted a life of adventure, and while visiting the Isle of Capri or the casinos of Monte Carlo seemed fairly adventurous at the time, I knew my ultimate adventure would have to be in more challenging circumstances than those I had thus far experienced. My idea of war, which was not derived from personal experience, hadn't advanced much further than the way I had conceived it as a boy: the biggest adventure of all. That romantic conception would also have to wait for later experiences to teach me just how foolish an idea it was.

Although, I still possessed immature notions about military service, I had started to feel the need to move on, a natural impulse for me. I was, at least beginning to desire a more serious reputation. Like my father and grandfather, I came to love life at sea. I volunteered for bridge watches and qualified as an "officer on the deck underway," capable of commanding a carrier at sea. My reputation did not improve all that much, as much of it still rested on my more self-indulgent behavior. I once knocked down power lines in southern Spain, flying too low for no good reason, and temporarily cut the electricity to a great many Spanish homes. But I began to give my superiors some reason to think I might eventually prove myself, if not as gifted an officer as my father and grandfather had been, perhaps competent enough not to squander entirely my legacy.

In October of 1962, I had just returned from a Mediterranean cruise aboard the Enterprise. My squadron had flown off the carrier for Oceana Naval Station, where we would train out of land bases until our next deployment.

A few days after our return, we unexpectedly received orders to fly our planes back to the Enterprise. Our superiors told us that a hurricane was coming, and the carrier needed to put out to sea to avoid damage. That aroused our curiosity since none of us had heard any forecast of an approaching hurricane. In addition to the A-1s we flew, the Enterprise carried long-range attack planes, which typically had a hard time managing carrier take-offs and landings. We embarked on our mysterious deployment without them.

As the Enterprise passed Cherry Point, Virginia, a Marine squadron of A-4s approached and attempted to land. I watched the scene from the air tower. Several of the pilots had considerable difficulty trying to land. Our air boss turned to a Marine officer and told him we didn't have time to wait for all their planes to land; some of them would have to return to base. The Marine replied that the planes didn't have enough fuel left to return to base and would have to land on the carrier.

I was puzzled by the apparent urgency of our mission. We had been hustled back to the carrier, leaving some of our planes behind; and deploying the Marine squadron with only enough fuel to land or ditch. Clearly, something big was underway. The mystery was solved a short while later when we all assembled in the ready room to listen to a broadcast of President Kennedy informing the nation that the Soviets were basing nuclear missiles in Cuba.

The Enterprise, sailing at full speed under nuclear power, was the first carrier to reach the waters off Cuba. For about five days, we believed we were going into action. We had never been in combat before, and despite the global confrontation a strike on Cuba portended, we were prepared and anxious to fly our first combat mission. Flyers and crewmen alike adopted a cool-headed, business-as-usual attitude toward our mission, but inwardly we were as excited as we could be.

After five days the tension eased, as it became apparent the crisis would be resolved peacefully. We weren't disappointed to be denied our first experience of war, but our appetites were whetted and our imaginations fueled. We all looked forward to the occasion when we would finally have the chance to do what we had been trained to do, and discover, at last, if we were brave enough for the job.

But I had also begun to recognize that military service and war were more than an adventure for boys with vivid imaginations and a measure of audacity. They offered admission into history, possibly a big part of history, a much more daunting enterprise than proving one's mettle and with much greater things at stake than personal reputation or even the life and death of soldiers. The Cuban Missile Crisis could have caused a nuclear war, and we had been part of our country's response to the threat, but used in such a way to help forestall a chain of events from running to that terrible conclusion.

I cannot say I had completely lost my self-centered conception of my duty. For that I had to have a more expansive view of my country. I loved my country then and now. And I was reasonably well-read in history, and certainly grasped the uniqueness of America, a country not rooted in land and blood, but in an idea, an inspiring and noble idea. But, as Americans often do, my appreciation of the country was more focused on the many advantages and opportunities of American life. Yet that early experience I had with a genuinely historic crisis gave me a greater perspective on what I had truly committed myself to, even as a very junior officer. The defense of my country was important not only to the security of my countrymen and the blessings of life in America. It was important to the world: to the peace and stability of the world and to advancing in a hostile world those ideals we believe are universal. I was part of that great cause, a small and unessential part, but a part nonetheless. And to serve it as well as it deserves I would have to learn to subordinate personal ambitions and conceits, even parts of your nature that you pride yourself on, to a much more important good. Of course, I didn't grasp the full import of this revelation until some years later, when my time at war finally arrived.

I have long argued that the United States must significantly increase the size of our Army and Marine Corps. I think the security challenges we face today absolutely require it. The former Secretary of Defense disagreed, and we waited too long to begin that build-up. Had we begun to do it right after 9/11, as we realized that we were now in a global struggle against a malicious enemy, or as we embarked on two wars, or even when it became clear to many of us that our flawed strategy and inadequate troop levels in Iraq were going to result in that conflict lasting far longer than anticipated, we would not be in the situation we are in now. The strain our involvement in Iraq has placed on the readiness of our military would not be so acute. But that is the past, and while we can argue about it indefinitely, it won't solve the problem we now confront. We must increase the size of our military, and much more so than we have done to date. It is an urgent priority.

Obviously, that is going to require greater numbers of Americans to serve than have recently showed a willingness to do. We can issue appeals to Americans to accept their responsibilities to the country as previous generations have. We could institute a draft, but that is neither necessary nor desirable. We could and should call on universities to allow ROTC a presence on their campuses. That they are frequently denied that privilege is disgraceful. The United States military defends the freedom of all of us, including students and professors at leading institutes of higher learning. For some of those same institutions to refuse to allow future officers, who will one day risk their lives to protect us, to train for their responsibilities on their campuses is unfair, ungrateful and very poor citizenship.

I want every American to know that, despite its attendant risks and sacrifices, military service even for one or two enlistments or for a career is one of the most rewarding experiences you could ever have. Make no mistake, those risks and sacrifices are great and daunting even in peacetime. But few other occupations so completely invest your life with personal and even historic importance.

What we have achieved in this country is very much worth defending; worth even the most terrible sacrifices. The thought that any American wouldn't believe that saddens me. We are so invested in the world. Our prosperity, our safety, cannot be protected by retiring from a troublesome world, and building imagined walls to the progress of history. It was our founding belief that America and the world would be far better places were the natural and inalienable rights of life and liberty, the principles of free people and free markets, possessed by all humanity. And we have sacrificed greatly to secure those rights for people we never knew in places we had never heard of before. We have done so in defense of our interests as well as our ideals, but we have done so. Very few other nations can make that claim.

We are blessed to be Americans, not just in times of peace and prosperity. We are part of something providential: a great experiment to prove to the world that democracy is not only the most effective form of government, but the only moral government. And through the years, generation after generation of Americans have held fast to the belief that we were meant to transform history. What greater cause than that could we ever find? The global advance of our ideals is not the first responsibility of our military. Our military is not always the best instrument of that cause, though it has certainly served it of necessity and at great sacrifice. But the defense of our possession of them is their responsibility. And no other profession has done that so admirably, so selflessly as the United States Armed Forces. I wish all Americans the experience of such sublime service to a greater good that I was very lucky to have once had, a nd which began in practice, here, in Pensacola. Thank you.