The Wall Street Jour­nal (a pretty good source of infor­ma­tion if you avoid the edi­to­r­ial page) has an inter­est­ing break­down of the eco­nomic pol­icy changes pro­posed by both pres­i­den­tial candidates.

To respond to vot­ers who want imme­di­ate eco­nomic help, both can­di­dates have pro­posed spe­cific plans on how to jump-​start the econ­omy in 2008 and 2009. Sen. Obama pro­poses a $1,000 Emer­gency Energy Rebate to fam­i­lies ($500 for indi­vid­u­als) and penalty-​free with­drawals of 15% from 401(k)s and IRAs up to $10,000. He also wants to tem­porar­ily sus­pend min­i­mum dis­tri­b­u­tion require­ments for retire­ment accounts. Sen. McCain pro­poses cut­ting the capital-​gains rate on stock held for more than a year to 7.5%. He also would increase the amount of stock loss that is deductible against ordi­nary income from $3,000 to $15,000, and would tax with­drawals by seniors from IRAs and 401(k)s no more than 10%.

Obama vs. McCain: It’s About Your Money — WSJ.com

So Obama will off­set your energy bills by up to a grand, which will help work­ing fam­i­lies a lot this win­ter, and allow you take up to 15% of your 401(k) out to keep in the bank for pay­ing bills with­out penalty. Not bad.

McCain… really doesn’t sug­gest a damn thing for work­ing peo­ple. All of his sug­ges­tions cen­ter around stocks and mak­ing own­ing stocks more lucra­tive. Well, that’s great for peo­ple who own stocks, but what about the rest of us, John?

I have to admit I watched the Wall Street implo­sion over the last few weeks with no small amount of schaden­freude. I don’t own a lick of stock, so beyond the over­all impact to the econ­omy, I really don’t care what the stock mar­ket does. I may have lost buy­ing power due to the infla­tion we’re in for, but I per­son­ally didn’t lose a dime this month. Because I get 100% of my money from wages, the stock mar­ket doesn’t mean much to me.

That’s the key dif­fer­ence any­more between Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans. Democ­rats are the party of peo­ple who work for their money. Repub­li­cans are the party of peo­ple whose money works for them. If you get the major­ity of your income from wages, as most mid­dle class fam­i­lies do, Democ­rats are the party for you. If you get most of your money from invest­ments, then Repub­li­cans are more your speed.

So, “thanks but no thanks”, John. Cut­ting cap­i­tal gains taxes doesn’t do a damn thing to put more money in my pocket. Your ideas don’t help me at all. I’m vot­ing for “that one.”