By GEOFF EARLE
Posted: 4:33 am
October 11, 2008
WASHINGTON - Grappling with Wall Street's disasters, John McCain said yesterday that he would protect retirees from taking a bath on their retirement funds, and Barack Obama countered with a plan to help out small businesses.
McCain, who has been struggling in polls since the crisis hit full force, wants to suspend a tax rule requiring people to start cashing out funds from 401(k) accounts when they reach 70½ or when they retire, whichever is later.
In La Crosse, Wis., he said the idea would "spare investors from being forced to sell their stocks at just the time when the market is hurting the most."
Obama, in Ohio, said he'd let small businesses "expense" the full cost of business deductions immediately rather than over several years, at a cost to the Treasury of about $900 million.
The proposal had been included in a tax-stimulus package the Democrats briefly tried to attach to the $700 billion Wall Street rescue.
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