Our nation is currently in the midst of a financial crisis. Millions of Americans’ economic and personal well-being will be determined by the actions our government takes in the coming months to respond. Congress passed and the president signed a massive bailout bill that, though costly, will maintain the stability of our nation’s financial institutions and prevent full-scale economic collapse. However, the road to recovery will be a long one, and it is essential that we elect a leader who will implement policies that will allow our economy to grow and prosper, lifting us from this economic turmoil.   The McCain-Palin economic plan is a growth plan that focuses on low taxes, job creation and a retreat from the reckless and wasteful spending we have seen in the past eight years. John McCain will put us on the road to recovery by permanently repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax, saving middle class families with children an average of more than $2,700. This will allow families to save money and combat the rising cost of living.His pro-growth tax policy will maintain low tax rates on capital gains and dividends and allow businesses to deduct the costs of equipment and technology. This will allow small businesses, who employ the vast majority of Americans, to expand and create more employment opportunities for Americans, including young people, seeking employment after college.John McCain will also eliminate earmarks and pork-barrel spending. He has vowed to both veto any legislation that includes pork-barrel projects and will also balance our budget by the end of his term in 2013.He will also lower the federal corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. We currently have the highest federal corporate tax rate in the industrialized world, and lowering this tax will make our companies competitive in the global economy, keeping US jobs on US soil. Yet, despite his favorable tax plan for corporations, John McCain will not stand for corporate greed. He will fight to ensure corporate profits are used to fuel economic innovation and progress, not to line corporate CEO’s pockets.   John McCain’s trade policy is in-tune with our increasingly global economy. Also, his free-market approach to health care (which is supported by the Obama campaign’s senior economic adviser) will allow millions of Americans who cannot afford coverage to receive a tax credit that will allow them to choose the the insurance policy that works best for them.   Finally, John McCain’s energy policy is one that focuses on doing EVERYTHING we can to become energy independent. By powering the American economy here at home, we have the ability to send our goods and services overseas, increasing the economic success and prosperity of all Americans. The McCain-Palin energy plan includes the innovation and use of wind, solar, bio-fuel and nuclear energy technology, along with the use of our vast oil and natural gas resources worth trillions of dollars.Indeed, for as much as the Obama campaign likes to tout its economic policies as progressive and new, they look a whole lot more like to me the failed economic policies of the past. Obama’s higher taxes on businesses will restrict growth and limit the economic pie. His isolationist trade policies mirror the policies of the 1920’s that led to the Great Depression. While keeping American jobs here in the short-term, his trade policy will be detrimental to our economy in the long-term as we will fail to adapt our economy to an inevitably globalized world. His proposal for $800 billion in new government spending will not encourage economic growth, but instead a restriction of American ingenuity and a growing dependence on the federal government to take care of us.   In this coming election, choose the candidate who is committed to growing our economy and working hard so that you and I will have good jobs when we move on from N.C. State. Choose the candidate with the willingness and good judgment to implement policies that have succeeded in growing our economy, not failed policies that thrust our economy into a crisis exponentially worse than the one we face today. In this election, choose John McCain.   E-mail your thoughts on the election issues to [email protected].