With economy top issue, McCain and Obama offer competing visions on taxes

Barack Obama wants to raise income and Social Security taxes for people making more than $250,000 a year. John McCain wants to cut business taxes for corporations.

Those positions illustrate pieces of two vastly different approaches to the economy, an issue at the forefront of voters' minds given that the country is teetering on the brink of _ if not already in _ a recession as gas prices soar and layoffs rise amid a credit crisis and a housing slump.

Obama, the Democrat, seemingly has a traditional liberal outlook of taxing the rich more while having the government help people of more modest means through tax breaks. McCain, the Republican, advocates a classic …