When John McCain embarrassed himself last month by declaring that the “fundamentals of our economy are strong,” he quickly claimed that he was talking about his belief in the American worker  and darkly implied that anyone who disagreed was less than patriotic.

For all of that concern, it’s a shame that Mr. McCain hasn’t come up with policies that would actually help workers. Instead, he’s served up the same-old trickle-down theories and a government-is-wrong, markets-are-right fervor that helped create this economic disaster.

Wednesday night’s debate was another chance for Mr. McCain to prove that he is ready to lead this country out of its deep economic crisis. But he had one answer to almost every economic question: cut taxes and government spending. Unfortunately, what Mr. McCain means is to cut taxes for the richest Americans and, inevitably, to reduce the kinds of government services that working Americans need more than ever.

Mr. McCain also stuck to his campaign’s nasty tone. He could not let go of the “Joe the Plumber” parable, saying his opponent’s plan was “to take Joe’s money, give it to Senator Obama and let him spread the wealth around.” Mr. McCain then accused Barack Obama of engaging in the sort of “class warfare” that has, in fact, been a focus of his own campaign.