WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Taking his economic pitch to small business owners, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain contrasted his plans with those of Barack Obama, saying his likely Democratic rival wants to boost taxes and expand the government's role in health care.

"We offer very different choices to the American people," McCain told the National Federation of Independent Business on Tuesday. "And those choices will have very different consequences for American workers and small business owners."

With soaring gasoline prices and rising unemployment threatening consumer spending, the economy is the top issue in the presidential race. Obama has portrayed McCain's agenda as a continuation of President George W. Bush's policies, which he says have failed. McCain, for his part, paints Obama as a 1960s-style liberal intent on dramatically hiking taxes.

Indeed, the differences on business issues are stark. McCain wants to extend Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which he initially opposed, pursue free trade pacts and widen patient choice in health care through a new tax credit. Obama wants to roll back the Bush tax cuts for wealthy Americans, lift the capital gains and dividends tax rates and rework the North American Free Trade Agreement.

On health care, a critical issue for small business, Obama would create a new national health plan. Employers that don't make a "meaningful" contribution to their workers' health coverage would be required to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the cost of the national plan.

McCain, a U.S. senator from Arizona, says the government can't run the health care system efficiently.

"I believe that the best way to help small businesses and employers afford health care is not to increase government control of health care but to bring the rising cost of care under control and give people the option of having personal, portable health insurance," he said.

His plan to address health care through changes in the tax code is similar to Bush's proposals.

Tuesday's speech intensified the back-and-forth between McCain and Obama over the economy. Obama is linking McCain to Bush during a two-week tour on the economy.

The starkest differences between the candidates on the economy surround tax policy. To help pay for a series of middle-class tax breaks, the U.S. senator from Illinois has indicated that he supports a boost in the capital gains and dividends tax rates to between 20% and 25% from the current level of 15% and an increase in the cap on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax above the current $102,000.

McCain repeated his position that the capital gains and dividends tax rates should stay low and warned that raising income taxes for people making over $ 250,000 a year would hurt small businesses that file under individual tax rates.

McCain, who was introduced by former Ebay Inc. (NASDAQ-NMS:EBAY) (EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman, was embraced warmly by the small business trade group. His speech, however, was interrupted three times by anti-war protesters, each of whom was removed from the room by security officials. After the third interruption, McCain quipped that he was "running out of funny lines" to defuse the tension. The protesters were booed by the audience.

-By Henry J. Pulizzi, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9256; henry.pulizzi@ dowjones.com

    (END) Dow Jones Newswires   06-10-08 1212   Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.