Factcheck.org hardly seems above criticism to me. In fact, they seem more like an arm of the Obama campaign. They "refute" ten McCain claims for every Obama one they look at. Much of their "checking" strikes me as little more than nickpicking anyway. Remember one thing. Bill clinton promised a middle class tax cut. Instead, we got the biggest tax increase in history. You are very naive if you believe some of the Obama "proposals' you rely so heavily on. Like he will cut the estate tax. Or that there will be a special cap gains rate for "small business." Never ever will happen. You are also wrong to accuse me of blind partisanship. I do not like McCain and have said so many times. He is about the last person I would want to be president, but at least he is qualified, unlike Obama, and he is not a socialist with a lengthy list of odious past associaitons.
OPINION AUGUST 19, 2008 Obama's Tax Plan Is Really a Welfare Plan By PETER FERRARAArticle Barack Obama's tax plan is the opposite of supply-side economics. He proposes to raise marginal rates for just about every federal tax. He also proposes a raft of tax credits that taxpayers can receive if they engage in various government-specified activities. Moreover, the tax credits would mostly go to those who pay little or nothing in federal income taxes. His trick is to make the tax credits "refundable." Thus, if the tax credit is for $1,000, but the taxpayer would otherwise only pay $200 in taxes, the government would write a check to the taxpayer for $800. If the taxpayer pays nothing in federal income taxes, the government would pay him the whole $1,000. Such credits are not tax cuts. Indeed, they should be called The New Tax Welfare. In effect, Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand a slew of government spending programs that are disguised as tax credits. The spending on these programs is then subtracted from the total tax burden, in order to make the claim that his tax plan is a net tax cut overall. On the tax side of the ledger, the details released by his campaign last week confirm what a President Obama has in mind for our most productive citizens. The top individual income tax rate, for example, would be increased by 13%, to 39.6%; the next-highest rate would be raised to 36%. The top rates on capital gains and dividends would rise by a third, to 20% The Social Security payroll tax would be raised between 16% to 32% for families making over $250,000 a year. This means that the real returns these people get from their lifetime payments into the retirement program will be driven below 0%, according to my own previous research, which was published by the Cato Institute and elsewhere. Mr. Obama also wants a permanent federal estate tax, with a top rate of 45%; his health-insurance plan includes a new payroll tax on employers; and he also contemplates several increases in the corporate income tax, including a new so-called windfall profits tax on oil companies. Then there is the spending side of the ledger. Mr. Obama proposes a fully refundable Making Work Pay Tax Credit, which would have the government pay out $500 to each worker and $1,000 to couples -- reminiscent of George McGovern's 1972 election proposal for the government to send a $1,000 check to everyone. His American Opportunity Tax Credit would provide a $4,000, fully refundable tax credit for college tuition expenses. His Mortgage Interest Tax Credit would provide a 10% credit -- refundable -- to offset mortgage interest payments for lower- and middle-income families. His Health Care Tax Credits, which the campaign says "will ensure that health insurance is available and affordable for all families," include "a new refundable 50 percent health tax credit on employee premiums paid by employers." Currently existing tax credits would also become spending programs in the Obama tax program. The Savers Credit would be made fully refundable, and would be expanded, according to the campaign, "to match 50% of the first $1,000 of savings for families that earn under $75,000." The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit would be made refundable and expanded to allow "low-income families to receive up to a 50 percent credit on the first $6,000 of child care expenses." The Earned Income Tax Credit is already refundable. Mr. Obama would expand it to "increase the number of working parents eligible for EITC benefits, increase the benefits available to noncustodial parents who fulfill their child support obligations, increase benefits for families with three or more children, and reduce the EITC marriage penalty, which hurts low-income families." In short, welfare spending is to be increased by paying more money out to low-income income tax filers. The latest Congressional Budget Office data shows the bottom 40% of income earners already pays no income taxes. Indeed, they receive a net payment from the federal income tax system -- meaning from the taxpayers -- equal to 3.8% of all federal income taxes, because of the refundable tax credits under current law. The middle 20% of income earners, the true middle class, pays 4.4% of federal income taxes. Overall, the bottom 60% of income earners pay less than 1% of federal income taxes on net. When "tax credits" primarily go to this group in the form of checks from the government (rather than a reduction in their tax burden) it is simply an abuse of the language to call the spending a tax cut. Consequently, to say, as the campaign does say, that the candidate's tax plan is a tax cut on net -- and that it would limit taxes to 18.2% of GDP -- is grossly misleading. The Obama tax plan would sharply increase real taxes. It also would come nowhere near to paying for the massive increases in federal spending he has proposed, including the spending that is disguised in the form of refundable tax credits.
Qualified? Mccain is NOT qualified. I didn't go this far before, but now i make no bones about it now, I've seen enough. The man knows nothing. He doesn't even know what the Fed does....or where spain is. He's an old politician thats been in the system for too long. He's out of touch with so many major issues. I don't mean to sound leftist here but its simply the truth. To me he's just the next guy in line for the republicans...the next guy to be churned out of the old senator presidential candidate machine. Sure Obama doesn't have all the lengthy qualifications, but the guy is ridiculously intelligent and obviously tenacious. Those are the qualities I admire most about him. Mccain is not. Mccain seems like a likable guy, but its just hard for me to relate I guess. I'm a big JFK fan, and his credentials were thin like Obama's. What it comes down to is this: I'm bias. I admit it. I'm young, I'm not the stupidest guy on the whole planet at least, and I am aggressive. In the past couple years I've seen just how far those traits can get you. I believe I (like anyone else) can do whatever I want with these traits (intelligence, tenacity, hard work etc). You put me on a project (law, real estate etc) with a 45 year old whos been doing it forever, who is more "qualified" and I bet on myself. Why? Because that guy represents John Mccain to me. He's been doing it day in and out. He goes home and night, plays with his kids, watches the sopranos and goes back to work. He's typical. He's average. When he comes back I will still be there. Working. I will push harder, be smarter, think outside of the box and do whatever it takes to win. That's what I see in Obama. Thats what Kennedy was like. And to me, thats how you get things done that others can't. (i.e. clinton)
Honestly, you have a good attitude but you will realize in a few years just how little you really know. I used to think the same way but experience counts. What I can do in two steps will take you 10 to arrive at the same result and I'll do it better. No offense, you have the right attitude but not enough smarts.
Insight like that comes in old age, usually at the pea section of a Country Kitchen 5:00pm buffet line. Other insights revealed at that age are: "why don't they serve more corn?" and "I've lost my belt." Sounds like he's plenty smart, but said something with great detail that you disagree with and can't argue with. Just tell him to stay off your lawn.
Experience is more effective when your replicating past results. Which is not something I want our president to do. When it comes to innovation (which is whats its going to come to in politics I believe) experience is a lot less useful. Being innovative and being able to creatively solve problems are what this election should be about. I concede the point about you being able to accomplish in 2 steps what I can in ten, but thats only if the job we're doing has a high level of redundancy. When it comes to the things that I've done in my life (loan officer, land development, trading) the "experienced" people served me mostly as a model of what not to do, simply because I don't consider mediocrity a worthwhile goal. Hopefully our next president won't either.
Then there's the whole issue that McCain has zero private experience, while Obama has worked in the public and private sector. Plus as a lawyer, author, professor, organizer, director, state senator and senator. Which actually buttresses your point that he's profoundly creative and driven.
Right. Which is why I admitted that I am bias, in that he represents (along with Kennedy and others) what I strive create in my own life.
I don't want to knock what you're saying, because I wish I felt the same way. Obviously, I don't. I think it is a huge mistake to trust in any politician, and admit it or not, that's what you're doing. Obama has accomplished nothing and done next to nothing having anything to do with being president. That's why it was such a huge mistake for him to attack Palin on the experience issue. Hers was thin but far more substantial than his. He's never run anything. When he has done things, the results have ranged from catostrophic ( bankrupt housing project) to downright scary ( long association with terrorist Bill Ayers). People point to his cmapaign as evidence of his great competency and judgment. I see a guy who went overseas and made a fool out of himself pretending he was president, a guy who has made reckless and pointless statements about invading allies, who has repeatedly injected race into the campaign and who leaned on the Iraqis to stonewall Bush's desire for a pullout schedule. I also see a guy who has famously described himself as the one whom we have been awaiting for(uh...that would be Jesus not a pol), one who is already healing the planet and causing the seas to lower and the one who will bring us together and utilize a new type of politics. It's not so much they are all obvious lies, it's the raw narcississism to even come up with them in the first place. Very scary and a bit weird. McCain by contrast is a known quantity. He is not my choice and certainly not the next guy in line. He won a tough series of primaries when it looked like he was done. I wish he was not the nominee, but we only have these two guys as choices. I may not agree with him on too much, but I think McCain is ready to be president and will be a steady hand. He is a tough SOB and will not panic in a crisis. Obama, I'm not so sure. I lived through a guy who was an earlier version of obama, Jimmy Carter. A thoughtful reformer and outsider who promised to change the wya Washington worked. He was an even bigger disaster than Bush, simultaneously wrecking the economy, handing Iran over to the islamist nutjobs and greenlighting soviet expansionism all over the globe.