US Features
It's ad-vantage Obama as campaigns reach climax
By Andy Goldberg Oct 30, 2008, 5:41 GMT
Los Angeles - From health care to taxes, Iraq to Iran, Joe Biden to Joe the Plumber - the candidates in Tuesday's presidential election are blitzing the US airwaves with an avalanche of ads.
It's their final chance to persuade voters at the climax of the most expensive campaign in electoral history, and Democratic nominee Barack Obama holds the advantage.
Historians will no doubt note that the candidates and their parties raised and spent close to 1 billion dollars on their campaigns just as country and the global economy are mired in the worst financial crisis in memory.
Obama enjoys a potentially decisive edge, thanks largely to an incredible grassroots fundraising campaign has out raised and outspent Republican candidate John McCain by a factor of as much as two to one.
This advantage has been especially pronounced in what many regard as the three most important battleground states of the election. According to the media tracking firm Nielsen, Obama has outspent McCain in Florida by 232 per cent. In Ohio the difference is 162 per cent, and in Pennsylvania Obama's advantage is merely double.
Obama is running 7,700 commercials per day, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, twice the number of the McCain campaign, and some of those spots are a minute or more, while all of McCain's commercials are just 30 seconds long.
The culmination was the 30-minute appeal his campaign ran on all but one of the major broadcast TV networks Wednesday night, at an estimated cost of 6 million dollars. It was the first such ad buy since billionaire independent candidate Ross Perot undertook a similar gambit in 1992.
The long ad featured campaign clips of Obama speaking to huge crowds, interspersed with footage of him speaking directly to viewers, in between vignettes about working-class supporters struggling to make ends meet. He asked voters to 'choose hope over fear and unity over division'
Obama's campaign said that the spot gave their man the opportunity to address wavering voters directly and clinch the election. The McCain campaign, which is financially unable to match Obama's ad spending, dismissed the move as another example of Obama's celebrity mindset.
McCain has unleashed a barrage of traditional 30-second spots designed to portray Obama as an inexperienced leader whose international policies would embolden US enemies abroad. At the same time, the ads have tried to link Obama with 'socialist' ideals of 'tax and spend,' a line of attack adopted after the centre-left candidate suggested a need to 'spread the wealth.'
One ad pictures fearsome-looking members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and argues that Obama is 'dangerously unprepared to be president.' Others show disturbing, black-and-white pictures of rolling tanks and frightened children, and harp about Obama's lack of experience.
One ad shows Obama waving to adoring crowds.
'Behind the fancy speeches, grand promises and TV specials lies the truth - Barack obama lacks the experience America needs,' intones a grave commentator. 'The fact is that Barack Obama is not ready ... yet.'
Obama is not above using the horror-movie music and black-and- white images to scare people away from his opponent as 'out of touch, out of ideas and running out of time.' Another quotes McCain as admitting that he doesn't know enough about the economy and might have to rely on his vice president in that respect, before cutting to a picture of a winking Sarah Palin.
Mostly, Obama's TV spots show the candidate himself looking straight into the camera and detailing policies that he says will make a difference in the everyday lives of Americans.
He has stuck to a tactic of quickly responding to McCain's attacks. For instance, McCain's 'Joe the Plumber' ads alleging that Obama plans tax hikes are often sandwiched between ads from Obama touting tax breaks for ordinary Americans.
'Any way you look at it, Obama has a huge advantage,' says advertising executive Clark Bigham. 'His message is reaching the people where it matters and is making it harder than even for McCain to come back in the last, final days of the campaign.'
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Older Talkback
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Preemptive Disarmament:
Get set for not only a 25% reduction in defense spending, but the Department of Peace. This is the agenda of the modern Democrat party. They have no interest in hiding their intentions.
Democrats want to see the Defense Department gutted, so that they can instead have a Department of Peace, which promotes such novel ideas as the Office of Peace Education and Training; Office of Domestic Peace Activities; Office of International Peace Activities; Office of Technology for Peace; Office of Arms Control and Disarmament; Office of Peaceful Coexistence and Nonviolent Conflict Resolution; and Office of Human Rights and Economic Rights.
Supporting peace and nonviolence is all well and good, but unless terrorists, terror regimes, and enemies of the US decide to use nonviolence as a means of opposing the US, this is as destructive and corrosive an idea to US national security as any proposed in the history of the nation. It's based on hope and wishful thinking rather than hundreds of years of history and the course of human events.
The Democrats are engaging in Preemptive Disarmament.
Essentially, the Democrats are hoping to force the US to use harsh language to combat our enemies, instead of killing them on battlefields around the world. This will be destructive to US foreign policy as our allies will be unable to rely on the US to come to their aid should they be attacked and we will have less capacity to handle conflict should it be waged against us.
Rarely discussed part of the Obama 'Economic Plan' is the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
This treaty is all about redistributing the wealth WORLDWORLD Nixon and LBJ refused to sign it. Jimmy Carter did sign it. Since then it congress has refused to ratify it. But Senator Obama has said that he will make a renewed effort to get it ratified. With a filibusterer-proof Senate that will not be difficult.
REDISTRIBUTIVE CHANGE: THE DEATH OF FREEDOM
Obama, the Leftist community organizer schooled in the radical methods of Saul Alinsky, recognizes that in the current legal landscape legislation will be necessary to impose the injustice he calls “economic justice.” Lawmakers needn’t do all the work. Politically unaccountable judges, many favorably predisposed toward Leftist schemes, can be a force multiplier. First, however, they must be given just enough legislative license.
As luck would have it, a President Obama may be well positioned to give that license at the very start of his term, without the political risk inherent in proposing his own detailed “economic justice” program. The solution is ready to hand: all it needs is an election-day tide that swells the Democrats’ Senate majority.
In 1966, with key help from the Soviet Union, the United Nations began promoting a monstrosity of a treaty known as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). It is chockablock with exactly the things Obama would say government must do on your behalf: provide housing, clothing, education, health care, employment, a living wage that accounts for comparative worth (meaning the government, under the guise of preventing discrimination, determines what you are paid), limited labor hours, paid vacation and holidays, paid parental leave, nearly unrestricted trade unionization, social security (including “social insurance”), “equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need,” and so on.
This economic-justice compact was so patently socialist that, even at the height of his Great Society and War on Poverty, President Lyndon Johnson declined to sign it. So did Presidents Nixon and Ford. But alas, there is always Jimmy Carter. Thirty years ago, he signed the ICESCR, but it has languished ever since, never ratified. President Clinton lauded the treaty but shrank from prodding the senate, where staunch Republican opposition made the required two-thirds approval margin a pipedream.
Obama, by contrast, expects to have the wind at his back, at least for a time. Gone is the Republican Congress of the Clinton years. Despite their appalling performance and historically low approval ratings, cocky Democrats expect to pad their congressional majorities. They anticipate inching close to 60 seats, or beyond. With an assist from the usual GOP moderates — who’d no doubt be anxious to join a charismatic new president in a bipartisan effort to “improve America’s image in the world” — the 67 votes needed for ratification could be attainable.
The Constitution stipulates that, once ratified, a treaty becomes the supreme law of the land. No longer would Obama need to worry about the “essential constraints” that relegate our fundamental law to “a charter of negative liberties.” Federal judges would now be unleashed to direct the redistributions necessary to ensure a “living wage” and the ICESCR’s remaining laundry list of economic rights. Congressional Democrats, egged on by ACORN and its hard Left allies, would craft legislation to further codify, explain and expand on them.
Change will have arrived. At long last we’ll have realized Obama’s ideal of economic justice. But freedom, the ideal that makes America America, will have perished.
Obama bill: $845 billion more for 'global poverty'
The bill, called the Global Poverty Act, is the type of legislation, 'We can – and must – make … a priority,' said Obama, a co-sponsor.
It would demand that the president develop 'and implement' a policy to 'cut global poverty in half by 2015 through aid, trade, debt relief' and other programs.
While the Global Poverty Act sounds nice, the adoption could 'result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States' and would make levels 'of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations.'
He said the legislation, if approved, dedicates 0.7 percent of the U.S. gross national product to foreign aid, which over 13 years he said would amount to $845 billion 'over and above what the U.S. already spends.'
The plan passed the House in 2007 'because most members didn't realize what was in it,' Kincaid reported. 'Congressional sponsors have been careful not to calculate the amount of foreign aid spending that it would require.'
A statement from Obama's office:
'With billions of people living on just dollars a day around the world, global poverty remains one of the greatest challenges and tragedies the international community faces,' Obama said. 'It must be a priority of American foreign policy to commit to eliminating extreme poverty and ensuring every child has food, shelter, and clean drinking water. As we strive to rebuild America's standing in the world, this important bill will demonstrate our promise and commitment to those in the developing world.
The bill institutes the United Nations Millennium Summit goals as the benchmarks for U.S. spending. 'It is time the United States makes it a priority of our foreign policy to meet this goal and help those who are struggling day to day,' a statement issued by supporters, including Obama, said.
Specifically, it would 'declare' that the official U.S. policy is to eliminate global poverty, that the president is 'required' to 'develop and implement' a strategy to reach that goal and requires that the U.S. efforts be 'specific and measurable.'
After cutting through all of the honorable-sounding goals in the plan, the bottom line is that the legislation would mandate the 0.7 percent of the U.S. GNP as 'official development assistance.'
'In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that (U.N.) declaration commits nations to banning 'small arms and light weapons' and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention of Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention of the Rights of the Child,' he said.
Those U.N. protocols would make U.S. law on issues ranging from the 2nd Amendment to energy usage and parental rights all subservient to United Nations whims. A U.N. plan to force the U.S. to pay 0.7 percent of GNP would add about $65 billion a year to what the U.S. already donates.
It further requires the president not only to accomplish that goal but, 'not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this act,' to submit a report to the UN on 'the contributions provided by the United States' toward poverty reduction.
Obama's campaign program last night was a true winner. Now McCain is back with his constant attack ads. He projects an image of an old cranky, smart-ass, and Palin is hardly worth commenting on as she becomes more and more distant from McCain. I imagine he's really kicking himself and the GOP for deciding on this bimbo more and more as time goes on.
'Obama's campaign program last night was a true winner.'
'Campaign program?' It was a TV commercial.
Can't you look farther than the sales pitch?
By CALVIN WOODWARD
WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was less than upfront in his half-hour commercial Wednesday night about the costs of his programs and the crushing budget pressures he would face in office.
Obama's assertion that 'I've offered spending cuts above and beyond' the expense of his promises is accepted only by his partisans. His vow to save money by 'eliminating programs that don't work' masks his failure throughout the campaign to specify what those programs are - beyond the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
A sampling of what voters heard in the ad, and what he didn't tell them:
THE SPIN: 'That's why my health care plan includes improving information technology, requires coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions and lowers health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year.'
THE FACTS: His plan does not lower premiums by $2,500, or any set amount. Obama hopes that by spending $50 billion over five years on electronic medical records and by improving access to proven disease management programs, among other steps, consumers will end up saving money. He uses an optimistic analysis to suggest cost reductions in national health care spending could amount to the equivalent of $2,500 for a family of four. Many economists are skeptical those savings can be achieved, but even if they are, it's not a certainty that every dollar would be passed on to consumers in the form of lower premiums.
---
THE SPIN: 'I've offered spending cuts above and beyond their cost.'
THE FACTS: Independent analysts say both Obama and Republican John McCain would deepen the deficit. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates Obama's policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years - and that analysis accepts the savings he claims from spending cuts. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, whose other findings have been quoted approvingly by the Obama campaign, says: 'Both John McCain and Barack Obama have proposed tax plans that would substantially increase the national debt over the next 10 years.' The analysis goes on to say: 'Neither candidate's plan would significantly increase economic growth unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases that the campaigns have not specified.'
---
THE SPIN: 'Here's what I'll do. Cut taxes for every working family making less than $200,000 a year. Give businesses a tax credit for every new employee that they hire right here in the U.S. over the next two years and eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Help homeowners who are making a good faith effort to pay their mortgages, by freezing foreclosures for 90 days. And just like after 9-11, we'll provide low-cost loans to help small businesses pay their workers and keep their doors open. '
THE FACTS: His proposals - the tax cuts, the low-cost loans, the $15 billion a year he promises for alternative energy, and more - cost money, and the country could be facing a record $1 trillion deficit next year. Indeed, Obama recently acknowledged - although not in his commercial - that: 'The next president will have to scale back his agenda and some of his proposals.'
---
THE SPIN: 'I also believe every American has a right to affordable health care.'
THE FACTS: That belief should not be confused with a guarantee of health coverage for all. He makes no such promise. Obama hinted as much in the ad when he said about the problem of the uninsured: 'I want to start doing something about it.' He would mandate coverage for children but not adults. His program is aimed at making insurance more affordable by offering the choice of government-subsidized coverage similar to that in a plan for federal employees and other steps, including requiring larger employers to share costs of insuring workers.
---
THE SPIN: 'We are currently spending $10 billion a month in Iraq, when they have a $79 billion surplus. It seems to me that if we're going to be strong at home as well as strong abroad that we've got to look at bringing that war to a close.' These lines in the ad were taken from a debate with McCain.
THE FACTS: Obama was once and very often definitive about getting combat troops out in 16 months (At times during the primaries, he promised to do so within a year). More recently, without backing away explicitly from the 16-month withdrawal pledge, he has talked of the need for flexibility. In the primaries, it would have been a jarring departure for him to have said merely that 'we've got to look at' ending the war. As for Iraq's surplus, it's true that Iraq could end up with a surplus that large, but that hasn't happened yet.
I can easily prove that all the above posts are lies,it does not take pages.
Will somebody from the GOP please explain why it takes spending as much on weapons as the rest of the world put together to defeat a bunch of terrorists?The total sum spend on arms by the USA is complete madness,out of proportions and a waste of money.
The military industrial complex Eisenhower has warned against has taken complete control of your country,that is why.
They have their own genda and that is transferring the wealth of your nation into their bank accounts,deficit spending,no bid contracts,the Ephraim Diveroli case,Haliburton,KBR,Blackwater,and lots and lots of republican sponsored 'defense contractors' thank you for your money.McCain has promised to raise their income and reduce their taxes.
Vote for McCain if you want this to happen.He'll present you with the bill afterwards.
'I can easily prove that all the above posts are lies,it does not take pages.'
Bull. You are a liar. Prove me wrong.
'Will somebody from the GOP please explain why it takes spending as much on weapons as the rest of the world put together to defeat a bunch of terrorists?'
Is that all we do?
One post (which will likely be removed) says:'REDISTRIBUTIVE CHANGE: THE DEATH OF FREEDOM'
This is typical GOP CRAP. This is just the old create FEAR tactic favored by the Repubs. It is the only tactic they have. There is one thing to be concerned about and is 4 years from now. Palin will have had time to have her past cleansed, image remade, had plastic surgery to move her anus to where her brain should be and be repackaged as the next Repub candidate for President. The scarey thing is not Palin, but the party, she's nothing but a shell, a shill. Neoconsism is basically dead. What isn't dead, but very much alive and deadly is Theoconism. The Theological Conservatives, and Palin is one of those. These Fundamentalist fruitcakes are the real danger to the country. Afterall, God is on their side. Only their side has the Divine plan. Therefore, if Mr.Obama does get elected, it will not be God's Will. If it's not God's Will, then it can only be the profane Will of the devil.
Religion has NO PLACE in politics, anywhere.
'Bull. You are a liar. Prove me wrong.'
Seeing as how you are making the allegation that Tonny is a liar, the onus is upon you to back up your position and prove him wrong. He does not have to prove that your allegation is wrong. Try it again, and see if you can do it intelligently.
'Seeing as how you are making the allegation that Tonny is a liar, the onus is upon you to back up your position and prove him wrong. '
No. I posted that in response to:
'I can easily prove that all the above posts are lies,it does not take pages.''
Had you bothered to read or had you not been too stupid to understand what was written you would have understood that the onus is upon her to back up HER position and prove ME wrong.
'He does not have to prove that your allegation is wrong.'
It can't.
Seeing as how you are making the allegation that Tonny is a liar, the onus is upon you to back up your position and prove him wrong. Try it again, and see if you can do it intelligently.
How can anyone not see that Mr. Obama is one of the GREATEST USED CAR SALESMEN around. All the commercial he has running is ridiculous and I find myself switching TV channels to avoid them........Give us a break! Surely people aren't REALLY buying into his sales pitches.
The word you want is 'butt.'
This being a free forum, any comment made by anybody is open to comment on. If you want to have a private conversation with someone, go elsewhere, Butt-head.
'One post (which will likely be removed)'
Really feeling some power because you had a couple of posts censored, eh? Well done, it sure beats having anything intelligent to say in rebuttal. Stupidity like yours is an embarrassment to upright humans.
'This is typical GOP CRAP. '
How so???? Gee, you can't say, can you? Why not? Your 'education' left you incapable of thinking for yourself. You can only fling your cr*p like an angry monkey when you see something you don't like. Yet you think you can lecture the world like a braying, pompous ass... You are just regurgitating your programming, you stupid thing.
'This is just the old create FEAR tactic favored by the Repubs.'
HOW SO, WHAT WAS INCORRECT ABOUT THE POST? YOU IDIOT, WHAT WAS NOT TRUE, WRONG OR INACCURATE?
You just can't do it, can you?
Seeing as how you are making the allegation that Tonny is a liar, the onus is upon you to back up your position and prove him wrong. Try it again, and see if you can do it intelligently.
Lets try this again:
No. I posted that in response to:
'I can easily prove that all the above posts are lies,it does not take pages.''
Had you bothered to read or had you not been too stupid to understand what was written you would have understood that the onus is upon her to back up HER position and prove ME wrong.
'He does not have to prove that your allegation is wrong.'
It can't.
Got it yet? Of course not.
“The word you want is 'butt.'”
The thing you want is “a life”.
“This being a free forum, any comment made by anybody is open to comment on.”
The only way you can get some of that sweet, sweet attention, eh?
“If you want to have a private conversation with someone, go elsewhere,”
I would invite you to do the same, “butt” we both know that no one wants to talk to you. Just go elsewhere.
Why Democrats Will Target the Investor Class in 2009
There are at least two pretty effective ways to turn someone into a Republican: (1) get them married with kids and (2) get them to invest in the stock market. So, if I were a highly paid Democratic political strategist, I would make sure to spend a few minutes every day thinking of ways to get Americans out of the stock market—the faster, the better. And that's why if Barack Obama is elected president next week, 2009 may well bring a concerted and all-out effort by the Obama administration and a Democratically dominated Congress to turn the generally pro-Republican Investor Class into an endangered class by, among other tactics, raising investment taxes and ending the tax preferences for 401(k)'s, IRAs, and other retirement accounts. Here is the emerging battle plan for Operation Investor Class Rollback:
1) Hike Investment Taxes. Obama wants to raise capital gains taxes even though he has kinda, sorta admitted that it might be bad for the economy and might actually decrease tax revenue to the government. For now, he's talking about raising the highest cap gains rate by one third to 20 percent, though earlier in the campaign, he floated pushing it as high as 28 percent, a near doubling. (Recall that Democratic presidential contender John Edwards wanted to raise it as high as 40 percent, a move that was applauded by liberals who want investment income to be taxed as onerously as labor income.) With the next administration facing a trillion dollar budget deficit—maybe more—there will certainly be pressure to raise taxes to higher levels than now being suggested.
2) Eliminate 401(k)'s, IRAs, and other retirement plans. Democrats in the House are now talking openly about the longtime liberal dream of repealing the tax advantages of putting money into a 401(k) plan or other tax-advantaged retirement account. 'The savings rate isn't going up for the investment of $80 billion [in 401(k) tax breaks], we have to start to think about whether or not we want to continue to invest that $80 billion for a policy that's not generating what we now say it should,' said Rep. Jim McDermott, a Democrat from Washington at a recent hearing, according to an industry trade paper.
Indeed, House Democrats recently invited Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor at the New School of Social Research, to testify before a subcommittee on her idea to eliminate the preferential tax treatment of the popular retirement plans. In place of 401(k) plans, she would have workers transfer their dough into government-created 'guaranteed retirement accounts' with a 3 percent real return.
Not only would removing the preferential tax treatment of these vehicles raise investment taxes by $100 billion a year and affect Americans making less than $100,000, it would surely prompt many Americans, already shell-shocked by the market's recent losses, to flee stocks. All this ignores the fact that there are trillions of dollars in American retirement accounts, and abandoning the higher-returning stock market at a probable bottom is classic financial foolishness. If you believe long term in the American economy, then you have to believe in the stock market. If you don't, then you have to admit the government won't be able to afford its promises anyway.
3) Replace private capital with public capital. But wouldn't a weak stock market hurt the economy by making it tougher to raise investment capital and lessen the return on risk? Surely, it would. But Obama is planning hundreds of billions of dollars of government 'investment' in cutting-edge technology, particularly in the energy and healthcare sectors. One specific example: Obama wants to create something called a 'Clean Technologies Venture Capital Fund' and invest $10 billion a year in emerging energy technologies. Now, the private VC industry is already pouring billions into alternative energy, but Obama thinks that's not enough and wants Uncle Sam to get in on the action at taxpayer expense. Interestingly, a new study by the University of British Columbia looked at the performance of the Canadian government's venture capital efforts. It found that government venture capital isn't nearly as successful as private venture capital.
Bottom line: All this makes smart political sense for Democrats. See, since the mid-1960s, stock ownership in the United States has risen from 10 percent of households to around 50 percent. And that growing Investor Class, a term coined and popularized by CNBC commentator and host Lawrence Kudlow, has helped nudge America evermore to the right. It sure helped George W. Bush get elected twice to the White House, voting for him by wide margins against John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000. And it was those results that have helped ensure Democrats will fight to the death to prevent Social Security from being reimagined into a system of personal and high-return investment accounts. Privatization? Given its potential effect on voting patterns, Uncle Sam might as well send every American household a copy of Milton Friedman's Free to Choose on DVD.
But now if the Democrats control both the White House and Capitol Hill, look for them to move hard in the other direction, from an Ownership Society to a Government Owns It Society that would perhaps nudge America back to the left.
I do hope those two cells occupying the space between yours ears grow into an organ called a brain.
'Your 'education' left you incapable of thinking for yourself. You can only fling your cr*p like an angry monkey when you see something you don't like. Yet you think you can lecture the world like a braying, pompous ass... You are just regurgitating your programming, you stupid thing.'
Your words bespeak of yourself.
Come on guys,I know the elections are very important,this time for the entire world.But please try not to get dragged into the smear tactics;you'll be so much more convincing.Leave those tactics to you know who.They 've done nothing but damage themselves with it.Smear is a double edged sword .
You say: 'Really feeling some power because you had a couple of posts censored, eh? Well done, it sure beats having anything intelligent to say in rebuttal. Stupidity like yours is an embarrassment to upright humans.'
Firstly, I have never asked for a post to be removed. Anyone with a brain can see that there are objectionable posts and that they are removed.
Secondly, do you have 'anything intelligent to say in rebuttal' to the main thrust of the post which was the dangers of the Theocons? No?
Thirdly, the Ad Hominem attack is an indication that you have nothing intelligent to say in rebuttal. It is an indication that you are bankrupt in the brain department. It is you who is an mbarrassment to upright THINKING humans.
Once again you speak with intelligence. I am very tired os seeing this site used as a neocon toilet. It is apparent that even rudimentary word power and manners are quite lacking in certain(un-named) individuals.
why cant we use our voice as a neocon toilet,mcain spend give us moneybuy our vote-you must beat obama at his own game or its obama-51percent of the vote.
as palin said obama showing the white flag in iraq-obamas shit scared of those islamo-fascist-subnormal-wife killing-bomb throwing devils-it takes guts to even give a shit about this scum.put mcin -palin in poer he will spend trillions more onthe war and just to keep us quiet-he will give us much more in the pocket than obama throw the lollies at us and we will back you all the way to victory.victory in my wallet,victory in iraq.
With the monumental disastrous choice of candidates the American people have been given, Opinion Polls mean absolutely NOTHING. Their use is only to provide something to do for those who work for these fairly laughable companies - keeps them in a job.
There will be countless MILLIONS of voters who will CHANGE their voting intentions of TODAY at the ballot box. It looks a close run thing by sheer observation but NOBODY can forecast this one.
One thing is a certainty - IF OBAMA wins, then WE WILL SEE JOE BIDEN BECOME PRESIDENT WITHIN 12 MONTHS.
I can see all the obnoxious reactions flowing into the posts already, but just you wait and see, THEN think of your abusive remarks to this poster.
Here is a tip for those with GUTS, NOT the weak and feeble.
NEVER MIND THE POLLS - EVEN IF THEY SAID 80/20.
MAKE YOUR OWN MIND UP WHO YOU WANT TO BE PRESIDENT, FOR WHATEVER REASONS YOU DECIDE.
THEN STICK TO IT - IGNORE THE POLLS COMPLETELY, NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY.
THAT SPELLS GUTS - THE ALAMO SPIRIT.
'Firstly, I have never asked for a post to be removed. '
Hard to believe...
'Secondly, do you have 'anything intelligent to say in rebuttal' to the main thrust of the post which was the dangers of the Theocons? No? '
Other then I would rather have an honest 'Theocon' then a dishonest born muslim who converted to the Damn America church? Not a whole lot. I will point out that atheism has become a religion unto itself, with people spouting it's dogma as though they were testifying at a revival meeting. As an agnostic I am irritated by the lot of you.
'Thirdly, the Ad Hominem attack is an indication that you have nothing intelligent to say in rebuttal.'
No, they are an indication that I think you are a douche-nozzle.
'It is you who is an mbarrassment[sic] to upright THINKING humans.'
Well done typing that out with your prehensile tail.
'One thing is a certainty - IF OBAMA wins, then WE WILL SEE JOE BIDEN BECOME PRESIDENT WITHIN 12 MONTHS.'
The only thing worse for the country then electing him would be his assassination. He is a dangerous thing, but he is a human and has children.
Cut it out.
We can still win, says McCain team.
Advisers to John McCain yesterday spelled out why they think he can still win Tuesday's election... Seizing on signs of tightening in some national polls, the McCain campaign gave details on how it could spring the biggest upset since Harry Truman came from behind to win the 1948 election.
'All the signs say we are heading to an election that may easily be too close to call by next Tuesday,' he wrote.
Republican strategists are hoping that undecided voters - thought to represent up to 9 per cent of the likely electorate - will go their way. McCain supporters say that such voters are concentrated among groups they stand a good chance of winning over, such as working class whites.
''Over? Did you say 'over'? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!''
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsmybQKpmTw
Come on McCaniacs. Pack up your grandparents/anyone else who might vote for 'ol John and drive them to the polls this November 4th. And in the spirit of fairness, you should remind your Obama voting friends that voting for him takes place on November 5th.
what an idiot mcaqin has turned out to be just tghrowing insults at obama,yet obama keeps throwing money at peoples wallets-this mcain still thinks he will win-what a pity all those lives and trillions lost in iraq-what a joke-what a joke.oh theres a depression on the way-crap-you billionaire rulers dnt fool us no more.
obama will win by 51pecent i cant believe how thick mcain has turned out to be-put sarah in the driving seat-this guy makes sarah look like a an idiot.uncle scrooge mcain-where are your policies-obamas got plenty.nobody likes a scrooge especially the media-obama by 51 percent.
McCain's campaign is in shambles, and Palin is getting more mavericky by the minute besides spouting off stupid statements that are getting McCain into trouble. Dragging Plumber Joe around has got to be one of the most asinine ideas yet. I would imagine Cindy McCain for one will be glad when this is all over so she won't have to stand on the stage wagging her head back and forth and up and down like some damn bobble head. McCain's policies are not good, he's too erratic, and he wants to continue to sink billions in Iraq while educational programs in this country are going by the wayside, along with health and energy plans for lack of funding. He's wasted all his campaign speeches dwelling on attacks on Obama - just what exactly does McCain and the first dude's wife really explain how they will solve anything. They just keep repeating what is wrong and that it needs to be fixed. Well, duh, tell us about - now give us some answers.
To the person who wrote this ;-
---------------
The only thing worse for the country then electing him would be his assassination. He is a dangerous thing, but he is a human and has children.
--------------
Probably female and I have every sympathy with her comments.
BUT - do you remember we once had a President called John F. Kennedy ?
Well my dear - HE had children too ! Together with the many others who have suffered a sudden demise.
The fact is my sweet, the architects and protagonists of this most undesirable aspect of human behaviour, do not find children a prohibitive factor in their equation.
The fact that you and I do not like it is irrelevant.
Whatever Obama is, he certainly is not stupid. He knows very well that he puts his life on the line every time he steps out into the big bad world and the risk will considerably increase as President.
i agreehe keeps attacking obama for the spending he will do-but not a word about his policies-meanwhile obamas thinking-sarah palin would of been tougher than this pathetic idiot.
Do you have prehensile thumbs?
'Hard to believe...'
Yup, when YOU don't have a brain
'Other then[SIC] I would rather...'
Nice spelling.
'As an agnostic I am irritated by the lot of you.'
No one cares about your religious beliefs. No one gives a rat's fur lined farter about your personal problems like irritation. Again, it is a personal choice for you to get irritated, your free will. If I made you do anything then I have power and control over you. You're my b*tch, right?
'No, they are an indication that I think you are a douche-nozzle.'
Very intelligent, for a simian, but you do not think. You merely react, in a predictable manner, to a given stimulus.
The Republican Comedy Hour - first there was Palin, Palin on SNL, then 'Joe', now McCain on SNL, but this show is soon going to be cancelled.
''Again, it is a personal choice for you to get irritated, your free will. If I made you do anything then I have power and control over you. You're my b*tch, right? ''
So that's it? By lashing out at humanity you are exerting your control over the world? LOL, nice rationalization. Are you that powerless in your life that you need to be a pest to give yourself the feeling of 'control'?
Maybe if you sought to control yourself first you would get more genuine control over events around you. I toss that out there because I realize full well that you don't have the character to do it.
'You merely react, in a predictable manner, to a given stimulus.'
Yeah you rule the world by being an internet troll. Ill bet that's working real well for you. World leader from your mothers basement.
'Hear the fat lady singing.??...
McCain's campaign is in shambles, and Palin is getting more mavericky by the minute besides spouting off stupid statements that are getting McCain into trouble.'
Wekk, there is no reason for Obama suporters to get out and vote since it's already won... right?
Head Games Coming Your Way:
(1) Calls for McCain to just give up and quit, because the race is over. This one is a favorite of the trolls who lurk on pro-McCain sites. We get them here, despite all the spraying and fumigating we do, but notice how we ignore these trolls. We’ve identified two paid Obama staffers who have been assigned to HillBuzz. We picked them up around the same time people from Ace and LGF started picking up some of our stuff — so our guess is they were assigned to us by whoever was monitoring those sites. They’re different trolls than the ones assigned to us during the primaries (we only had one back then, so evidently we’ve gotten more on the radar now). One of them starts posting “her” concern troll remarks here at 8am. The other one starts “his” remarks around 5pm or so. It appears there are two shifts for the trolls — and from what we can see, they share the same computer and IP address. And it’s an address right here in Chicago. Imagine that. We wonder if we’ve ever run into these people at Houlihan’s on Michigan Avenue after one of their shifts, as that’s where a lot of Obama staffers like to go for a drink, and where we often hang out to see what we can overhear while pretending to read a book over a little dinner. Since we’re going to be in Ohio the rest of the time before the election, we’re okay with letting you in on that little bit, as we won’t be able to eavesdrop on you anymore. But the information these Obama staffers inadvertantly provided was really helpful on a lot of things. A great way to see how the race was going was to listen for how “audacious” these people felt that day. That’s their internal lingo: “Are you feelin’ it? Are you feelin’ audacious today?”. “Nope, not feelin’ the audacity today, ’cause we know those PA polls are bogus and BO’s not gonna take the state”. Word to the wise: these staffers were never as “audacious” as the media and skewed polls have insisted they should be.
It’s so funny, but when you work on these campaigns every day and give up all of your free time and all other activities for this, you just know when the media’s lying and reading from an Axelrod script. The coerographed calls for Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race before New Hampshire, before Super Tuesday, before Ohio and Texas, before Pennsylvania, before West Virgina, before Kentucky, before Indiana, and before South Dakota were completely ridiculous to us — and yet, Eeyores always listened, and lost enthusiasm and drive because ‘the TV said Hillary needs to just quit”. We know this kept some Eeyores from going out to vote, because they thought, “Why bother? The TV told me she’s gonna lose!”. Well, the TV lies. And the toaster says you’re fat. Unfortunately, the toaster’s telling the truth. The microwave tells you to set fires - and that just means you’re nuts, because why would it do that?
The ONLY way McCain loses this race is if the media, operating as a full-fledged wing of the Obama campaign, breeds enough Eeyores amongst you to keep enough people home for Obama to squeak out wins. Hillary Clinton should have won Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, by larger margins that she did. Ohio should have been a 13-point win, Pennsylvania should have been a 12-point win, and Indiana should have been a 9-point win. Eeyores staying home, saying, “Oh bother, TV say me stay home, me sad, need dydee changed!” is what cost Hillary those extra points.
Don’t be Eeyores on Tuesday! Get those Eeyore butts off your couches, away from toxic TV, and GO VOTE. Get everyone you know to vote — tell them if they don’t, then Obama will turn America socialist, and we’re going to start with their house and bank account when we begin redistributing wealth. That should motivate them.
(2) Wild claims of Obama winning states that shock and surprise you. Since Obama believes there are 57 states (maybe 58 or 59, depending on how he’s counting that day), the Obamedia will report huge wins for Dear Leader in the states of Confusion, Denial, and Undress, with Atlantis, Oz, Hopetopia, and Leningrad all going to Obama early on November 4th — because everyone loves Obama so much, that places that don’t even exist have voted for him (with 100% of the vote of the dead, cartoon characters, and historical figures going to Dear Leader in unprecedented numbers). The best example of the Obamedia making up lies like this was on Super Tuesday, when every Eeyore we knew ran through the streets crying and pants-wetting, gnashing their teeth and yanking their hair as the sky fell around them — BECAUSE OBAMA IS WINNING CALIFORNIA! MASSACHUSETTS! ARKANSAS! TENNESSEE! NEW JERSEY! NEW YORK! WAAAAAAAAH! DOOOOOOOMED!
Honestly, we are never kidding when we say what a true living Hell Eeyores have made our lives since January. We never joke when we tell you how much damage these people have done. Just using HillBuzz as an example, there are at least 3 essays each day we would love to have time to write, on topics we feel are important, or on intel we get from sources in the Democratic party (or eavesdropped off Obama staffers or at Obama events), but we don’t have time to get to them because we are on the phone with Eeyores, or answering Eeyores frantic emails with questions we’ve answered 1,000 times before, or talking Eeyores off their ledges after they’ve been listening to MSNBC again. Eeyores are time burglars.
Ironically, we have to admit that HillBuzz wouldn’t even exist without these people, however. We started this blog in February of 2008 because we couldn’t focus the work we were doing for upcoming primaries because Eeyores needed constant reassurance that, yes, Hillary would win Ohio and Texas. So, instead of individually sending articles to prove to Eeyores that, yes, Hillary would win Ohio and Texas, we just started the original HillBuzz at Blogspot as a quick and easy clearinghouse for information Eeyores could access and calm themselves down with. Five of us teamed up here in Boystown to maintain this blog as thoroughly as possible, which became a running stream of our thoughts on our campaign and what we thought of the latest Obamedia lies.
So, we realize HillBuzz would have never been started if it wasn’t for this need to treat Eeyores and calm them down. Not that we excuse any of you people for you crippling pessimism and gloom meets doom, but we have truly enjoyed running HillBuzz (and will enjoy maintaining it as we support Hillary Clinton for the next 4 years in her role as junior Senator from New York, working with President McCain and Vice President Palin on energy indepedence, JOBS, and whatever else Clinton champions during the McCain Administration).
We’re glad we’re here right now to remind Republicans who’ve found us through Rush, LGF, Ace and other places that the Obamedia deliberately called states for Obama he had no hope of winning, just to freak Eeyores out and keep them from voting.
If you do just ONE THING today, we ask you a personal favor: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go to as many Republican blogs as you can and WARN THEM that the Obamedia will tell you all weekend that Obama is winning Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Florida, Iowa, Virginia, West Virginia, and other states we do not believe Obama will win (except for Iowa, which we still think goes to Obama, but our best sources claim McCain now leads in internals by 1 point). They are already starting to say truly crazy things like “Obama will win Louisiana and Arkansas!”, and that’s just nuts. That is your equivalent of the Obamedia swearing up and down that the Kennedys and Oprah would win Massachusetts and California for Obama. WE knew that was pure cockamamie nonsense, but Eeyores wet their pants on cue over this. So, the Obamedia’s marching orders are to freak all of you out with SHOCKING DEVELOPMENTS! in Lousiana, Arkansas, Georgia, etc. just to shake your faith and confidence.
This is like in Little League when the opposing team would chant, “Hey batta hey batta hey batta hey batta hey batta sa-weeeeeeeeeng batta” when you were at the plate, to make you swing too soon or too late. Just to psych you out. And that nonsense actually worked on Team Hillary, because we lost a lot of volunteers who Eeyored off the face of the Earth just before Super Tuesday, so convinced of unprecedented blow-out doom.
So, when you see the Obamedia doing all of this to McCain, please know they are crying wolf again. Don’t let that demoralize you!
(3) Repeated insistance that blacks and young people will decide this election, and they are all going to vote in record numbers for Obama. First of all, black voters have always voted Democratic in massive numbers. We don’t think blacks have ever voted for Republicans in any substantial way in any race we can think of. Blacks vote as a race-bloc, and they always vote for the Democrat. Maybe Obama will get blacks who have never voted before to vote for him, or blacks who don’t bother to vote on Election Day to show up and vote, but we doubt that it will be very many people. Black voters were highly motivated to vote in 2004 because they felt George W. Bush stole the 2000 election, and they saw that as a civil rights issue that increased black turnout to one of the highest levels we have ever seen. Remember, Jesse Jackson almost won Election 2000 for Gore but was stopped by the Gore campaign, in the form of Donna Brazile. Watch the HBO movie Recount. Jackson felt the Florida Recount was a civil rights/voter disenfranchisement issue at its heart, and wanted to press that to the public. He revved the black community up and flew down to Tallahassee, but Gore and Brazile made him get back on a plane to Chicago. That was a critically stupid move…and you know how the recount ended.
So, in 2004, THAT’S what the black community thought about, and THAT’S what made people vote to kick Bush out of the White House, for stealing it from Gore in 2000. We just don’t know what people are left to vote in the black community who didn’t vote in 2004, when they were revved up to vote against Bush — a president the black community hates. What we think the Obamedia ignores is the fact the black community is totally ambivalent to McCain and is focused totally on Obama, and the race-pride they feel voting for a black candidate. If this race-pride could be quantified, we feel it would be a positive force pushing Obama forward almost exactly equal in impact to the force pushing Kerry forward the black community generated by hating Bush. There’s no McCain hate working against the Republicans this year, and there was no Kerry love in 2004.
So, mathematically this works out as:
Obama-love + McCain-hate = Bush-hate + Kerry-love = impact of black voters
We, thus, believe Obama will not have much more support from blacks than Kerry did, since Democrats win almost all black voters anyway. This year will be no different.
We also feel young voters are the Holy Grail of election delusions, because every Democrat, every election, claims “young people love me and will come out in record numbers to vote for me!”. Well, let us just tell you that early voting ended today in Chicago. In our building, there is a suite full of about 6 frat boys who sometimes stop us in the laundry room to talk politics. They are all hot DePaul hockey players, so we are glad to chat them up any time they want. All of them said they were going to vote for Obama, and all of them forgot to early vote. All of them have class and work on Tuesday. We honestly believe all 6 of these guys are going to forget to vote on Election Day — and the polling station for our neighborhood is literally one street away. We think this will happen not just with the hot hockey players in our building, but in many other buildings in Chicago, and in cities across the US.
As you move out of urban areas, it becomes more of a challenge to get to polling places, as they get further and further apart. That means college students, and Obama’s youth army, need to move further and further out of their daily norm to actually vote. With class, work, and Nintendo Wii, that becomes a big burden, especially since they’re going to whoop it up all Halloween weekend having an absolute drunken blast, and will have a lot to catch up on come Tuesday, since Monday they will be still hungover and not functional.
We’re astonished no one has ever thought of this before to explain why young people don’t turn up to vote in the numbers the media predicts: it’s because of Halloween. Not JUST because of Halloween, but Halloween has a lot to do with it, especially this year, when Halloween falls in perfect synch to form three days of wild, costumed debauchery. Monday is hangover day, which means nothing got done Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and now Monday, so Tuesday pressure builds to catchup on class or work or whatever.
Ironically, the Obamedia’s constant drumbeat that Obama’s so far ahead will, ironically, keep a lot of these people from actually voting — since they think he will win in a landslide without them, and one vote doesn’t matter. “Oh, we meant to vote, but we got, like, busy. And stuff.”
We hear this every 4 years. Why should this year be any different?
So, in essence, if just comes down to Republicans getting out to vote and ignoring the above head games the Obamedia is already cooking up for you.
This reminds us of the book I Am Legend by Richard Matheson — not the lame movie versions, but the actual truly terrifying book. In it, there’s a man in a house who’s the last sane person in a world gone mad, filled with infected people, who come out every night and stand outside his house and shout terrible things at him to make him kill himself or come outside so they can do the job for him. People this guy used to know and love are infected, and come out each night to use every psycholgical trick they can to get this guy out of the house so they can kill him. And the guy sometimes starts to buy into this, because it’s such pressure, and the taunts and jeers are relentless, and sometimes he just can’t take it, and he crumples to the ground in the face of all this negative saturation. He cracks. He breaks. It’s brutal. And this happens each and every day.
That’s what the media is doing for Obama right now.
You do realize that, don’t you?
It’s all a head game, a fake out. All of this talk about Obama being ahead is just garbage the Obamedia shovels to make you give up and sit home so Obama can win. That’s what breeds Eeyores. And Eeyores giving up and staying home is why Hillary Clinton won Indiana by only 1% when she should have won it by 9%. It really is as simple as that.
So, heads up out there — if you can get Rush to talk about this stuff on air, it would do Republicans a world of good. Make as many people see the media for what they are — a paid extension of the Obama campaign — as humanly possible, keep your heads up, and let’s put another crack in the glass ceiling by making Sarah Palin the nation’s first female Vice President, while putting a good and decent man we trust behind the Resolute Desk where all of us Democrats know he’ll work effectively with Senator Clinton and other Democrats to fix our economy, create good jobs, and make America energy independent for good.
If we work hard, we will win.
work hard on SNL and drag Plumber Joe around - a true dog and pony show.
You pathetic monstrosity. Do you honestly think that putting a poster on M&C a mile long will get the old tortoise and his cretin VP elected ?
To enter a massive load of absolute shit in these pages simply shows the senile mentality of the McCain camp and it`s followers.
I can tell you now bean-brain - NOBODY WILL READ THAT IMMENSE PILE OF SLIME, YOU MAY AS WELL NOT HAVE BOTHERED.
All you will get back is a whole packet of abuse and you deserve it for taking up so much space on a simple current affairs forum.
I don`t want any black turd to become President, but he will piss on you, McCain and the Arctic cretin by the bucket load on election day.
The McCain 'team' if you can call such a crap heap a team has simply shot it`s own foot off with the incessant garble and of course the incredible age and cowardly record of Grandpa Johnny himself, plus that female shit-head from the North.
Don`t turn up at the voting station - you are just wasting your time.
So that's it? By lashing out at humanity you are exerting your control over the world? LOL, nice rationalization. Are you that powerless in your life that you need to be a pest to give yourself the feeling of 'control'?
Maybe if you sought to control yourself first you would get more genuine control over events around you. I toss that out there because I realize full well that you don't have the character to do it.
Yeah you rule the world by being an internet troll. Ill bet that's working real well for you. World leader from your mothers basement.
Your words bespeak volumes about yourself. Your projection of your problems unto other people is the only thing you toss out.
'Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor
Just what sort of moron makes statements like this ? Don't you have any knowledge of history ?
The Germans !!!!! God you're so stupid
That is from a skit by John Belushi. I believe it was from Animal House or some such nonsense. The poster was pointing out the absurdity of the GOP's propaganda that they can still win. By the way, I am not that poster, just an old fart that can still remember that far back.
'Your words bespeak volumes about yourself. Your projection of your problems unto other people is the only thing you toss out.'
Well, at least I taught you the phrase 'psychological projection' however, what I wrote is an accurate examination of what you wrote.
'The poster was pointing out the absurdity of the GOP's propaganda that they can still win. '
They absolutely CAN win, the exit polls are showing just that.
win this stupid warall of a sudden the media want us out-theres this recession in the air-just so obama can pull troops out-no money in the kitty -crap-win this bloody war-you were all behind bush-media now all against him-can someone in blogger space-tell me why obama on day one doesnt withdrawl troops-answer because it would look a bit like vietnam-doggone it-sarah palin-we need as next president-shes been on the basketball court-she doesnt give up,let her steer the team to victory.
The people posting enormous copied matter into these M&C pages must have an IQ of ZERO.
They certainly feel no guilt at abusing this site, which is intended for personal comments NOT as a reproduction platform for mammoth-length copied garble from just about every source and paper in the States.
I would like to suggest to these literary incompetents, that if they are completely unable to compose comments of their own, to get off this site and leave it for others WHO CAN !
Now aren't you doing the same thing posting this on every article? Report the crap to M&C. If they agree, they'll delete it; otherwise, it's their site.
page: 1
Oh well..Oct 30th, 2008 - 10:24:46
Taxing the “rich” / hurting the poor / enriching the government: YES WE CAN!
I had a shocking conversation with a 'well-informed' voter the other day. She asked about Barack Obama’s “tax cut for 95 percent of Americans.” I laughed, noting that it was going to be quite a trick to give a “tax cut” to the roughly 40 percent of Americans who don’t pay federal income taxes.
“What?” She asked.
It stopped me dead in my tracks. “After deductions, about 40 percent of Americans don’t end up owing income taxes,” I explained. “Barack Obama’s idea of a ‘tax cut’ for them is to send them a ‘refundable tax credit.’ In other words, he’s going to cut everyone a government check.” (“Spread the wealth around,” indeed.)
We’re days away from a national election, and no one in the media has even bothered to explain Barack Obama’s “tax cut.” No one has broken down just what Barack Obama is proposing and what it will mean for you, your family budget, your retirement savings, and your job security.
Obama’s tax plan includes four main components: Higher marginal rates; higher estate taxes; higher corporate taxes; and higher taxes on investments. Let’s go through them, one-by-one.
Start with the now-famous “Joe the Plumber” tax which would raise taxes on income over $250,000. (Is it $250,000? Obama’s new ad now clearly says $200,000. Just this week, Joe Biden said it was $150,000. So who really knows? It seems to be dropping daily.) According to the Wall Street Journal, the combined Obama tax plan would “add up to about a 10-percentage-point hike in marginal tax rates for those making more than $250,000 a year, including millions of small businesses that pay taxes at individual rates.”
And there’s the problem. The “Joe the Plumber” tax raises taxes on small businesses, crushing entrepreneurial job creation at the most basic level. Most small businesses are LLC’s or S-Corporations. Every net dollar they earn is taxed as “income” for the owner. Even if a small business owner decides to take a small salary each year and leave money in his or her business for future investment or payroll, all of that money is taxed as “personal income”. Moreover, many small businesses live from contract to contract. They might receive a large check at the end of a year and then set that money aside to make sure they can make payroll for upcoming lean months. Obama’s plan raises taxes on that money, perversely calling it “income”. In the real world, that money is often next month’s paycheck or next year’s job security for employees.
Barack Obama is also calling for higher estate taxes: More “tax the rich” class warfare, more real-world pain for working Americans. The current estate tax rate is scheduled to sunset over the next few years. Barack Obama will set it at 45 percent. For Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, that might not be that big a deal, but what about a family farm or small business? Many are worth enough to trigger the estate tax but only produce a modest income for the owners. Those farms or businesses are taxed at the “value” of the company, not for the revenue they produce. All too often, the only way the next generation can cover their estate tax bill is to sell off the farm or business. Most “Mom and Pop” small businesses don’t survive to the next generation. The estate tax destroys them.
But what if you don’t own a small family business, don’t work for a small family business or don’t shop at small family businesses? Well, do your parents own their home? If they passed away, would you be able to write a check to cover the estate taxes on the value of that home, or would you have to put it on the market in order to pay the government? On December 31, 2010, the estate tax is scheduled to expire. Barack Obama wants to set it to 45 percent for the highest marginal rates. Part of the American Dream is that our children will live better than we do, that we’ll be able to create something and pass it on. Barack Obama’s tax plan makes that dream unattainable for many Americans.
Barack Obama will raise taxes on “big oil.” Who do you think actually pays for those taxes on “big oil”? We do, of course. Everyone pays, regardless of whether or not we can afford it. We pay higher prices at the gas pump and higher prices for our groceries. (It takes gas to run farm equipment and the trucks that get the groceries to the supermarket.) Barack Obama’s higher taxes on “big oil” will hurt lower-income Americans the most. While they might make for a nice sound bite, taxes on “big oil” are among the most regressive and punitive taxes. Remember those 40 percent who don’t owe federal income taxes? Ironically, Barack Obama’s plan means they take less money home at the end of the week.
Finally, a question: How’s your 401k these days? Your pension? Stocks have plummeted as investors have pulled their money out of the market. Yet just as the market is crashing, Barack Obama is planning to raise taxes on capital gains and dividends, further discouraging investment and cutting an even larger chunk of money out of the stock market. Were you planning on retiring anytime soon? Under an Obama administration, you might be working a few extra years.
We’ve seen this type of “tax the rich” mentality before. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush and the Democrat-controlled Congress passed a ten percent “luxury tax” on yachts priced at more than $100,000, thinking that the “rich” would easily be able to afford the surcharge. What happened? Just two years after the new tax went into effect, the New York Times reported that “In the last two years, about 100 builders of luxury boats -- recreational craft costing more than $100,000 -- cut their operations severely and laid off thousands of workers.”
Thousands of workers lost their jobs: Machinists, tradesmen, carpenters, laborers, designers. The “tax the rich” mentality – especially higher taxes on business – sends lower and middle income workers to the unemployment office. Higher estate taxes destroy the ability to pass small businesses, family farms or homes on to the next generation. Higher taxes on “big oil” lead to regressive cost increases at the gas pump and the grocery checkout lane. Higher taxes on investments leads to reduced values for retirement accounts, 401k’s and pensions.
That is what Barack Obama is proposing. That is his change for America. Look at it this way: Maybe you can use your government check – oops, I mean “refundable tax credit” – to pay for it all. You might even want to spend it on some new resume paper. You’re going to need it.
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