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Obama, for the win. (pg. 100)
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| idoru |
| quote: | Originally posted by Alex
The next president NEEDS to raise taxes, regardless of who it is.
When you're spending money that you simply don't have and for the better part of most knowledge simply DOES NOT EXIST at the rate the USA is... Ya... Time to start thinking about paying down that national debt. |
"But... but I don't wanna pay! :("
:rolleyes: |
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| Alex |
Man, this makes me want to use my dual citizenship for once and come on down for some good ole tax paying!
:whip: :whip: :whip:
inb4mexicans |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
So as long as someone lowers your taxes, they can spend all the money they'd like? |
No, I never said that. Are you trying to bait me into another political argument? :p |
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| Bulgatti |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
I've gone from ", what does this guy even stand for? I can't put my finger on anything concrete," to, ", what does this guy stand for? I can't put my finger on anything concrete AND he's going to tax me into oblivion if elected." I can't vote for that guy. Is it just me, or is there more ass pandering in this election cycle than ever before (by both candidates)? |
Absolutely. Couldn't have said it better. I guess there's always Oprah. |
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| Clovis |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
Dubya's always hooked me up on my tax refunds. All my 401K and stock profits are going to get hammered when Obama doesn't extend W's tax cuts, and doubles the capital gains tax. |
Hey you know that war thing we have going on? It's expensive... |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by Clovis
Hey you know that war thing we have going on? It's expensive... |
No doubt. But it hasn't personally affected me financially like a massive capital gains tax increase would, among other things I'm bracing for. It sucks to have to live in fear of being financially successful and that there are elected officials who think it's unfair to those who haven't busted their asses to get to where they are, so they're going to "get even" with those people who make a lot of money. I guess it makes poor and lazy people feel better, but it just discourages those who run businesses and create opportunity. |
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| Clovis |
| Anyone else wanna take this? |
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| The17sss |
What's the problem with that? From my perspective, running a business, signing the front of the checks, paying corporate taxes, having to have enough profit to pay other people wages... believe me man it gets very discouraging when all the hard work you put in to creating something from nothing gets more financially suffocating over time because government officials think you make too much money.
Edit: Or, at least they're playing that card to get the "less fortunate" on their side come election time.... lots more votes over on that side who want things handed to them rather than work for it. |
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| nchs09 |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
No doubt. But it hasn't personally affected me financially like a massive capital gains tax increase would, among other things I'm bracing for. It sucks to have to live in fear of being financially successful and that there are elected officials who think it's unfair to those who haven't busted their asses to get to where they are, so they're going to "get even" with those people who make a lot of money. I guess it makes poor and lazy people feel better, but it just discourages those who run businesses and create opportunity. |
I thought it had not affected anybody financially because the money is being borrowed from china:conf: |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by nchs09
I thought it had not affected anybody financially because the money is being borrowed from china:conf: |
haha good point. I was kinda vague with my comment, but I was speaking from the personal experience of running a business. The better the business does profit-wise, the higher of a percentage gets jacked. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | This is the week that should have effectively ended John McCain's efforts to become the next president of the United States. But you wouldn't know it if you watched any of the mainstream media outlets or followed political reporting in the major newspapers.
During this past week: McCain called the most important entitlement program in the U.S. a disgrace, his top economic adviser called the American people whiners, McCain released an economic plan that no one thought was serious, he flip flopped on Iraq, joked about the deaths of Iranian citizens, and denied making comments that he clearly made -- TWICE. All this and it is not even Friday! Yet watching and reading the mainstream press you would think McCain was having a pretty decent political week, I mean at least Jesse Jackson didn't say anything about him.
But let's unpack McCain's week in a little more detail.
1. McCain unambiguously called Social Security "an absolute disgrace." (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/203377.php) This is not a quote taken out of context. John McCain called one of the most successful and popular government programs, which uses the tax revenues of current workers to support retirement benefits for the elderly "an absolute disgrace." This is shocking - and if uttered from Obama's mouth would dominate the news coverage and the Sunday shows, as pundits would speculate about the massive damage the statement
would cause him among retirees in Florida. Words cannot fully explain how devastating this statement should be from Phil Gramm. You would think it would be enough to sink McCain's campaign. Of course McCain
only thinks that the economic problems are "psychological" (http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/19...-psychological/)
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2. McCain's top economic policy adviser calls Americans a bunch of
"whiners" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/...s_n_111857.html)
for being worried about the slumping economy.
3. Iraqi leaders call for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, McCain gets caught in a bizarre denial and flip flop. The Iraqis now
want us to begin planning our withdrawal - McCain however wants to stay foooorrreeevvveerrrr. So what does McCain say - First, he refuses to accept Maliki's statement (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalr...n-responds.html)
as being true. Then he concedes that it was an accurate statement, but was probably just a political ploy to curry favor with his own people (http://www.salon.com/politics/war_r...tics/print.html)
and WOULD NOT influence his determination to keep US troops in Iraq indefinitely. Yet, McCain in 2004 at the Council on Foreign Relations said that if the Iraqis asked us to leave, we would have to go. No matter what. (http://www.democracyarsenal.org/200...004-mccain.html) But that was apparently a younger and less experienced John McCain. But let's just look at his comment that Maliki's statement is "just politics." If that is true, then it must also be true that the American military
presence in Iraq is so unpopular with Iraqis that the government is forced to push for a timetable in order to survive at the ballot box.
That's a reason to stay for 100 years.
4. McCain's economic plan to cut the deficit has no details and is simply not believable. There are so many things here (http://www.democracyarsenal.org/200...aily-upd-3.html). McCain pledges he would eliminate the deficit by the end of his first term (the campaign latter flip flop flipped about whether it was four years or eight years), but does not provide any details about how he would do it. Economists on both sides of the political aisle said that this was simply not believable, especially given McCain's other proposals to a) cut individual and corporate taxes even further, b) extend the Bush tax cuts and c) massively increase defense spending on
manpower (http://www.democracyarsenal.org/200...aily-upd-3.html)
(200,000 more troops) and d) maintain a long-term sizable military presence in Iraq.
5. McCain's deficit plan including bringing the troops home represents a major Iraq flip-flop. Speaking of the long-term military presence - a story that has gotten absolutely no attention is that McCain now
believes the war will be over soon. The economic forecasts made by his crack team of economists predict that there will be significant savings during McCain's first term (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-b...n_b_111298.html) because we will have achieved "victory" in Iraq and Afghanistan. The savings from victory (ie the savings from not having our troops there) will then be used to pay down the deficit. The only way this could
have any impact on the deficit in McCain's first time is if troop
withdrawals start very soon. So McCain believes victory is in our grasps and we can begin to withdraw troops from Iraq pretty much right away -- doesn't sound that different from Obama's plan does it. Someone should at least ask McCain HOW HE DEFINES VICTORY - and
why he thinks we will achieve it in the next couple of years.
6. McCain campaign misled about economists support. In the major press
release the McCain campaign issued to tout its Jobs for America economic plan that would balance the budget in 4 years, it included the signatures of more than 300 economists who the campaign claimed to support the plan. Only problem is that the economists were actually asked to sign up to SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11618.html). Um, hello?
7. McCain makes a joke about killing Iranians. (http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/08...iranians-again/)
Haha... that's just McCain being McCain. I am sure that is exactly how it is being reported in Tehran. This guy is running for President not to become a talk radio pundit. Yet according to the AP this was just a humanizing moment (http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpo...rbrushes_aw.php)
between candidate and spouse - I am not sure when joking about the deaths of civilians became humanizing.
8. McCain denies, flatly, that he ever said that he is not an expert
(http://youtube.com/watch?v=Agi7THNLVzA) in economics. Are you kidding? (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/arch...02/1179920.aspx)
9). McCain distorts his record on veterans benefits in response to a
question from Vietnam Veteran, who then proceeds to call McCain out on it.
10.) McCain demonstrates he knows nothing about Afghanistan and Pakistan.McCain said "I think if there is some good news, I think that there is a glimmer of improving relationship between Karzai and the Pakistanis
(http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pit...int_576734.html)
." Pat Barry notes how crazy this comment is (http://www.democracyarsenal.org/200...hat-afghan.html) ... "Just what "glimmer" is McCain talking about?? Maybe he's referring to President Karzai's remarks last month, which threatened military action in Pakistan if cross-border attacks persisted? Or maybe McCain is talking about Afghanistan's allegations that Pakistan's ISI was
involved in a recent assassination attempt on Karzai? Maybe in McCain's world you could call that a silver-lining, but in reality-land I'd call it something else."
Any one of these incidents and comments would dominate the news cycle if they came from the Obama campaign. Yet McCain barely gets a mention. The press like to see themselves as political referees - neutral observers that call them like they see em'. But they want this to be a horse race and so all the calls right now are going one way. How else can you explain the furor last week over the Obama "refine" comment - which represented zero change in Obama's position on Iraq (http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpo...etting_it_w.php) - and the "swift boat" mania (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRwsk56lN44&feature=user) over Wesley Clark's uncontroversial comments (psss... by the way McCain exploits his POW experience in just about every ad - yet he says he doesn't like to talk about it). This Sunday expect the ten incidents above to get short shrift from pundit after pundit, because after all Jesse Jackson said he wanted to cut Obama's nuts off. |
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| Ang ' ela_ie |
| Having all the media attention is a double edged sword. |
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