Finally, the Presidential Campaign is focusing on the meat of the matter. While the platforms of both parties are, in many respects, hopeless blather, in August three economists at Bank of America did a concise, side by side comparison, of central parts of the economic import of the programs proposed by Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama.
http://montclairrepublicancc.org/McCain_and_Obama.pdf
The analysis has been picked up by Republicans and forwarded here, there and everywhere but the crux of the differences has not gained sustained traction with the majority of the public until the last presidential debates. While the analysis document from the BOA economists has been embraced by Republicans, it does not, to me, appear to be biased or political in nature.
The analysis has been picked up by Republicans and forwarded here, there and everywhere but the crux of the differences has not gained sustained traction with the majority of the public until the last presidential debates. While the analysis document from the BOA economists has been embraced by Republicans, it does not, to me, appear to be biased or political in nature.
It was the now famous "Joe the Plumber" that finally brought the key and overriding issue to the forefront. That issue, as explained by Mr. Obama to Joe, was, that through his tax plans, " he intended to spread the wealth around." While Senator McCain raised it numerous times in the debate he still has not been pointedly coherent in framing the issue and in countering the Obama camps claims that the McCain approach is, in the long run, the same thing.
However, the BOA analysis points out that Mr. Obama intends to increase taxes upon high wage earners (those reporting net income, after deductions, of over $250,000 a year). In addition, while his plans call for spending bundles of money on many new programs he also intends to drop many millions of low income people from the tax rolls (in addition to the existing millions not paying income taxes today) and then provide additional tax dollars to them by actually giving them a credit as in sending them a government check. The government is already doing this and Mr. Obama wants to vastly expand this misguided, corrosive, free ride.
So, while he claims that he will not raise the taxes of the "middle class" by one penny he is most definitely intending to take more tax money from the middle class to further turn the poor into a dependent class. It amounts to perpetual and thus perpetuating, welfare. A subsidized existence, a public dole, that sucks any form of positive societal contribution out of the recipients. No matter what uplifting name the politicians give these programs, they are destructive and actually poison a healthy society.
The entire concept of any citizen being excused from paying taxes is grating. None of us like paying taxes but most understand it is necessary. Indeed, if being an American is a privilege, and I think it is, we must understand that the wonder of this country has a cost and some of the cost, only some, can be paid for with money, tax money.
Are there inequities in our society? You bet! In recent advertisements in the New York Times they are listing a new duplex in Greenwich Village for some $21 million, marked down from over $23 million. Looking at something like that and the pay scales of many senior executives or investment bankers compared to the wages of many hardworking contributing members of society and the word inequity is mild.
Gobs of money taken from those overly compensated folks as well as the middle class, to be used as a way to blast and propel contributing people out of poverty, is a worthy endeavor. However, paying off the poor is counter productive in trying to reduce the problem and infuriating to an honest taxpayer.
Can intentions and plenty of tax dollars, like the tide, lift all boats---no chance. Some boats leak, some have holes in the hull. Poverty has always been with us and always will be but one would think that we can do better in pushing it back. A government give away, that inbreeds ever greater dependency does not lift souls much less leaky boats. Such an effort is not the answer, it will actually make things worse as it plays to some of the worst aspects of human nature.
Mr. Obama would not agree with me. Thus I have real problem with Mr. Obama as this is the central theme of his campaign and may very well be the defining basis of his very being. Mr. McCain and many of his core supporters, who have chosen to calling themselves conservatives, have simply labeled it socialism, considering that pejorative at least one step worse than being a plain liberal.
Mr. Obama, ever cool, with a nod of knowing explains that Mr. McCain just does not get it. Some truth to that, but neither does he.
If he is elected and I think he will be, every effort must be made to point his intelligent consideration to the fact that in trying to save this country from itself his current plans will likely ensure a historic slide.
