Seriously? No one has a response to Monday’s McCain post? I was hoping to stir up some debate. It’s not too late.
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It’s not socialism to turn the focus back on the middle class. It’s not even “socialism lite”. We have a progressive tax that has become unbalanced due to the Bush tax cut and Obama wants to restore the balance. Simple as that. The accusations of socialism are all mischaracterizations.
Tax cuts – Republicans talk about tax cuts all the time. Why is it then that when a Democrat pushes for tax cuts, it’s socialism? Why is it socialism to provide tax cuts for the middle class instead of for the wealthiest? I don’t care much for either of their tax cut plans, because we’re already in a massive deficit, but it make no sense to claim that cutting taxes for the wealthy is right while cutting taxes for the middle class is wrong. And please tell me how cutting taxes on the oil companies is capitalistic. That strikes me as cronyism, not capitalism.
Spending – Neither Obama nor McCain have presented anything resembling a balanced budget for next year. The fact that McCain says he will cut spending doesn’t mean much when his budget adds another 300 billion deficit. His “spending freeze” is a farce, and he’s simply using it to avoid having to address the fact that his budget is as overspent as Obama’s. You know what’s really sad? If McCain eliminated his 400 billion in oil industry tax cuts, it would actually bring his budget into the black, I believe.
Health care – I’d like to see an improved healthcare system. I don’t know if Obama can give us that, but I haven’t heard anything from McCain that indicates he can. I think Obama’s plan is probably too optimistic, but I think McCain’s tax-the-work-provided-benefits plan is idiotic. His tax credit that’s supposed to provide healthcare is too small to be of any use to people who actually need healthcare.
Free trade – First off, the majority of economists are democrats, and planning to vote for Obama. Second, we have a serious trade imbalance that has been damaging our economy for a long time. Free trade or not, we can’t maintain this imbalance forever. It’s maintaining our debt economy.
Gun control – I don’t like Obama’s stance on gun control, but I think this issue is pretty negligible in comparison to the rest of these issues.
Education – I would be in favor of vouchers if they were done correctly, but I don’t think they are done correctly in the U.S. When you allow private schools to accept vouchers *and* additional pay, all you’re doing is subsidizing the cost of private school for the well-off, at the expense of those who are left in the public school systems.
Energy – I want to see an abandonment of ethanol subsidies. Obama has slowly been distancing himself from Ethanol. He’s publicly stated that he will make changes if necessary to help food prices (here and overseas). Obama has publicly stated that he supports nuclear energy as well. I don’t think he’s taken a good stance on reprocessing spent fuel, though. However, if we build more nuclear plants, this will become inevitable. We will eventually have to reprocess fuel if we are going to continue using nuclear energy. I wish Obama would take a stronger stand on these two things, but I think overall his energy plan is fairly good. I don’t really understand how you can be distrustful of Obama for supposedly being in the pocket of the corn lobby, but you still trust McCain when he’s so clearly in the pocket of the oil companies.
You know how a lot of states actually receive more in federal funds than they contribute in federal taxes? There are 32 of them, and of those, 27 votes republican in the 2004 election. 18 states contribute more than they receive, and 14 of voted democrat.
I’m actually fine with the fact that states that need the help get it, but it strikes me as a pretty plain redistribution of wealth. Taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. I think that makes the republicans socialist, or a least “socialist light”, right?
I’ll be honest. I don’t have a huge problem with Obama’s middle class tax cut. I don’t think it’ll hurt the economy, and it might even help it in the short term. I’ll personally be better off with the Obama tax cut.
What puts me off is the philosophy behind the tax cut. The idea that the rich somehow owe an even larger percentage of their earnings to the government is definitely socialistic. Last year, the top 5% paid over half of all federal income taxes. That doesn’t strike me as fair, and increasing that burden certainly isn’t fair.
So, in short, I’m not concerned about this tax increase on the wealthy. I’m concerned about the next one, and the next one, etc. At some point the wealthy will find a better place to live and the poor will have no one to support them. We’ve got a ways to go before that’s a problem, but with Obama’s philosophy, it’s not an unrealistic concern.
Also, for the record, I’m not convinced that progressive taxation is necessarily better than regressive taxation, though I do seem to be in the minority on that one. In all other industries the more you buy the cheaper the product is. Government is the only exception.
One of the major tenets of socialism is a more even distribution of wealth. Can you argue that Obama’s tax plan is not a step in that direction?
> What puts me off is the philosophy behind the tax cut. The idea that the rich somehow owe an even larger percentage of their earnings to the government is definitely socialistic. Last year, the top 5% paid over half of all federal income taxes. That doesn’t strike me as fair, and increasing that burden certainly isn’t fair.
What worries me is that respected, wealthy men like Warren Buffett say that they aren’t paying enough taxes. I don’t think we should be taxing the wealthy to death, but I find it disturbing that Buffett claims he pays less income tax than his secretary.
> At some point the wealthy will find a better place to live and the poor will have no one to support them. We’ve got a ways to go before that’s a problem, but with Obama’s philosophy, it’s not an unrealistic concern.
We have so far to go that it *is* an unrealistic concern. Most of Europe has tax brackets above 50%. We’re nowhere close to that (and I hope we never go there, either). If our taxes go up to unreasonable levels, where are the rich people going to go? Most rich people are working. If they left the country for a place without the jobs they need, they’d no longer be rich (or at least not nearly as rich).
> One of the major tenets of socialism is a more even distribution of wealth. Can you argue that Obama’s tax plan is not a step in that direction?
In the past month, we’ve given a trillion dollars to the wealthiest people in the nation in the form of a financial bailout. To use a popular phrase (as of late), we have capitalist profits and socialist losses. I just can’t see how that’s okay, but a tax cut for the middle class isn’t. Meanwhile, McCain wants to give additional tax breaks to Exxon, the wealthiest corporation in the world by revenue, price, and income. I think Obama’s tax plan makes a lot of sense in the current economic state. I think McCain’s plan makes no sense for most Americans in any economic state (and especially not in the current one).
For the record, I don’t have any problem with Exxon or the other oil companies. I think its perfectly fine that they are making bags of cash. I just don’t think it’s fine to give them additional tax cuts when that money could be put to far better use elsewhere.
Derek, thanks for the comments. Sorry I took so long to response. Work and “dad duties” interfered. I’ll respond to all three of your comments here. This could get long.
First of all, you seem to have mistaken me for a Republican. The point of my post was to show why I prefer McCain over Obama, not that McCain and the Republicans are right on everything. I, like a lot of people, wish we had better choices. For the record, I prefer the McCain from the 2000 election to this one. I think he would have had a better chance at getting elected too. That might be material for another post.
I have absolutely no problem with the middle class tax cut. However, I do have problems with the tax increase on the wealthy, for the reasons noted in my reply to James.
I agree that the oil companies shouldn’t get special tax cuts. If McCain has supported those, he is wrong. However, I can’t find any solid information indicating that he has, even though it seems to be “common knowledge.” If you can send me a link I would appreciate it. One article I did find, shows that McCain voted against a 2005 energy bill giving the oil companies a tax break. Obama voted for it. Also, Obama and Biden keep throwing around the supposed $4 billion tax cut for oil companies McCain is proposing. That’s not true. He is proposing an across the board tax cut for corporations. I’m not sure that is the best place for a big cut right now, but it’s dishonest to represent it as a special tax cut for the oil companies. Derek, I’m glad to hear you are against Obama’s proposed windfall profits tax on oil companies.
I agree, neither candidate has impressed me on spending either. I also agree that McCain’s spending freeze is stupid and not well thought out. The reason I give McCain a slight edge in this area is because he’s made fewer promises. There should be more room in his future budgets for spending cuts. This is optimism on my part though. I can pardon you if you don’t share my optimism.
I don’t think McCain’s healthcare plan is idiotic. Independent organizations say it would slightly increase the number of insured persons. I don’t know that a slight increase is worth such a big change though, so I’m not a big fan. I can’t handle the idea of the government being more involved in my healthcare though, which is what Obama wants.
Yes, I saw Scott Adam’s survey that showed most economists are Democrats and are planning to vote for Obama. I have a hard time reconciling that with what I know about “common economic knowledge.” I could blame it on economists being academics, who are overwhelmingly Democratic, but there’s got to be more to it than that. For what it’s worth I’ve read John Kerry is a die-hard free trader.
The gun control issue is more important to me than it is to you. Understandable. Beyond the fact that I see gun ownership as a Constitutional right, I have a hard time voting for someone that can’t see gun control just doesn’t work.
We’ve had the voucher discussion before. I see no problem allowing schools to ask for additional money over and above the voucher. I’m not rich, but I want my children to have the best education possible. Vouchers would allow me to do that. Luckily, we have good public schools here, but if I did choose to send my kids to a private school, I’d essentially be throwing away the portion of my tax dollars that goes toward education. It makes sense to allow me to use the voucher and put in my own money on top of that. The government would have to ensure that there was a school in each community that would take just the voucher. I don’t think that’d be a problem though.
I agree with you that the federal government redistributing wealth between the states is socialistic. I don’t think it’s fair to put the blame for that entirely on the Republicans though. As a libertarian, I would argue that the states shouldn’t get money for things like education from the federal government. The federal government should reduce the taxes it collects and the states should collect a sufficient amount of money to pay for educating their kids. The same goes for lots of other things.
I agree that we should do away with tax loopholes exploited primarily by the rich. Our tax code needs to be drastically simplified. I love Obama’s proposal that would make filing a tax return incredibly simple for the average person. The IRS already knows what you make. Why should you have to pay a tax preparer to tell them again? I’m not sure what to make of Buffett’s assertion that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. I’d love to know how he does that. However, as I told James, I’m not sure I have a problem with that. The top 5% still pay over 50% of all income taxes.
Okay, I’ll concede that worrying about the rich moving to other countries is unrealistic. However, there are other reasons to not overly tax the rich. The rich invest their money in businesses or create businesses themselves. Businesses create jobs. I believe that rich people (and people in general) are smarter than the government when it comes to allocating money and other resources.
Yes, I’m aware the US is one of the last bastions of anything resembling pure capitalism. I believe that’s a big reason we’re a superpower. Look at China. They were stuck in the stone age until they converted to a more capitalistic economy. There are plenty of socialist countries out there. If you want the government to take care of you, move to Norway. And I say that only partially tongue-in-cheek.
The bailout was definitely not okay. It shouldn’t have happened. We were scared into that one. The government told us if we didn’t go along with it the economy would collapse. I don’t have the expertise to definitively say they were wrong, but I think they were. I think we would have been better off in the long run to let the companies fail.
James and Derek, thanks for the comments. I have enjoyed the dialog. Please keep them coming.
Ben, I understand that you aren’t a diehard republican. At this point, though, I think McCain is. He’s gone for the extreme right in his attempt at the presidency, and I think his ambition has made him look like a republican puppet. It’s gotten to the point where I think a vote for McCain isn’t really a vote for McCain. It’s a vote for the republicans, because it seems that’s all he is now, the face for the republican party. A vote to keep the republicans in the white house seems to be a vote to reward them for the fumbling of the past 8 years. By no means do I think the republicans alone are to blame for the current economic problems, but I do think they are to blame for ineptness with which we’ve handled the wars, and the fact that we’ve lost so much respect and power internationally.
You’re correct that we should be skeptical of the claims that McCain is calling for special tax cuts for the oil companies. It is unfortunately hard to get a good picture of the truth, as the left is twisting it one way and the right is twisting it another. It apparently is entirely true that we currently subsidize the oil industry very heavily, to the tune of billions per year. McCain has voted for these subsidies in the past, and more recently skipped votes to repeal them. McCain skipped a vote to repeal 18 billion in oil subsidies. I’d have more respect for him if he’d voted against it, rather than abstaining, because the same bill would have imposed some windfall profits taxes as well. It is my understanding that McCain’s energy plan at the very least continues the current heavy oil subsidies.
As for McCain having made fewer promises, I’m not really sure that’s true. He has published plans for energy and taxes, etc. These are all promises, whether he has said them in a speech or not. His biggest expense is going to be extending the Bush tax cuts, and cutting taxes for corporations. These two things he very much has promised, and I don’t see him backing out of them (even though he originally called Bush’s cuts irresponsible).
I think McCain’s plan to tax work-provided healthcare benefits is completely deranged. That will most certainly result in fewer people having health coverage. Most people who have health coverage get it through their work. When you make it more expensive for companies to provide healthcare, fewer of them will. It’s hard for me to believe that his $5000 tax credit, per family, is going to balance that out. Health insurance costs more than that.
I think it’s quite possible that most economists are Democrats because they recognize that free trade is not the only issue. e.g. The Economist is all for free trade, and still endorsed Obama. I’m for free trade, and I’m voting Obama. I personally think we need to correct our trade imbalance, while still working to maintain free trade wherever possible. Buffet made an interesting proposal about fixing our trade deficit years ago. http://www.pbs.org/wsw/news/fortunearticle_20031026_03.html I don’t know if that particular proposal is workable, but I think something needs to be done.
As for gun ownership being a constitutional right, I completely agree, but when the republicans have done everything that can to gut the constitution for the past 8 years, it’s hard for me to believe that gun rights balances all that out.
If you don’t see the problem with vouchers, I’m not sure how I can convince you. You already made my case for me. You, as a well-off individual, would pull your kids from the mediocre public school to place them in voucher-subsidized private school. The only children left in public school would be those from poor, likely less-educated families. The good teachers wouldn’t want to teach these schools, and the outflow of voucher money would leave far less for the public schools overall. This leaves the public schools far worse than they are now. How could this possibly be acceptable? The voucher program increases the quality of some students’ education at the expense of others. This is government subsidized, class-based segregation.
Buffett pays less in taxes because he gets great deductions for things like real estate. There are a huge number of tax loopholes for those with assets. I think our tax code does need to be simplified. And I don’t McCain has any intention of plugging the holes. I also still think it’s pretty damning that Buffett says he doesn’t pay enough taxes because of the loopholes, while McCain is wanting to give him more tax cuts.
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There are a lot of things about McCain’s plans and stances that I don’t like. And yes, there are likewise a lot of things about Obama’s plans and stances that I don’t like. What really turns me off to McCain isn’t his political plans, though, but the way he’s behaved during his campaign. He seems to simply have lost himself to his ambition.
He opposed the Bush tax cuts as irresponsible, now he wants to extend them. He called the religious far right “agents of intolerance”, now he openly embraces them. He called Obama inexperienced for saying that he would strike into Pakistan if necessary (I agree he probably shouldn’t have said that), but he sang “Bomb Bomb Iran” at a campaign stop. He stated that he was weak on the economy and would need to select a running mate who could advise him, and then he selected Palin as a running mate, a move that was pure politics.
Every time I talk to people who are planning on voting for McCain, there seems to be this undertone of “well he says that, and acts that way, but it’ll be different once he’s in the White House.” Sometimes it’s not just an undertone, and they actually say things to that effect.
Maybe it is just an act, and McCain hasn’t really gone nutjob far right and he isn’t really a crazy war hawk. Maybe in the White House, after all the campaigning is over, we’d see the old John McCain, and he’d be a great president. But right now, the John McCain on the campaign trail has embraced the far right, pandered to the base with his tax cuts and his choice of a rightwing nutjob VP, called for us to be in Iraq indefinitely, and mocked the idea of diplomacy with our enemies. Maybe it’s an act, but I’m not willing to take that chance.
I agree with you that McCain has gone from being a maverick to a “standard Republican,” at least in appearance. He is pandering to the right by changing his stance on some issues. I also agree that his campaign has been more negative than necessary. When the election is over and we look back to see why McCain lost, I think those reasons will be right up there at the top. I wish my issues were represented by a better candidate (the 2000 McCain included). While I may not like McCain, I agree with him on too many issues, and disagree with Obama on too many.
While you may think it’s crazy, I too think the old “mavericky” McCain would make an appearance if elected. Presidential candidates have a long history of not keeping promises made while campaigning. Obama claims to be a supporter of the Second amendment. If elected, I fully expect him to start banning guns left and right. His voting record says he will. He says he supports the Second amendment because he correctly believes an openly anti-gun candidate can’t be elected. McCain’s pandering is no different. I fully expect him to go back to his maverick ways if elected. It doesn’t make it right, but it’s the way it is. I will admit that McCain seems to be pandering on more issues than Obama. (Democrats naturally pander, being the “party of the people” and all, so it’s not fair to count middle class tax cuts and those sorts of things. :)
Again, I agree that McCain’s healthcare plan is not particularly elegant, but Obama’s plan is unrealistic and too reliant on the government to get things right.
As mentioned above, I believe Obama is truly radical when it comes to guns. He supports the “assault weapon ban,” which essentially bans guns that “look mean.” (No, really, look it up.) He supports nearly complete gun bans like those in Chicago and Washington, D.C. He’s against concealed carry permits, among many other things. I’d love to be wrong about this, but I don’t think I am. Time will tell.
I believe that we are currently spending enough money to have a good educational system. We’re just spending the money incorrectly. (I’m not opposed to some additional funding, but I also don’t believe we’re drastically underfunding it.) I think that a school that just took vouchers, requiring no additional money from the parents, would be a perfectly adequate school. If not, it would go out of business and a better one would take its place. Vouchers would create huge demand for good schools that took just vouchers. Most people don’t want to pay additional money for their child’s education.
However, as someone who perhaps does have slightly more disposable income than most people, I think I should be able to supplement the voucher with additional money to allow my kids to have an education that is above and beyond “adequate.” Think robotics courses, field trips to DC, etc. I’m certainly not rich enough to throw away the portion of my taxes that goes toward education, which is what would happening if I had to completely pay for a private school out of pocket.
> As mentioned above, I believe Obama is truly radical when it comes to guns. He supports the “assault weapon ban,” which essentially bans guns that “look mean.” (No, really, look it up.) He supports nearly complete gun bans like those in Chicago and Washington, D.C. He’s against concealed carry permits, among many other things. I’d love to be wrong about this, but I don’t think I am. Time will tell.
I agree one hundred percent on this. The assault weapons ban is idiotic. His stances for gun bans and against concealed carry are at least borderline unconsitutional. I wish I could get a candidate that I agreed with 100%, but that’s not going to happen, so I’ve got to go with who I think is the best option.
As for vouchers, I think we’ll just have to disagree. I believe if vouchers took off, we’d see better funded private schools and poorly funded (and poorly performing) public schools. I can’t envision a scenario that would result in voucher-only schools being competitive with voucher+fee schools. I think if that were possible, we’d have seen it in the states that already do vouchers.
[...] case you’ve missed it, there’s some excellent political discussion going on in the comments of a previous post. The comments are in response to this post. Yes, I had to beg for comments, but it [...]
If we had vouchers, there would be a strong market for schools, especially in areas where the public schools were inadequate. Most people don’t want to pay more for education over and above what they pay in taxes. Therefore, the majority of that market would be for schools that don’t require extra payment. Entrepreneurs would fill that need. It seems like simple economics to me.
Also, I don’t know of any cases where vouchers have been implemented “correctly” on a wide scale.
Comment order should be fixed now. WordPress doesn’t handle Daylight Saving Time automatically. In between my comment and your comment I had changed the time offset from UTC.
> Most people don’t want to pay more for education over and above what they pay in taxes.
Ben, I don’t know anyone who feels that way. You yourself said you would pay extra. I don’t believe there are any good parents that wouldn’t pay a little extra if it meant their children would get a good education. The only people who wouldn’t pay extra are those that either don’t care or can’t afford it. I’m sure that’ll drive the quality of the voucher-only schools to great heights. :\
I don’t see how entrepreneurs would fill the need for good, cheap schools. As it is now, private schools cost a fortune, pay their teachers less, and generally *still* depend on additional outside funding (donations, often from churches . . .). Entrepreneurship hasn’t managed to make private schools cost effective. I see no reason why they would make voucher-only schools work.
One last comment on the subject of McCain changing when he gets in office: Ask yourself, if McCain went back on everything he’d promised, ditched the far right, adopted diplomacy, and actually did an excellent job as president, what’s one thing that wouldn’t change? His VP.
Sarah Palin has virtually no experience. She’s clearly ignorant on most issues. She’s crazy far right. She’s so inept that they won’t let her do a press conference. Palin running the country could be disastrous. McCain, a 72 year old presidential candidate, picked one of the least qualified VP candidates we’ve ever seen, for purely political reasons. His choice of Palin brings his judgment into serious doubt, but that doesn’t scare me nearly as much as what would happen if he were to die in office. The idea of President Palin is, by itself, enough for me to vote against McCain.
Don’t forget, you aren’t voting McCain or Obama. You’re voting McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden. If Obama dies in office, we get an experienced, capable leader who says he’ll follow Obama’s plans for America. If McCain dies in office, we’ll get an inexperienced, fundamentalist woman who says that as a “maverick”, she’ll do her own thing.
Derek, I agree with your previous comment. We’re just going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
A disturbingly large portion of parents could care less about their child’s education. An even larger percentage would be happy with the adequate education provided by a voucher-funded school.
Private schools haven’t caught on because they’re too expensive. Most parents can’t afford to send their kids to private schools precisely because they’re already paying taxes to support public schools. Vouchers would create a market for private schools that didn’t previously exist.
I’m afraid I’m beginning to repeat myself. I’ve enjoyed the debate, and I’m glad we can disagree and still keep things civil.
I’ll grant you that Palin has done nothing but harm the ticket. I liked her in the beginning, but she continues to get more extreme. She was definitely a bad choice. I have no qualms with someone that considers her a reason to vote for Obama. However, at the end of the day, I still agree with her more than I do with Obama. That, and I’m hoping McCain can make it four more years. :)
> I still agree with her more than I do with Obama.
Seriously? I can understand you preferring McCain to Obama, but preferring Palin to Obama? What has Palin done or said that you agree with, aside from gun rights?
She instated a windfall profits tax against the oil companies in Alaska. She pushed for the “bridge to nowhere” until it wasn’t politically popular anymore. She couldn’t name a single supreme court case aside from Roe v. Wade. She couldn’t name a single newpaper she’s ever read. She stated, in a debate, that she supports teaching creationism in schools. She claimed the “troopergate” probe vindicated her of any wrongdoing, when it did the exact opposite. She supports capital punishment. What is it that you like about her again?
By the way, I agree with you in that I hope McCain will live four more years (and more). I don’t think he’s a bad man. I just don’t think he’s the man we should have as president. I hope we’ll see the return of the old McCain after today.
If Palin was the Republican nomination I might have to reevaluate, but she’s not, thankfully. Obama is wrong on a lot of the issues I care about, and I’m just not going to get past that.
A lot of people tried to fault her for trying to get earmarks for her city and state. I can’t see any problem with that. She would have been negligent if she hadn’t tried every funding source available. However, now that she is possibly in a position to change the wasteful practice of earmarks, she’s standing up against them. I don’t see a contradiction there.
Ben, I listed 7 things that about Palin that are alarming to me, and should be to you as well. You can ignore the earmarks and you’re still left with 6 reasons why Palin is scary. (I agree that the earmarks themselves are not a major problem. A larger problem is that she has consistently lied and claim she “stopped” the bridge to nowhere.)
It basically sounds like you don’t like Palin, but for some reason you’ve decided that Obama is somehow worse. Obama is, at the very least, a very capable man. He’s demonstrated that throughout this campaign. Palin has demonstrated instead that she’s ignorant on many issues, a fundamentalist Christian, and if the troopergate stuff is any indication, petty and vindictive. I don’t know how you could prefer that to Obama. You also still seem to be ignoring the fact that she *is* the nomination. People voting for McCain are voting for Palin to take the second-highest office in the nation. The possibility of President Palin is not insignificant.
I don’t think we are going to agree on this, though. If you can look at Palin and Obama and pick Palin, I don’t think anything I can say would sway you.
I agree that Palin is inexperienced and was a poor choice for Vice-President. I don’t have many issues with Obama the man. I have plenty of issues with his positions. I just can’t vote for him. McCain-Palin is the only other option.
I agree that Palin handled the “Bridge to Nowhere” situation badly. She should have simply pointed out that she had an obligation to get money for her state.
Yes, I disagree with her on most of the issues you pointed out, but those issues aren’t that important to me. I outlined the issues that are important to me in my post the other day. On those issues, I agree with McCain-Palin. Yes, we will just have to agree to disagree.
By the way, what newspapers do you read? Do you consider yourself well informed?
> By the way, what newspapers do you read? Do you consider yourself well informed?
Honestly, I get my news from CNN, primarily. And I consider myself moderately well informed. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but I’m not a mayor, a governor, or a vice presidential candidate. Those who want to control the country’s direction have an obligation to make themselves well-informed.
It’s not so alarming that should doesn’t read a ton of papers, but that she couldn’t even name one. She could have named an Alaskan paper and pretended that she read it. It’s not like she has moral qualms about stretching the truth.
> I have plenty of issues with his positions.
Ben, it really looks to me like you made up your mind about McCain vs Obama and then picked which issues were important to you, not the other way around. There are a lot of issues here, and you picked the handful where you agree with McCain. Since when have school vouchers been so important to you, as a parent with access to very good public schools? When did you become a massive nuclear energy proponent? When did the Bush tax cuts become something worth supporting? And when did Iraq stop mattering? The issues you picked are certainly important, but they don’t seem like they should be the only important issues.
I was mostly just picking at you with the newspaper comment.
Economic issues have been important to me for some time. Government spending and taxation, healthcare, and free trade are all economic issues. Vouchers are an economic solution to our educational problems. Energy can also be considered an economic issue.
I will admit that I have a Republican bias. However, I did give Obama a chance. However, I just can’t stomach his disregard for the free market, his income redistribution, or his stance on gun control.
In principle, I’m for any tax cut. Though I do agree now might not be the best time for them, unless they are accompanied by a reduction in spending. On the other hand, I absolutely detest Obama’s income redistribution plan.
Iraq has never been a big issue for me. Yes, it was a mistake. Yes, Bush managed it poorly. However, McCain and Obama’s plans for the war have steadily converged until they are nearly identical. That is, “Get the troops out as soon as possible, but not sooner.”
I do think it’s unfair to call it income redistribution, even though people on both sides refer to it in that fashion. It’s a tax redistribution certainly, but last I checked, I’m going to be paying taxes regardless of who wins. It’s just a question of whether I pay more or less taxes. People aren’t exactly going to end up with negative taxes under Obama’s plan.
I’m still undecided whether it’s better to have a tax cut right now or not. On the one hand, we’ve a massive deficit so cutting taxes makes it worse. On the other hand, we’re moving into a recession, and giving people a tax break might lessen the impact.
As for Iraq, my understanding is that McCain still hasn’t stated that he would even entertain the idea of a timetable, making his stance more like “Get the troops out . . . eventually.”
Instituting a tax increase on the rich at the same time as a tax cut for the middle class? I call that income redistribution.
Actually, Obama’s plan will provide a tax credit to some people who do not pay federal income taxes. See this article.
You’re right, tax cuts are a tough call. I prefer a moderate cut accompanied by a reduction in spending.
You’re right on Iraq. A little research shows that Obama hadn’t waffled as much as I had been led to believe. Obama says 16 months, McCain says as soon as possible. I have to believe McCain would have most of the troops out in 16 months because the war is so unpopular. It’s not a huge deal to me one way or the other.
nothing to debate about there……… where are the Obama fans?
The Obama fans are busy!
It’s not socialism to turn the focus back on the middle class. It’s not even “socialism lite”. We have a progressive tax that has become unbalanced due to the Bush tax cut and Obama wants to restore the balance. Simple as that. The accusations of socialism are all mischaracterizations.
Fine. I’ll say a couple of things.
Tax cuts – Republicans talk about tax cuts all the time. Why is it then that when a Democrat pushes for tax cuts, it’s socialism? Why is it socialism to provide tax cuts for the middle class instead of for the wealthiest? I don’t care much for either of their tax cut plans, because we’re already in a massive deficit, but it make no sense to claim that cutting taxes for the wealthy is right while cutting taxes for the middle class is wrong. And please tell me how cutting taxes on the oil companies is capitalistic. That strikes me as cronyism, not capitalism.
Spending – Neither Obama nor McCain have presented anything resembling a balanced budget for next year. The fact that McCain says he will cut spending doesn’t mean much when his budget adds another 300 billion deficit. His “spending freeze” is a farce, and he’s simply using it to avoid having to address the fact that his budget is as overspent as Obama’s. You know what’s really sad? If McCain eliminated his 400 billion in oil industry tax cuts, it would actually bring his budget into the black, I believe.
Health care – I’d like to see an improved healthcare system. I don’t know if Obama can give us that, but I haven’t heard anything from McCain that indicates he can. I think Obama’s plan is probably too optimistic, but I think McCain’s tax-the-work-provided-benefits plan is idiotic. His tax credit that’s supposed to provide healthcare is too small to be of any use to people who actually need healthcare.
Free trade – First off, the majority of economists are democrats, and planning to vote for Obama. Second, we have a serious trade imbalance that has been damaging our economy for a long time. Free trade or not, we can’t maintain this imbalance forever. It’s maintaining our debt economy.
Gun control – I don’t like Obama’s stance on gun control, but I think this issue is pretty negligible in comparison to the rest of these issues.
Education – I would be in favor of vouchers if they were done correctly, but I don’t think they are done correctly in the U.S. When you allow private schools to accept vouchers *and* additional pay, all you’re doing is subsidizing the cost of private school for the well-off, at the expense of those who are left in the public school systems.
Energy – I want to see an abandonment of ethanol subsidies. Obama has slowly been distancing himself from Ethanol. He’s publicly stated that he will make changes if necessary to help food prices (here and overseas). Obama has publicly stated that he supports nuclear energy as well. I don’t think he’s taken a good stance on reprocessing spent fuel, though. However, if we build more nuclear plants, this will become inevitable. We will eventually have to reprocess fuel if we are going to continue using nuclear energy. I wish Obama would take a stronger stand on these two things, but I think overall his energy plan is fairly good. I don’t really understand how you can be distrustful of Obama for supposedly being in the pocket of the corn lobby, but you still trust McCain when he’s so clearly in the pocket of the oil companies.
You know how a lot of states actually receive more in federal funds than they contribute in federal taxes? There are 32 of them, and of those, 27 votes republican in the 2004 election. 18 states contribute more than they receive, and 14 of voted democrat.
http://democraticactionteam.org/redstatesocialism/index.html
I’m actually fine with the fact that states that need the help get it, but it strikes me as a pretty plain redistribution of wealth. Taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. I think that makes the republicans socialist, or a least “socialist light”, right?
James, thanks for the comment.
I’ll be honest. I don’t have a huge problem with Obama’s middle class tax cut. I don’t think it’ll hurt the economy, and it might even help it in the short term. I’ll personally be better off with the Obama tax cut.
What puts me off is the philosophy behind the tax cut. The idea that the rich somehow owe an even larger percentage of their earnings to the government is definitely socialistic. Last year, the top 5% paid over half of all federal income taxes. That doesn’t strike me as fair, and increasing that burden certainly isn’t fair.
So, in short, I’m not concerned about this tax increase on the wealthy. I’m concerned about the next one, and the next one, etc. At some point the wealthy will find a better place to live and the poor will have no one to support them. We’ve got a ways to go before that’s a problem, but with Obama’s philosophy, it’s not an unrealistic concern.
Also, for the record, I’m not convinced that progressive taxation is necessarily better than regressive taxation, though I do seem to be in the minority on that one. In all other industries the more you buy the cheaper the product is. Government is the only exception.
One of the major tenets of socialism is a more even distribution of wealth. Can you argue that Obama’s tax plan is not a step in that direction?
> What puts me off is the philosophy behind the tax cut. The idea that the rich somehow owe an even larger percentage of their earnings to the government is definitely socialistic. Last year, the top 5% paid over half of all federal income taxes. That doesn’t strike me as fair, and increasing that burden certainly isn’t fair.
What worries me is that respected, wealthy men like Warren Buffett say that they aren’t paying enough taxes. I don’t think we should be taxing the wealthy to death, but I find it disturbing that Buffett claims he pays less income tax than his secretary.
> At some point the wealthy will find a better place to live and the poor will have no one to support them. We’ve got a ways to go before that’s a problem, but with Obama’s philosophy, it’s not an unrealistic concern.
We have so far to go that it *is* an unrealistic concern. Most of Europe has tax brackets above 50%. We’re nowhere close to that (and I hope we never go there, either). If our taxes go up to unreasonable levels, where are the rich people going to go? Most rich people are working. If they left the country for a place without the jobs they need, they’d no longer be rich (or at least not nearly as rich).
> One of the major tenets of socialism is a more even distribution of wealth. Can you argue that Obama’s tax plan is not a step in that direction?
In the past month, we’ve given a trillion dollars to the wealthiest people in the nation in the form of a financial bailout. To use a popular phrase (as of late), we have capitalist profits and socialist losses. I just can’t see how that’s okay, but a tax cut for the middle class isn’t. Meanwhile, McCain wants to give additional tax breaks to Exxon, the wealthiest corporation in the world by revenue, price, and income. I think Obama’s tax plan makes a lot of sense in the current economic state. I think McCain’s plan makes no sense for most Americans in any economic state (and especially not in the current one).
For the record, I don’t have any problem with Exxon or the other oil companies. I think its perfectly fine that they are making bags of cash. I just don’t think it’s fine to give them additional tax cuts when that money could be put to far better use elsewhere.
Derek, thanks for the comments. Sorry I took so long to response. Work and “dad duties” interfered. I’ll respond to all three of your comments here. This could get long.
First of all, you seem to have mistaken me for a Republican. The point of my post was to show why I prefer McCain over Obama, not that McCain and the Republicans are right on everything. I, like a lot of people, wish we had better choices. For the record, I prefer the McCain from the 2000 election to this one. I think he would have had a better chance at getting elected too. That might be material for another post.
I have absolutely no problem with the middle class tax cut. However, I do have problems with the tax increase on the wealthy, for the reasons noted in my reply to James.
I agree that the oil companies shouldn’t get special tax cuts. If McCain has supported those, he is wrong. However, I can’t find any solid information indicating that he has, even though it seems to be “common knowledge.” If you can send me a link I would appreciate it. One article I did find, shows that McCain voted against a 2005 energy bill giving the oil companies a tax break. Obama voted for it. Also, Obama and Biden keep throwing around the supposed $4 billion tax cut for oil companies McCain is proposing. That’s not true. He is proposing an across the board tax cut for corporations. I’m not sure that is the best place for a big cut right now, but it’s dishonest to represent it as a special tax cut for the oil companies. Derek, I’m glad to hear you are against Obama’s proposed windfall profits tax on oil companies.
I agree, neither candidate has impressed me on spending either. I also agree that McCain’s spending freeze is stupid and not well thought out. The reason I give McCain a slight edge in this area is because he’s made fewer promises. There should be more room in his future budgets for spending cuts. This is optimism on my part though. I can pardon you if you don’t share my optimism.
I don’t think McCain’s healthcare plan is idiotic. Independent organizations say it would slightly increase the number of insured persons. I don’t know that a slight increase is worth such a big change though, so I’m not a big fan. I can’t handle the idea of the government being more involved in my healthcare though, which is what Obama wants.
Yes, I saw Scott Adam’s survey that showed most economists are Democrats and are planning to vote for Obama. I have a hard time reconciling that with what I know about “common economic knowledge.” I could blame it on economists being academics, who are overwhelmingly Democratic, but there’s got to be more to it than that. For what it’s worth I’ve read John Kerry is a die-hard free trader.
The gun control issue is more important to me than it is to you. Understandable. Beyond the fact that I see gun ownership as a Constitutional right, I have a hard time voting for someone that can’t see gun control just doesn’t work.
We’ve had the voucher discussion before. I see no problem allowing schools to ask for additional money over and above the voucher. I’m not rich, but I want my children to have the best education possible. Vouchers would allow me to do that. Luckily, we have good public schools here, but if I did choose to send my kids to a private school, I’d essentially be throwing away the portion of my tax dollars that goes toward education. It makes sense to allow me to use the voucher and put in my own money on top of that. The government would have to ensure that there was a school in each community that would take just the voucher. I don’t think that’d be a problem though.
I agree with you that the federal government redistributing wealth between the states is socialistic. I don’t think it’s fair to put the blame for that entirely on the Republicans though. As a libertarian, I would argue that the states shouldn’t get money for things like education from the federal government. The federal government should reduce the taxes it collects and the states should collect a sufficient amount of money to pay for educating their kids. The same goes for lots of other things.
I agree that we should do away with tax loopholes exploited primarily by the rich. Our tax code needs to be drastically simplified. I love Obama’s proposal that would make filing a tax return incredibly simple for the average person. The IRS already knows what you make. Why should you have to pay a tax preparer to tell them again? I’m not sure what to make of Buffett’s assertion that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. I’d love to know how he does that. However, as I told James, I’m not sure I have a problem with that. The top 5% still pay over 50% of all income taxes.
Okay, I’ll concede that worrying about the rich moving to other countries is unrealistic. However, there are other reasons to not overly tax the rich. The rich invest their money in businesses or create businesses themselves. Businesses create jobs. I believe that rich people (and people in general) are smarter than the government when it comes to allocating money and other resources.
Yes, I’m aware the US is one of the last bastions of anything resembling pure capitalism. I believe that’s a big reason we’re a superpower. Look at China. They were stuck in the stone age until they converted to a more capitalistic economy. There are plenty of socialist countries out there. If you want the government to take care of you, move to Norway. And I say that only partially tongue-in-cheek.
The bailout was definitely not okay. It shouldn’t have happened. We were scared into that one. The government told us if we didn’t go along with it the economy would collapse. I don’t have the expertise to definitively say they were wrong, but I think they were. I think we would have been better off in the long run to let the companies fail.
James and Derek, thanks for the comments. I have enjoyed the dialog. Please keep them coming.
Ben, I understand that you aren’t a diehard republican. At this point, though, I think McCain is. He’s gone for the extreme right in his attempt at the presidency, and I think his ambition has made him look like a republican puppet. It’s gotten to the point where I think a vote for McCain isn’t really a vote for McCain. It’s a vote for the republicans, because it seems that’s all he is now, the face for the republican party. A vote to keep the republicans in the white house seems to be a vote to reward them for the fumbling of the past 8 years. By no means do I think the republicans alone are to blame for the current economic problems, but I do think they are to blame for ineptness with which we’ve handled the wars, and the fact that we’ve lost so much respect and power internationally.
You’re correct that we should be skeptical of the claims that McCain is calling for special tax cuts for the oil companies. It is unfortunately hard to get a good picture of the truth, as the left is twisting it one way and the right is twisting it another. It apparently is entirely true that we currently subsidize the oil industry very heavily, to the tune of billions per year. McCain has voted for these subsidies in the past, and more recently skipped votes to repeal them. McCain skipped a vote to repeal 18 billion in oil subsidies. I’d have more respect for him if he’d voted against it, rather than abstaining, because the same bill would have imposed some windfall profits taxes as well. It is my understanding that McCain’s energy plan at the very least continues the current heavy oil subsidies.
As for McCain having made fewer promises, I’m not really sure that’s true. He has published plans for energy and taxes, etc. These are all promises, whether he has said them in a speech or not. His biggest expense is going to be extending the Bush tax cuts, and cutting taxes for corporations. These two things he very much has promised, and I don’t see him backing out of them (even though he originally called Bush’s cuts irresponsible).
I think McCain’s plan to tax work-provided healthcare benefits is completely deranged. That will most certainly result in fewer people having health coverage. Most people who have health coverage get it through their work. When you make it more expensive for companies to provide healthcare, fewer of them will. It’s hard for me to believe that his $5000 tax credit, per family, is going to balance that out. Health insurance costs more than that.
I think it’s quite possible that most economists are Democrats because they recognize that free trade is not the only issue. e.g. The Economist is all for free trade, and still endorsed Obama. I’m for free trade, and I’m voting Obama. I personally think we need to correct our trade imbalance, while still working to maintain free trade wherever possible. Buffet made an interesting proposal about fixing our trade deficit years ago. http://www.pbs.org/wsw/news/fortunearticle_20031026_03.html I don’t know if that particular proposal is workable, but I think something needs to be done.
As for gun ownership being a constitutional right, I completely agree, but when the republicans have done everything that can to gut the constitution for the past 8 years, it’s hard for me to believe that gun rights balances all that out.
If you don’t see the problem with vouchers, I’m not sure how I can convince you. You already made my case for me. You, as a well-off individual, would pull your kids from the mediocre public school to place them in voucher-subsidized private school. The only children left in public school would be those from poor, likely less-educated families. The good teachers wouldn’t want to teach these schools, and the outflow of voucher money would leave far less for the public schools overall. This leaves the public schools far worse than they are now. How could this possibly be acceptable? The voucher program increases the quality of some students’ education at the expense of others. This is government subsidized, class-based segregation.
Buffett pays less in taxes because he gets great deductions for things like real estate. There are a huge number of tax loopholes for those with assets. I think our tax code does need to be simplified. And I don’t McCain has any intention of plugging the holes. I also still think it’s pretty damning that Buffett says he doesn’t pay enough taxes because of the loopholes, while McCain is wanting to give him more tax cuts.
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There are a lot of things about McCain’s plans and stances that I don’t like. And yes, there are likewise a lot of things about Obama’s plans and stances that I don’t like. What really turns me off to McCain isn’t his political plans, though, but the way he’s behaved during his campaign. He seems to simply have lost himself to his ambition.
He opposed the Bush tax cuts as irresponsible, now he wants to extend them. He called the religious far right “agents of intolerance”, now he openly embraces them. He called Obama inexperienced for saying that he would strike into Pakistan if necessary (I agree he probably shouldn’t have said that), but he sang “Bomb Bomb Iran” at a campaign stop. He stated that he was weak on the economy and would need to select a running mate who could advise him, and then he selected Palin as a running mate, a move that was pure politics.
Every time I talk to people who are planning on voting for McCain, there seems to be this undertone of “well he says that, and acts that way, but it’ll be different once he’s in the White House.” Sometimes it’s not just an undertone, and they actually say things to that effect.
Maybe it is just an act, and McCain hasn’t really gone nutjob far right and he isn’t really a crazy war hawk. Maybe in the White House, after all the campaigning is over, we’d see the old John McCain, and he’d be a great president. But right now, the John McCain on the campaign trail has embraced the far right, pandered to the base with his tax cuts and his choice of a rightwing nutjob VP, called for us to be in Iraq indefinitely, and mocked the idea of diplomacy with our enemies. Maybe it’s an act, but I’m not willing to take that chance.
Derek, thanks for following up to my reply.
I agree with you that McCain has gone from being a maverick to a “standard Republican,” at least in appearance. He is pandering to the right by changing his stance on some issues. I also agree that his campaign has been more negative than necessary. When the election is over and we look back to see why McCain lost, I think those reasons will be right up there at the top. I wish my issues were represented by a better candidate (the 2000 McCain included). While I may not like McCain, I agree with him on too many issues, and disagree with Obama on too many.
While you may think it’s crazy, I too think the old “mavericky” McCain would make an appearance if elected. Presidential candidates have a long history of not keeping promises made while campaigning. Obama claims to be a supporter of the Second amendment. If elected, I fully expect him to start banning guns left and right. His voting record says he will. He says he supports the Second amendment because he correctly believes an openly anti-gun candidate can’t be elected. McCain’s pandering is no different. I fully expect him to go back to his maverick ways if elected. It doesn’t make it right, but it’s the way it is. I will admit that McCain seems to be pandering on more issues than Obama. (Democrats naturally pander, being the “party of the people” and all, so it’s not fair to count middle class tax cuts and those sorts of things. :)
Again, I agree that McCain’s healthcare plan is not particularly elegant, but Obama’s plan is unrealistic and too reliant on the government to get things right.
As mentioned above, I believe Obama is truly radical when it comes to guns. He supports the “assault weapon ban,” which essentially bans guns that “look mean.” (No, really, look it up.) He supports nearly complete gun bans like those in Chicago and Washington, D.C. He’s against concealed carry permits, among many other things. I’d love to be wrong about this, but I don’t think I am. Time will tell.
I believe that we are currently spending enough money to have a good educational system. We’re just spending the money incorrectly. (I’m not opposed to some additional funding, but I also don’t believe we’re drastically underfunding it.) I think that a school that just took vouchers, requiring no additional money from the parents, would be a perfectly adequate school. If not, it would go out of business and a better one would take its place. Vouchers would create huge demand for good schools that took just vouchers. Most people don’t want to pay additional money for their child’s education.
However, as someone who perhaps does have slightly more disposable income than most people, I think I should be able to supplement the voucher with additional money to allow my kids to have an education that is above and beyond “adequate.” Think robotics courses, field trips to DC, etc. I’m certainly not rich enough to throw away the portion of my taxes that goes toward education, which is what would happening if I had to completely pay for a private school out of pocket.
> As mentioned above, I believe Obama is truly radical when it comes to guns. He supports the “assault weapon ban,” which essentially bans guns that “look mean.” (No, really, look it up.) He supports nearly complete gun bans like those in Chicago and Washington, D.C. He’s against concealed carry permits, among many other things. I’d love to be wrong about this, but I don’t think I am. Time will tell.
I agree one hundred percent on this. The assault weapons ban is idiotic. His stances for gun bans and against concealed carry are at least borderline unconsitutional. I wish I could get a candidate that I agreed with 100%, but that’s not going to happen, so I’ve got to go with who I think is the best option.
As for vouchers, I think we’ll just have to disagree. I believe if vouchers took off, we’d see better funded private schools and poorly funded (and poorly performing) public schools. I can’t envision a scenario that would result in voucher-only schools being competitive with voucher+fee schools. I think if that were possible, we’d have seen it in the states that already do vouchers.
What’s up with the comment order? You last comment was posted before my last one. :\
[...] case you’ve missed it, there’s some excellent political discussion going on in the comments of a previous post. The comments are in response to this post. Yes, I had to beg for comments, but it [...]
If we had vouchers, there would be a strong market for schools, especially in areas where the public schools were inadequate. Most people don’t want to pay more for education over and above what they pay in taxes. Therefore, the majority of that market would be for schools that don’t require extra payment. Entrepreneurs would fill that need. It seems like simple economics to me.
Also, I don’t know of any cases where vouchers have been implemented “correctly” on a wide scale.
Comment order should be fixed now. WordPress doesn’t handle Daylight Saving Time automatically. In between my comment and your comment I had changed the time offset from UTC.
> Most people don’t want to pay more for education over and above what they pay in taxes.
Ben, I don’t know anyone who feels that way. You yourself said you would pay extra. I don’t believe there are any good parents that wouldn’t pay a little extra if it meant their children would get a good education. The only people who wouldn’t pay extra are those that either don’t care or can’t afford it. I’m sure that’ll drive the quality of the voucher-only schools to great heights. :\
I don’t see how entrepreneurs would fill the need for good, cheap schools. As it is now, private schools cost a fortune, pay their teachers less, and generally *still* depend on additional outside funding (donations, often from churches . . .). Entrepreneurship hasn’t managed to make private schools cost effective. I see no reason why they would make voucher-only schools work.
One last comment on the subject of McCain changing when he gets in office: Ask yourself, if McCain went back on everything he’d promised, ditched the far right, adopted diplomacy, and actually did an excellent job as president, what’s one thing that wouldn’t change? His VP.
Sarah Palin has virtually no experience. She’s clearly ignorant on most issues. She’s crazy far right. She’s so inept that they won’t let her do a press conference. Palin running the country could be disastrous. McCain, a 72 year old presidential candidate, picked one of the least qualified VP candidates we’ve ever seen, for purely political reasons. His choice of Palin brings his judgment into serious doubt, but that doesn’t scare me nearly as much as what would happen if he were to die in office. The idea of President Palin is, by itself, enough for me to vote against McCain.
Don’t forget, you aren’t voting McCain or Obama. You’re voting McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden. If Obama dies in office, we get an experienced, capable leader who says he’ll follow Obama’s plans for America. If McCain dies in office, we’ll get an inexperienced, fundamentalist woman who says that as a “maverick”, she’ll do her own thing.
Derek, I agree with your previous comment. We’re just going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
A disturbingly large portion of parents could care less about their child’s education. An even larger percentage would be happy with the adequate education provided by a voucher-funded school.
Private schools haven’t caught on because they’re too expensive. Most parents can’t afford to send their kids to private schools precisely because they’re already paying taxes to support public schools. Vouchers would create a market for private schools that didn’t previously exist.
I’m afraid I’m beginning to repeat myself. I’ve enjoyed the debate, and I’m glad we can disagree and still keep things civil.
I’ll grant you that Palin has done nothing but harm the ticket. I liked her in the beginning, but she continues to get more extreme. She was definitely a bad choice. I have no qualms with someone that considers her a reason to vote for Obama. However, at the end of the day, I still agree with her more than I do with Obama. That, and I’m hoping McCain can make it four more years. :)
> I still agree with her more than I do with Obama.
Seriously? I can understand you preferring McCain to Obama, but preferring Palin to Obama? What has Palin done or said that you agree with, aside from gun rights?
She instated a windfall profits tax against the oil companies in Alaska. She pushed for the “bridge to nowhere” until it wasn’t politically popular anymore. She couldn’t name a single supreme court case aside from Roe v. Wade. She couldn’t name a single newpaper she’s ever read. She stated, in a debate, that she supports teaching creationism in schools. She claimed the “troopergate” probe vindicated her of any wrongdoing, when it did the exact opposite. She supports capital punishment. What is it that you like about her again?
By the way, I agree with you in that I hope McCain will live four more years (and more). I don’t think he’s a bad man. I just don’t think he’s the man we should have as president. I hope we’ll see the return of the old McCain after today.
If Palin was the Republican nomination I might have to reevaluate, but she’s not, thankfully. Obama is wrong on a lot of the issues I care about, and I’m just not going to get past that.
A lot of people tried to fault her for trying to get earmarks for her city and state. I can’t see any problem with that. She would have been negligent if she hadn’t tried every funding source available. However, now that she is possibly in a position to change the wasteful practice of earmarks, she’s standing up against them. I don’t see a contradiction there.
Ben, I listed 7 things that about Palin that are alarming to me, and should be to you as well. You can ignore the earmarks and you’re still left with 6 reasons why Palin is scary. (I agree that the earmarks themselves are not a major problem. A larger problem is that she has consistently lied and claim she “stopped” the bridge to nowhere.)
It basically sounds like you don’t like Palin, but for some reason you’ve decided that Obama is somehow worse. Obama is, at the very least, a very capable man. He’s demonstrated that throughout this campaign. Palin has demonstrated instead that she’s ignorant on many issues, a fundamentalist Christian, and if the troopergate stuff is any indication, petty and vindictive. I don’t know how you could prefer that to Obama. You also still seem to be ignoring the fact that she *is* the nomination. People voting for McCain are voting for Palin to take the second-highest office in the nation. The possibility of President Palin is not insignificant.
I don’t think we are going to agree on this, though. If you can look at Palin and Obama and pick Palin, I don’t think anything I can say would sway you.
I agree that Palin is inexperienced and was a poor choice for Vice-President. I don’t have many issues with Obama the man. I have plenty of issues with his positions. I just can’t vote for him. McCain-Palin is the only other option.
I agree that Palin handled the “Bridge to Nowhere” situation badly. She should have simply pointed out that she had an obligation to get money for her state.
Yes, I disagree with her on most of the issues you pointed out, but those issues aren’t that important to me. I outlined the issues that are important to me in my post the other day. On those issues, I agree with McCain-Palin. Yes, we will just have to agree to disagree.
By the way, what newspapers do you read? Do you consider yourself well informed?
> By the way, what newspapers do you read? Do you consider yourself well informed?
Honestly, I get my news from CNN, primarily. And I consider myself moderately well informed. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but I’m not a mayor, a governor, or a vice presidential candidate. Those who want to control the country’s direction have an obligation to make themselves well-informed.
It’s not so alarming that should doesn’t read a ton of papers, but that she couldn’t even name one. She could have named an Alaskan paper and pretended that she read it. It’s not like she has moral qualms about stretching the truth.
> I have plenty of issues with his positions.
Ben, it really looks to me like you made up your mind about McCain vs Obama and then picked which issues were important to you, not the other way around. There are a lot of issues here, and you picked the handful where you agree with McCain. Since when have school vouchers been so important to you, as a parent with access to very good public schools? When did you become a massive nuclear energy proponent? When did the Bush tax cuts become something worth supporting? And when did Iraq stop mattering? The issues you picked are certainly important, but they don’t seem like they should be the only important issues.
I was mostly just picking at you with the newspaper comment.
Economic issues have been important to me for some time. Government spending and taxation, healthcare, and free trade are all economic issues. Vouchers are an economic solution to our educational problems. Energy can also be considered an economic issue.
I will admit that I have a Republican bias. However, I did give Obama a chance. However, I just can’t stomach his disregard for the free market, his income redistribution, or his stance on gun control.
I realized I didn’t fully address your comment.
In principle, I’m for any tax cut. Though I do agree now might not be the best time for them, unless they are accompanied by a reduction in spending. On the other hand, I absolutely detest Obama’s income redistribution plan.
Iraq has never been a big issue for me. Yes, it was a mistake. Yes, Bush managed it poorly. However, McCain and Obama’s plans for the war have steadily converged until they are nearly identical. That is, “Get the troops out as soon as possible, but not sooner.”
I do think it’s unfair to call it income redistribution, even though people on both sides refer to it in that fashion. It’s a tax redistribution certainly, but last I checked, I’m going to be paying taxes regardless of who wins. It’s just a question of whether I pay more or less taxes. People aren’t exactly going to end up with negative taxes under Obama’s plan.
I’m still undecided whether it’s better to have a tax cut right now or not. On the one hand, we’ve a massive deficit so cutting taxes makes it worse. On the other hand, we’re moving into a recession, and giving people a tax break might lessen the impact.
As for Iraq, my understanding is that McCain still hasn’t stated that he would even entertain the idea of a timetable, making his stance more like “Get the troops out . . . eventually.”
Instituting a tax increase on the rich at the same time as a tax cut for the middle class? I call that income redistribution.
Actually, Obama’s plan will provide a tax credit to some people who do not pay federal income taxes. See this article.
You’re right, tax cuts are a tough call. I prefer a moderate cut accompanied by a reduction in spending.
You’re right on Iraq. A little research shows that Obama hadn’t waffled as much as I had been led to believe. Obama says 16 months, McCain says as soon as possible. I have to believe McCain would have most of the troops out in 16 months because the war is so unpopular. It’s not a huge deal to me one way or the other.