Finally an article on the truth of Obama's big tax cuts and plans...sm

• Obama's 95% Illusion....sm - ms
  • Good luck trying to convince O lovers they;re - being lied to and screwed over
    • ALL Americans are being lied to and screwed over - - It's the 'American way'.
    • Never was an O lover, but was leaning towards O - until -- sm
      • The thing that sucks about this election - Chele
  • So basically the poorer I stay - sbMT
    • The poorer you stay, the happier Obama becomes - good luck paying for EVERYBODY else!
    • So much for the American dream. - Chele
    • heck, why work? - nm
      • So you can pay for all those free handouts to - to those who don't!!!! NM
  • Right on the money Sista!! Thank you!! - PSJ
  • Thank you for posting this -- sm - was leaning to the left
  • Thank you for posting this. - Chele
  • Finally an article on the truth of Obama's big tax cuts and plans...sm - indy
    • Maybe that's because your "article" - is an opinion piece. nm
      • Facts are always called opinions by the left when they refuse to acknowledge them...sm - indy
    • I posted this story all over this board yesterday - and still called a liar.......sm
      • I know what you mean. A vote for O is like a vote to - giving up the American Dream..so sad.nm
        • Well, yeah, with a socialist state and the whole - country on welfare, who will want to work hard?nm
          • What a gloom way to look at things... - sm
            • Dont you get it?! Businesses WILL go overseas - with O in office because of higher taxes on them!n
              • actually he says he will tax credit them for keeping jobs here... nm - Amanda

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

I never believed that BO's plans would work to benefit our country, but now he can't even start his plans if he is elected.  This economy is too out of wack and the government has NO money.  So how does Barry expect to keep his promises he has made during his campaign?  We can't afford more government programs.  It just is not possible.  So much for that hope he keeps talking about.

I admit that the promise of change is an attractive idea, but I have yet to hear any "plan" of Barry's that will actually bring change worth voting for.  Voting for him initially would have raised government spending and taxes.  Now that the country is in deep financial crisis....what does he propose now?  I haven't heard much of significance out of him to suggest he really will bring about change....or I should say change for the better.

CHANGE WE CAN FEAR.....Barrack Hussein Obama

This article comes from a magazine hubby gets. They keep their finger on the nation's highways and construction.

http://www.equipmentworldmagazine.com/apps/news/articleeqw.asp?id=75989

will be the one to further hurt our country.  However, if I am wrong (and if O wins I hope I am wrong), I will give Obama credit if and when it is due.  Until then, I stand by what I believe.  Raising taxes during a financial crisis like this will ruin us.  Taxing businesses more will only make our products and services cost more which WE will pay for.  And as much money as Obama is wanting the government to spend on his programs, he will have to tax more than the rich to cover his expenses.

Cut taxes and cut government spending!!!!  Not the other way around.

I just heard a little speech on the news at a rally made by the O. All of a sudden, he seems to be mirroring McC's ideas about regulation, the bail out, etc. I noticed him saying things before (and after the debate) that McC had first campaigned for, but didn't say anything because I really thought I was hearing things.

Now I'm flipping channels to see if I can hear this again.

So - you think it's impressive that Obama plans to ask his department heads to cut $100,000,000 from their budgets?  Let's put aside for a moment the question of why he's asking them for cuts at all when he's the one who says that MORE government spending is the solution to our economic crisis.

Obama is crowing about this because he knows that Americans don't know how to translate "huge" numbers into percentages, and also that Americans have grown used to hearing numbers in the $trillions.  I mean - millions, billions, trillions all sound pretty much alike!   Let's prove him wrong, shall we?

If Obama were asking for $100 million to be cut from a $3.5 billion budget, it would represent 1/35th of that budget.  1/35 is about 2.86%.  So even on a $3.5 billion budget this wouldn't be much.

But wait.  Obama's budget is $3.5 TRILLION, which is 1000 times larger. (A trillion is 1000 times larger than a billion.)  Conversely, that makes $100 million a thousand times smaller of a percentage of the budget.  In other words, we're not even talking about 2.86%, but one-thousandths of 2.86%.  Here's what that looks like:   0.00286%.

In other words, if Obama made NEW cuts of $100,000,000 from his budget every day for over 300 days, he still wouldn't have even cut 1% from his budget.  So you may now be forgiven if you're underwhelmed by Obama's $100 million budget cut. 

 It's kinda like someone crowing about how they've reduced their carbon footprint by disconnecting their doorbell.  And this little object lesson showing how little $100,000,000 is compared to Mr. Obama's budget also gives you a little bit better idea just how disgustingly gargantuan his budget really is.

Some need to pay close attention to this.........  it's called welfare handouts.  "Entitled mentality".  The working class will get NO tax cuts.  You all will be working to put money in the hands of those that do not.  It makes perfectly good sense.  I've been saying there is no way he can do anything he is leading people to believe he can because 1/3 of people in this country pay NO TAXES.   He has led so many to believe he will cut middle class when he can't.  He is blatantly trying to disguise "government handouts" as "tax credits".   You want your hard earned money going to everyone who doesn't bother to work? 

One of Barack Obama’s most potent campaign claims is that he’ll cut taxes for no less than 95% of “working families.” He’s even promising to cut taxes enough that the government’s tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2% — which is lower than it is today.

It’s a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he’s also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of “tax cut.”

For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase “tax credit.” Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals[.]

for the rich -- and "rich," by the way, is anyone earning more than a quarter of a million dollars a year.

Obama wants to give tax CREDITS to businesses that keep jobs in the USA, instead of exporting them out of the country.

These huge greedy corporations may be creating jobs, but they're not creating American jobs.  Obama wants to try to slow that down and wants to reward companies who don't turn their backs on Americans.

The BBC is very liberal, so this is quite shocking!

 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7700913.stm
 

Viewpoint: The case against Obama
Peter Wehner
Former deputy assistant to President Bush

If the polls hold, the American people will elect Barack Obama as their 44th president.
He is a man of prodigious political talents who exudes grace, equanimity and self-possession. He is unflappable, possesses a first-rate mind, and is capable of inspiring rhetoric.
And he would be a very bad choice for president.
On the most important issue he has confronted as a legislator, the surge of forces in Iraq, Senator Obama was a harsh critic.
His opposition to President Bush's new strategy was wrong.
Much worse is the fact that Obama continued to oppose the surge at every stage, even after it was obviously succeeding.
To this day, even as he finally concedes the surge has "succeeded beyond our wildest imagination," Obama insists his opposition to the surge was correct.
Senator Obama's view is that a defeat in Iraq would somehow help our efforts in Afghanistan.
Indeed, if Obama had had his way, all American combat troops would have been withdrawn from Iraq by March 2008, which would have led to civil war and genocide; an unprecedented victory for al-Qaeda and Islamic jihadists; and a boon to Iran.
This fact is, by itself, a shattering indictment to Obama's judgement, and in the area that is the most important responsibility of a president: his duties as commander-in-chief.
Extreme liberalism
I suspect, too, that Obama will, as his running mate has said, invite an international challenge early on.
Obama appears to be a man who dodges conflict and hard decisions; the result may be dangerous displays of indecision and weakness.
Beyond that is the fact that Senator Obama, while exuding a centrist style and employing soothing rhetoric, has amassed a record that places him on the extreme left end of our political spectrum, whether the subject is taxes, trade, healthcare, the size and role of the federal government, the federal courts, missile defence, or virtually any other policy area.
In fact, Senator Obama has been judged by the non-partisan National Journal as the most liberal member of the Senate.
His record as an Illinois state senator is, if anything, more troubling. He opposed legislation that would have prevented infanticide against children who had survived abortion attempts.
Senator Obama has presented himself as a post-partisan figure. Once again, however, his record belies his claim.
He is among the most reliably partisan voters the Democrats have.
He has not opposed the special interest groups of his party on a single important issue. And he has no impressive bipartisan achievements to his credit.
Senator Obama is, in short, an orthodox partisan, a man of left-leaning instinct who has - through the power of his rhetoric, head-snapping shifts in his position, and the attractiveness of his personality - won people over.
Race card
Even Senator Obama's claim of being a practitioner of a "new politics" is fraudulent.

Much of what Obama has presented about himself is a mirage - an impressive one for sure, but a mirage nonetheless

He has run ads about Senator McCain's position on healthcare, social security, immigration, and the Iraq war that are demonstrably false.
After saying he would never do such a thing, Obama and his supporters have employed the "race card" in a disturbing fashion - with Obama warning that key Republicans would use the fact that he's black against him, and later saying that George Bush and John McCain were going to try to frighten voters by saying Obama has "a funny name" and "doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills" (both claims are untrue).
And Senator Obama's intimate 20-year relationship with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright - an anti-American extremist - is troubling.
It reinforces the sense that much of what Obama has presented about himself is a mirage - an impressive one for sure, but a mirage nonetheless.
And even if you were inclined to believe that Senator Obama will govern as a centrist - a questionable claim, given his record - the Democratic Party will hold a commanding position in the House and Senate.
Speaker Pelosi and majority leader Reid and their committee chairmen - many of them partisan, ideological, and ruthless - will exert enormous pressure on Obama to move left.
From all we know about him, Senator Obama will not resist it or defy them. And that, in turn, will lead to overreach.
Which is why even though next Tuesday will be a difficult day for Republicans and conservatives, the wise ones will understand that our moment will come again, and perhaps sooner than we think.
Our task is to be ready.
VIEWPOINTS
Peter Wehner is a former deputy assistant to President George W Bush, and currently a senior fellow at the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center. This is one of a series of comment and opinion pieces published on the BBC News website in the run-up to the US election.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/7700913.stm

Congress has looked at the Big 3's plans to cut costs in order to "qualify" for a bailout, the amount of which has now grown to $34B.  Nancy Pelosi seems to be in favor, so my bet is they will get it. 

Some of the concessions the auto makers are ready to make is slashing the executive pay, getting rid of executive bonuses, postponing employee merit raises for next year, suspending health care payments into a union health care plan, and possibly getting rid of the controversial job banks. 

Ford said they only wanted a standby line of credit with the government in case the other two go belly up.  GM seems to be the one hurting the most. 

I really have to wonder, will a bailout REALLY help or will it just postpone the inevitable with the rest of the economy dying the way it is???? 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97737508&ft=1&f=1001

I've been researching other candidates and their plans.

On the Dem side - Kucinich has a plan for only one insurance provider to everyone.  Sends all the bloodsucking insurance companies and their "preexisting conditions" and "not medically necessary" straight out of business.  I kinda like that plan, as I used to do billing and it would sure cut through a ton of red tape for doctors, hospitals, their staff and the patients.

On the Rep side - Huckabee has a plan that does away with employers providing insurance.  That's kind of scary, as "pooling" to get better insurance rates has always been the cheaper way to go.

But any plan I've seen doesn't worry me as much as Hillary's!

Anybody else who has heard of a candidate with a good plan, please chime in!

I thought I was the only one who knew this.  If tax cuts expire, we get honked!  Duh!  That's more $ out of our pockets! 

Can someone explain why they want to have a lower salary?  All I ever hear around here is how our paychecks continue to dwindle.  If Obama gets elected, plan on an even smaller check!

How can this be so hard to figure out?

Address poverty?  Restore the every diminishing quality of life for the middle class?  Mortgage industry?  Predatory lending/credit card practices?  Balanced budget?  Reduced debt?  Tax reform?  Create jobs?  Outsourcing?  Minimum wage?  Protect Social Security?  Workers' unions?  Small busineses?  Corporate corruption?  Free trade?  Clean up the environment?  Alternative energies?  Fuel efficiency?  Clean elections?  Special interests?  Federal contract earmarks?  Patriot Act?  Ending the War?  Restoring alliances?  Global diplomacy?  Separation of church and state?  Just curious. 

how can you ever vote for the RIGHT candidate?

The Federal Reserve (Fed) has gone beyond playing with fire, and may have indeed set the house on fire. It’s one thing to push interest rates to near zero to stimulate the economy; it’s another to “monetize the debt” by printing money to buy government debt. In recent weeks, the Fed has broken outside even those boundaries and become actively engaged in managing the private sector beyond the core banking system. Worse still, the steps taken may be difficult to reverse and as such may shape the U.S. economy for a long time. These steps are taken with the best of intentions, to “save” the economy. The only trouble is that we may be on a slippery slope to destroying capitalism on the way. In “doing whatever it takes” to get the economy back on its feet, the Fed risks destroying the foundation of why the U.S. has been able to establish itself as the world’s leading economic force. Actively participating in credit allocation within the private sector, the Federal Reserve (Fed) jeopardizes the capitalist foundation the U.S. economy is built on. As a result of these actions, the U.S. may be on its way to becoming a modern incarnation of a planned economy.

Why these harsh words? To understand what is so frightening with recent Fed activity, consider that most central banks focus on interest rates, inflation and money supply to promote price stability (and maximum employment in the Fed’s case). Generally, they all influence credit creation by managing the cost of borrowing. Central banks may employ slightly different levers and targets; and while some central banks are better than others at achieving their goals, what they have in common is that they traditionally focus on government debt, mostly short-term Treasuries, to achieve their goals. This is very much by design as good central bank policy leads to an environment of price stability fostering long-term economic prosperity. On the other hand, bad central bank policy may lead to inflation, wide swings in economic activity or unnecessarily high unemployment. However, free market forces will push the private sector to make the best of it. It’s when policy makers start subsidizing ailing sectors of the economy that distortions are created that will come back to haunt us. Traditionally, for better or worse, elected officials decide on the socio-economic fabric of society. Now, the Fed decides which areas of the economy need to be propped up.

Creating Hysteria To Pursue Policies

The hysteria that has been created by policy makers and the media has allowed the Fed to pursue its recent unorthodox policies. In late September, the world financial system looked rather dire; the government was able to play a role to avoid a disorderly collapse; but the government’s role should have been limited to allowing an orderly adjustment of the excesses of the credit bubble. Instead, the latest salvo to promote the bailouts is that payrolls have dropped by the largest amount since World War II. This may be the case in absolute numbers as the population has grown, but more jobs were lost as a percentage of the workforce in a twelve month period in each of 1982, 1961, 1958, 1954, 1948/49; in many of the cases more than twice as many. Recessions are no fun, neither are personal or corporate bankruptcies; but they may be the cure needed to weed out the excesses of the boom. In contrast, today, hedge fund managers that ran their funds into the ground are raising hundreds of millions of dollars to start anew. Some of the folks that ran Long Term Capital Management into the ground in 1998 started fresh only to have another massive failure in the current credit crisis. We don’t expect the new breed of second chances to be any better. And while the blame lies with the managers, excessively low interest rates contribute to irrational risk taking: all of the bailouts focus on those who have been over-leveraged. What about the group of responsible savers that rely on income? With interest rates near zero, many are tempted to engage in highly leveraged strategies to meet their required income objectives. Pension funds “must” return 6% per year, leaving them little leeway but to give money to hedge fund managers to magically turn 1% yields into 20% returns; the way to achieve this is with leverage. Actually, there is another way: the Swiss public pension fund system just announced that it will scale down its long-term return objective to 4% from its current 6% per annum.

Giving Credit Where No Credit is Due

In late December, the Fed Board of Governors approved GMAC’s application to become a bank. The vote was 4-1, and the one board member with experience as a bank regulator, Elizabeth Duke, dissented. There was another hurdle: GMAC, General Motors’ finance arm, did not have sufficient capital to be a bank. That problem was solved, too, in early January, as the Treasury injected $5 billion into GMAC; the Treasury also GM $1 billion, so that GM could inject that money into GMAC. Equipped now with a minimum capital base, GMAC is able to operate as a bank, go to the Fed to access the TARP program, as well as other regular and emergency Fed windows.

In December, car sales fell off the cliff. But it wasn’t only GM that had problems; even Toyota that had access to credit and introduced zero percent financing, recorded a 37% plunge in sales (unlike other car makers, Toyota has traditionally not offered zero percent financing). Shell-shocked consumers are worried about their jobs and have lost a substantial amount of their net worth in 2008; further, incentive programs prior to the bursting of the credit bubble lured consumers into 6-year loans with zero percent financing. Consumers simply don’t want or need a car right now. Policy makers take this as a reason to provide money to GMAC that pursues a business model proven to be ruinous: it simply doesn’t make sense to offer cars at 0% if interest rates are above that, even if they are “close to zero” as they are now. GMAC takes money from the Treasury to be able to request more from the Fed. And the first course of business for GMAC is to extend zero percent financing to consumers with lower credit ratings than had traditionally qualified.

Difficult to Unwind: Long Term Inflation Likely

The Fed is only ramping up its mission to allocate credit where the Fed – rather than the free market - deems it appropriate. A major program announced in the fourth quarter, but rolled out in early January consists of a $500 billion program to buy mortgage-backed securities (MBS). The perceived positive is the plummeting of mortgage rates. Consumers with superb credit now qualify for 30-year mortgages at less than 5%. One problem with such programs is that the Fed intentionally inflates prices (lowers the yields) on these securities; in turn, rational market participants may abstain from buying them. As a result the Fed risks replacing private sector activity, rather than encouraging it. Furthermore, the Fed jeopardizes the dollar as foreigners may be discouraged from buying U.S. government and agency security debt; given that the U.S. has become dependent on foreigners to finance its spending needs as well as the unprecedented debt that will be financed in 2009. This is a very dangerous road to be on.

The Fed may be able to phase out its commercial paper subsidy program or drain liquidity from the TARP program over time; however, the $500 billion MBS program may be difficult, if not impossible to unwind. Indeed, the design of the MBS program calls for holding of the securities until maturity. For practical purposes, this means that the Fed’s balance sheet is not just “temporarily” inflated, but that the Fed will permanently keep more money in the economy. Traditionally, the Fed’s balance sheet is $900 billion. Therefore, even if one gives the Fed the benefit of the doubt that the current escalation to over $2 trillion is temporary, there will be a significant hangover as not all additions can easily be removed. This doesn’t even consider that, quite likely, the MBS purchase program may need to be extended beyond the 6-month period it was put in place for. Watch for bond manager Bill Gross this June, calling for the Fed to continue buying MBS, preferably the ones he has on the books, to save the economy from collapse. Incidentally, his firm, PIMCO, is one of the firms managing the Fed program.

To counter the effects of this added money in the economy, the Fed would need to keep interest rates permanently higher. One realistic alternative, however, is that the additional money will stay in the economy as draining it would cause too much economic hardship. This may well embed inflation into the U.S. economy for years to come. Importantly, note that there is little, if any, accountability at the Fed monitoring its actions; no one is there to ensure that the Fed will, at some point, phase out its programs or added powers.

Live Free Or Die

By engaging in credit allocation to specific sectors of the economy, the U.S. is stepping into a territory traditionally left to governments with a socialist or communist brand. Communism has shown us that planned economies don’t work. New Hampshire in 1945 added the slogan “Live Free or Die” to its state emblem, a quote stemming from a general in the Revolutionary war. Translated to the economic crisis, this should mean that a severe recession ought to be the lesser evil than a planned economy. And to continue the parallel, when communism swept Eastern Europe, the standard of living for everyone dropped. In today’s world, we already see that the “re-failure” rate of those who defaulted, then renegotiated their teaser rate loans, is above 50%. Yet all taxpayers have to pay the price for the bailouts.

To be sure, we are a far cry from communism. But we must keep our eyes open and not be blinded by the perceived “help” of money printed by the Fed. Debt is the origin, not the solution to the problems we face. The Declaration of Independence’s “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” may be difficult to achieve when drowned in debt; building sustainable wealth without the shackles of debt may be the more appropriate path. It’s not by mistake that the Founding Fathers be backed by a precious metal that cannot be inflated to give in to the temptation of the day.