Result: All votors: Provide health care: 67 percent; Hold down taxes: 27 percent.

And I’ll bet if you asked voters if they wanted the government to provide new BMW convertibles to everyone, or hold down taxes, they’d go with the new convertible, too.

It’s amazing what people want when they think someone else is footing the bill.

carlos.negros: Bottom line is that if we the people want to spend our taxes on health care rather than on funding evangelical colleges, no-bid contracts to Halliburton, unnecessary wars, pork, and all the other wasted things that government spends money on; it is up to the voter.

ALL private colleges – not just evangelical ones – receive federal funds of some sort. If you want to ban federal funds for ALL private colleges, that is fine (although good luck with that one), but to suggest that only evangelical colleges and universities are sucking at the federal teat is uninformed, at best.

If you don’t like evangelical colleges and universities – then don’t go to one. If you don’t want to support them with your tax dollars because you don’t believe in their mission or message, then I’m sure that you will extend a similar courtesy to those who don’t approve of what is taught in the public school system, or those who don’t like their tax dollars going to all-women’s colleges. Otherwise, no dice.

Qusus: For the bottom 80 percent of the population — those households making $118,000 or less — McCain’s various tax cuts would mean a net savings of about $200 a year on average. Obama’s proposals would bring $900 a year in savings. So for most people, Obama is the tax cutter in this campaign.”

Considering that the bottom 50 percent of the population pay NO federal income taxes, I wonder exactly how Senator Obama is going to reduce the taxes of people who already don’t pay any.

Oh, wait, we get to this:

Qusus: If there is a theme to the Obama tax philosophy, it’s that the tax code is not quite as progressive as you think it is. Most of the public discussion about taxes tends to focus on the income tax, which taxes the affluent at a considerably higher rate than anyone else.

Considering that those other taxes support programs that are more likely to be used by those who pay those taxes, they SHOULD pay them.

Sorry, but I’m not going to support a program or an economic platform that allows people to further vote themselves benefits and more government programs while sticking the bill to someone else, whether that someone else is the “rich” or “corporations.”

Qusus: If you don’t like that, or whatever other reason you don’t like Obama (his youth, the church he attended, his big ears, etc etc) that’s fine. After all, that is your prerogative in a democracy.

Actually, it’s his supporters who have trouble distinguishing between criticisms of his economic proposals and criticisms of the man himself. I’m amused that, on other sites (not this one, to be sure), criticizing his proposal to tax oil companies or his stance on gun control somehow makes one a racist or a “hater.”

Qusus: But please don’t hate him for things that simply aren’t true.

Who said anything about hating him? I think that his personal story is compelling. He is a good speaker, appears to be a decent husband and father, and is apparently liked by his constituents. In fact, since his constituents like him so much, I’d like to help them by keeping him right where he is…

z31 – do you really think Obama’s economic policy is to “tax everyone?”

“…he is proposing tax cuts for most families that are significantly larger than those McCain is offering, along with major tax increases for families making more than $250,000 a year.”

“The Tax Policy Center, a research group run by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, has done the most detailed analysis of the Obama and McCain tax plans, and it has published a series of fascinating tables. For the bottom 80 percent of the population — those households making $118,000 or less — McCain’s various tax cuts would mean a net savings of about $200 a year on average. Obama’s proposals would bring $900 a year in savings. So for most people, Obama is the tax cutter in this campaign.”

“If there is a theme to the Obama tax philosophy, it’s that the tax code is not quite as progressive as you think it is. Most of the public discussion about taxes tends to focus on the income tax, which taxes the affluent at a considerably higher rate than anyone else.

If you don’t like that, or whatever other reason you don’t like Obama (his youth, the church he attended, his big ears, etc etc) that’s fine. After all, that is your prerogative in a democracy. But please don’t hate him for things that simply aren’t true.

Result: All votors: Provide health care: 67 percent; Hold down taxes: 27 percent.

Bottom line is that if we the people want to spend our taxes on health care rather than on funding evangelical colleges, no-bid contracts to Halliburton, unnecessary wars, pork, and all the other wasted things that government spends money on; it is up to the voter. Call it socialism, buddism, aboriginalism, nudism or whatever. It is our right.

All governments regulate profits by taxation. That is far different than nationalization. If you do you understand the difference between these two things, I feel sorry for you.

If the government starts telling private industries how much profit they are allowed, you might as well nationalize them.

Just because Obama wants to solve the health care mess, that does not make him a socialist.

When he wants to tax everyone to make it happen, it sure as hell is socalism!

Healthcare is not a right.

Being raised by a single mother is not a career accomplishment. In fact of the four examples you list, only the last is a “career accomplishment”, and I agree wholeheartedly with his amazing race he ran against Clinton. By far, it has been his most noteworthy career accomplishment. Too bad there is nothing else in his 47 years of experience that is noteworthy. As a supporter of his, does this not disturb you?

Again, I understand the emotional appeal of Obama. It’s just that there’s little to back up anything other than that emotion. Well, unless you count his shady dealings with Rezko, his clearly dishonest recounting of his 20 year relationship with Rev. Wright and his unwillingness to come clean about why he’s as close as he is with Ayers. But I guess when one thinks in terms of donkeys and elephants, your side is 100% right and the other side, well, just isn’t.

McCain is the most flawed Republican candidate in recent memory, yet of the two, one can review McCain’s track record to review of fighting gov’t corruption (see Boeing) and an unusually frankness regarding gov’t handouts (see corn farmers and what McCain told them when speaking to them). And you can do that without name calling, too!

I don’t believe McCain’s military record means much as far as how he would lead, but it does lend itself to understanding that the guy is committed to serving.

Obama’s health plan attempts to cover everyone, but it is not like Romney’s plan which forced individuals to buy insurance. Just because Obama wants to solve the health care mess, that does not make him a socialist. If it does, then 70 percent of Americans are socialist.

But that is what elections are for.

I guess when you run out of things to say, just compare your oppenent to Hitler.

Bluecon, you have repeated your National Socialist thing a few times. Read a book.

I would’t go by the names so much. The former Communist East Germany referred to itself as the GDR, short for the German Democratic Republic.

But I suppose to you that just proves Democrats are communists.

I concede, it’s definitely socialist.

Democrat Barack Obama is offering a sweeping plan that would provide every citizen a means to have health coverage and calls on government, businesses and consumers to share the costs of the program.

http://www.barackobama.com/2007/05/29/obama_offers_universal_health.php

Making oil companies pay for drilling on public lands instead of letting them drill and take the oil to china to sell is now confiscating oil profits?

No, a windfall profits tax to redistribute $1000 vote buying checks is:

Enact a Windfall Profits Tax to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families.

Obama will enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give American families an immediate $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families pay rising bills. This relief would be a down payment on Obama’s long-term plan to provide middle-class families with at least $1,000 per year in permanent tax relief.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy_more#relief

It’s all right on his website.

Well, Hitler was the leader of the National Socialist Labor Party. Quite a similarity.

The confiscating oil profits is probably a socialist thing though. Or Marxist?”

It might help the discussion if you had your facts straight.

Obama’s health plan involves VOLUNTARY parcipitation in health INSURANCE. Nowhere does he mention nationalization of the healthcare sector.

Making oil companies pay for drilling on public lands instead of letting them drill and take the oil to china to sell is now confiscating oil profits?

McCain, on the other hand, wants to give an additional $4Bil in tax breaks to the oil industry. That is not change. That is more of the same.

Oh come on, now we’re calling Obama a fascist?

Correct, nationalizing private industry (healthcare) is more of a fascist thing.

The confiscating oil profits is probably a socialist thing though. Or Marxist?

At least McCains stupid oil-rebate pandering was giving back tax money.

USA will be a third world country as soon as rest of the world stops bankrolling our spend-thrift idoticy and we won’t have the tools to recoup being intellectually, financially and organizationally bankrupt.

Trying to get some of them to look into non-automotive industries for employment. They won’t really even try; it’s like a strange paralysis.

Affirmative action? I would be happy to see the evidence. Otherwise, that seem like a racist red herring. His position as a lecturer was not one of publish or perish. He had another job in a law firm. Bottom line: I don’t think he will be signing any torture memos, asserting executive authority not mentioned in the Constitution, or outing any CIA covert agents (thus sentencing their contacts to possible death) to take revenge on a decorated Ambassador who happens to publically disagree with sexed-up intelligence for an unnecessary war.

He won some very important swing states such as Virgina, Missouri, Wisconsin, Colorado. But what is your point? As long as the votes are counted fairly and the Supreme Court doesn’t end up installing McCain as they did Bush, the country will accept the results. Winning the primary is the way we Democrats choose our candidate. You don’t have to vote for him but we will. The Republicans can choose their guys based on who their daddy was, or how much money and influence they have to sell. Romney would have provided a clearer choice for the country; but since the Repubs have a religious test for their nominee, that wasn’t possible.

I have not seen any quid pro quo with Rezko. Perhaps you can provide the evidence. Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald was unable to.

What Obama’s pastor has to do with the question of which of the two candidates is more self made, escapes me. Perhaps mentioning his pastor and McCain’s time as a prisoner is the boilerplate reponse for every argument?

Also, I have seen no evidence that Obama is either a Socialist or a Pacifist. Again, please provide your evidence. Otherwise, pehaps this is is just another case of Repub fear and smear?

I really don’t see how any of Dubya’s “executive experience” paid off in the last eight years. I think that particular part of the job requirement may be overblown.

McCain is just too old, tired, confused and cantankerous to be President. But, who knows? Only Diebold.

Well, there’s a hard choice.

Ford had the humility and wherewithal to bring in capable, external management–albeit when when things are nearly untenable–while Wagoner rearranges deck chairs on the Titanic and his staff try to convince people that the water leaking in is just a perception issue.

Lecturing on constitutional law – yet, no one can remember any contribution he made to the improvement of the law, either at Chicago or at Harvard. Did he get there on affirmative action? Was he a LEO admitee? Bottom line on this – if those are credentials, then they’re really opportunities squandered. Not one law review article, either while on the review or while at Chicago.

Winning the Senate seat – wow!! He won after the Republican nominee withdrew. In fact, every election Obama has ever won has been, essentially, uncontested – except, of course, his primary victories for President. But, he didn’t win any of the really important, populous states, the ones he’s going to have to carry to get elected. Hillary won all of those. Obama won the nomination by appealing to his core constituency, the far left of the party. Ad did McGovern.

Being a self-made man: Gotta concede, that’s true. Obama never hired anyone in an actual business, but he sure knew how to make himself popular with his pastor, with his benefactor Refko, and with the Chicago political machine. But, Chicago has a lot of self-made men in its history. That’s not exactly a recommendation.

That’s not to say McCain’s perfection, either. McCain’s a flake. Obama’s predictable – he’s a socialist pacifist, and it is always easy to anticipate his reaction to anything. McCain’s a game of chance, who seems to define his positions in terms of being different from those of anyone else.

Both of these guys appear ready to buy the votes of those in Michigan – with our money – and it appears neither of them will be called to account for the likely consequences.

It’s sorta like having to choose between Rick Wagnoner and Bill Ford, Jr. for President.

Top 4

1) He is a self made man. Not the child of a great admiral, as is Johm McCain, but the child of a single mother who raised him on food stamps. He went to Columbia and Harvard Law. Obviously, a hard worker.

2) Lecturing in Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School. This is important to me, as I feel the current administration has not protected and defended the Constitution. I want a President who KNOWS the Constitution.

3)Winning the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois, population 12,831,970 (2006 census). Compare that to Sarah Pallin, who won a statewide election in a state with a population of 670,053.

4) Winning the Democratic Nomination over all the other candidates including Hillary Clinton. Obama has shown he can lead, influence, communicate, organize and do all those other things necessary to be a leader. He can defeat his opponents in politics. Being the President is a political position, not simply an executive position, or a military position.

What has McCain accomplished? Yes he was a POW. If we were to release an Afghan prisoner from Gitmo, does that quality him to run Afghanistan?

Has he ever done anything except politics or working for his father-in-law? McCain, was unfaithful to his first wife, snubbing her after she had an auto accident and was handicapped. What does that say about him? He was involved in the Keating Five scandal and took free trips from a man later convicted of fraud. What does that say about him? His immigration reform bill was rejected, his cap and trade bill was rejected. He wrote a campaign finance bill that specifically allowed him to use his spouse’s airplane in the campaign. His support for Bush’s tax cuts will possibly net him a great deal on money. He is very old and does not know geography, referring to Czechoslovakia, Al Queda in Iran, the Iraq Pakistan border and other blunders. He selects for VP a woman who fired her state public safety officer because he refused to fire her sister’s husband, who happened to be a state trooper. That remindes me of how Cheney abused power with Valerie Plame. That’s not change, that is more abuse of power as we have seen over the last eight years.

I feel the gov’t should not make these loans unless the stipulation is put in that the top 5 layers of management be shit canned if they have 5+ years with the company (this would protect Mullaly who I think will help Ford).

For starters, Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review. That’s at least an indication of some serious brains and work. McCain on the other hand barely made it through the Naval Academy. After he did graduate, 5th from the bottom of his class, he did poorly as an aviator crashing several planes due to poor judgment and preparation. McCain’s father was a 4-star admiral, so the skids were greased for him to succeed. McCain is a lot like W; seemingly stuck with some need to better his old man but unwilling to put in the work. So they’ve both relied on being con men.

Long article in the Wash. Post yesterday on McCain:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/30/AR2008083001786.html

I guess you are smarter than most and an Evelyn Wood speed reader graduate and you were able to read and comprehend that massive stack of papers thrown in front of you at your closing/refi. Sorry, but most people are going to expect something from their attorney in terms of service besides a bill when they go to close. The lending practices were so deceptive and predatory that it was disgraceful. Another classic example of why certain aspects of the economic world simply cannot be left to “the market.” Strong, tight regulations are a must when there is too much temptation for the fat cats to rape the middle class. Yeah, a few knew what they were doing and said “screw the future, live for now,” but the vast majority of people put faith (or were pressured) in their lenders and attorneys and got f–ked big time.

Neither of our presidential candidates are the answer to what ails this country. But be careful of the temptation of the third party vote. This is what put the 2000 election into hanging chad/butterfly ballot distance to George Bush.

97escort: Spot on!!