Looking for intelligent insight (health care, vote, salary, campaign)

[tkemery]

I am looking for some intelligent insight. I am NOT looking for the finger pointing, name calling, racist accusing comments that I have seen in other threads.

I want to make an intelligent choice for this election. I will agree that Obama is a great speaker. He is charasmatic and eloquent. Given that, I went to his website and looked at his plans for America. I read the actual text of some of his speeches. Not the media excerpts but the actual text of some of his speeches, for example his so called race speech.

The insight I need is this:

1) How does he intend to pay for all his programs? If you total up the money, it is astounding. If he intends to pay for it by taking it from big business, there will soon be no business, then no jobs.

2) How can a government tell a company how to run its business and how much profit it can be allowed to make?

3) While he, in the one speech I read, says he disagrees with racist angry things that his pastor said, he also seems to be saying in that speech that it was justified.

4) In the same speech, he seems to be saying blaming the plights of black american on the whites. He talks more government paid programs to better their lives. But is this just not more of the same.

5) While I will not disagree that, however covert or not, there may still be instances of racsim, where is he promoting personal responsibility?

6) Affirmative action was/is necessary. However, at what point to we also balance that with white, or non black, individuals losing out.

These are just some of the questions I have. There are others, but I struggle to find a Obama supporter who will have a intelligent, fact based conversation. I for one, however naive, am tired of the name calling and hatred.

Off to review the McCain site and speeches, will have questions for that to post soon......

[Slash83]

By getting rid of the department of energy and the department of education. That's exactly how he'll fund all of that.

[Widowmaker2k]

Well, I'm not an Obama supporter, so I can't really answer for their camp. In my opinion, however, FDR established the 'spend now/pay later' mentality that has become one of the fundamental flaws of our modern political climate. Neither 'side' is immune to it, and in many ways, the Republicans have abandoned traditional conservative values which has led many to become disillusioned with both major parties. There is an elegant solution to the problem: embrace free market competition. When the government steps in with excessive taxation to fund their overbearing regulations and pervasive (yet deceptively impotent and corrupt) social programs, the means become so complicated and bastardized that the ends are completely unjustifiable, and in most cases, completely unattainable. For example, in South Florida, there have been reports of South American cartels switching their primary operations from drug smuggling to medicare fraud (which has become a 60 billion dollar industry), because it is more profitable and less risky. The root cause of this is that government programs hold no accountability, and often are given a monopoly on their industry. Free markets are always accountable to profit, and thus are ultimate system of checks and balances.

As for affirmative action, it seems that most folks have accepted the fact that it is a broken idea and itself a form of institutionalized racism, and racism begets racism. Whenever you advance or hinder the opportunity of a person based on the color of their skin (or gender, religion, etc.), you open the door for racial infighting and distrust. We can never get over the spectacle of racism in this country until we no longer divide ourselves along the lines of race, which is exactly what affirmative action does.

As for Barack's views on these issues, nobody can tell you what he actually believes. I feel that he, along with most politicians (as opposed to statesmen), will say whatever pleases the most people in order to turn the tide of public opinion. If I say, for example, that I will lower your taxes by $20,000 a year and give you a free Jag, most people will vote for me. It doesn't matter if I can actually do those things, and since most people won't consider the legal/economic fall-out from such a decision, neither do I. When it's all said and done, and I've done none of the things I promised, I still got what I wanted out of the deal, I won an election, and some other candidate will replace me campaigning on the same vague platform of 'change.'

Last rant, I promise: Last week, I was watching a popular news channel and some anchor was proclaiming Obama to be the most impressive politician since FDR. That's like saying 'the most impressive flying machine since the Hindenburg.'

[Tim Brewer]

You already know the answer you are looking for.

What you are really wanting to know.

Is why others are voting for him.

There are so many reasons why people do that for example:

Kids like something new and exciting, and they have not felt what it is like to have fake promises yet.

some older people do like to dream, and they are dreaming that he might be a Kennedy. Not that he will be.

John Kennedy was raised in a political family. Obama was not.

We would have to train him, while he is doing the job. I have no doubt by his last couple of years in office. He might get it, but we waisted at least two years.

This is not a fantasy football team, where you start rookie quarter backs.

We need somebody who can step into that position and make a difference fro the get go.

Nobody has a problem with Obama, except that he needs more experience.

We don't need a president that was lucky he got the job.

We saw that with Jimmy Carter.

Everybody wanted a change, and that was what they got.

we heard more about Billy beer than anything else. Except when they took those hostages, And poor Jimmy could not talk his way out of that.

Those poor people had to wait until the next President took office.

It is one thing to think what you might try will work, and it is another. To get it too work correctly.

Like it or not, but John McCain does have experience.

No fantasy there.

[atxcio]

Originally Posted by tkemery

I am looking for some intelligent insight. I am NOT looking for the finger pointing, name calling, racist accusing comments that I have seen in other threads.

I'll give it a try!

I want to make an intelligent choice for this election. I will agree that Obama is a great speaker. He is charasmatic and eloquent. Given that, I went to his website and looked at his plans for America. I read the actual text of some of his speeches. Not the media excerpts but the actual text of some of his speeches, for example his so called race speech.

The insight I need is this:

Very wise. Good luck in your research. Keep in mind that I am an Obama supporter, so my answers may be biased.

1) How does he intend to pay for all his programs? If you total up the money, it is astounding. If he intends to pay for it by taking it from big business, there will soon be no business, then no jobs.

This is an easy one. Just even out the income tax, and the money will be there for all these programs. Cut some non-working programs and we'll even be able to reduce the deficit.

Now, here is what I mean by "even out" the income tax:

If you are a salaried or hourly employee, with the majority of your income coming in on a W-2, don't own a home (but rent), don't own part of a corporation or have a significant amount of investment holdings, then you pay pretty close to the actual tax "bracket" for your income level. Whether it's 21%, 28%, or 33%... your net taxes are very close to that.

However, if you make more than a couple of million per year, chances are 99% that you don't bring that in as salary or hourly pay. You bring it in from investment gains, dividends from your corporation, stock options, etc. You will naturally own property making that much $$$, and will have huge deductions available to you for property taxes, repairs, rental losses, home office, depreciation, etc... so basically, if you've worked hard enough to become a C-level or VP level executive in a major company, you're paying an effective tax rate of probably 10-17% on your income. Perhaps even less when you figure in the fact that all your travel, fuel, housing/furniture (home office), pension, and health care costs are all passed off as company expenses. This is well known and not disputed among the upper income earners; see Warren Buffet's CEO challenge Evan Frisch: Warren Buffett's CEO Challenge | BuzzFlash.org (http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1410 - broken link). No CEO has thus far managed to collect the $1M by showing they pay a rate as high as their secretary or staff. That's a pretty big red flag that something is wrong with the way we tax people right now...

So, that's how the programs will be paid for. Make the tax system fair, so a CEO pays the same rate as an employee earning 30K, and bingo. The money is there.

2) How can a government tell a company how to run its business and how much profit it can be allowed to make?

Part 1: A government can tell a company how to run it's business in several ways. Local government can control it through things like zoning, the health department, smoking regulations, etc... tax abatements, grants for certain types of businesses, etc. Federally, businesses are told what they can do through entities like the FAA, FCC, FDA, EOE, etc. There are tons of them. As companies get really large, there is the SEC and justice department to tell them what they can do and even who they can merge with, sell to, etc.
Part 2: Normally the government does not tell a business how much profit it can make; although there are laws against gouging, etc. Typically it just taxes the profit. Red-state Texas has recently adopted a very oppressive new tax on gross profits, you can read about it here: Small businesses feeling pinch from state's new franchise tax | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Business News (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-TaxFallout_09bus.ART0.State.Edition1.4dc7ea8.html - broken link)

3) While he, in the one speech I read, says he disagrees with racist angry things that his pastor said, he also seems to be saying in that speech that it was justified.

He's saying that given the environment that his pastor grew up in (Jim Crow and rampant discrimination), it's understandable that he might have those feelings. Obama is half white, and grew up with his white grandparents. You can decide yourself whether he really agrees with his pastor's rhetoric.

4) In the same speech, he seems to be saying blaming the plights of black american on the whites. He talks more government paid programs to better their lives. But is this just not more of the same.

I think you are reading this with a little "white guilt". I don't think he's passing out any blame beyond the known blame of the institutional discrimination that occurred prior to the civil rights movement; pretty much what everyone agrees upon. He also doesn't hesitate to criticize black parents and community leaders who have been complacent or expect government to take care of them without any effort on their own part. And as for more of the same, well, Barack can't be classified as anything remotely like the same. It's 100% different, pretty much. You can decide whether that difference is good or bad.

5) While I will not disagree that, however covert or not, there may still be instances of racsim, where is he promoting personal responsibility?

It's in all of his speeches. It usually starts around the time he says something like "government isn't responsible for turning off the TV, parents are"... not exactly those words, I know, but something similar. That's usually his intro to the personal responsibility section of his speech. Seriously, it's in every one of his speeches... sure you have read them all the way through?

6) Affirmative action was/is necessary. However, at what point to we also balance that with white, or non black, individuals losing out.

Great question. Difficult one to answer. I'm inclined to use an arbitrary metric, like this: Let's take the last time a black person was ever publicly lynched in the US (essentially, killed for his color by a publicly sanctioned mob). When was that, in the 30s? 40s? Let's give ourselves the equivalent of 1 life sentence for that. A life sentence is what, 99 years? 80 years perhaps effectively (assuming a young offender)? So I'd say we can stop atoning for the institutional racism about 80-99 years from some time in the 30s or 40s. So, about another decade or two. Keep in mind, this is a completely arbitrary measure, just like any prison sentence is. It doesn't reflect the reality of how much or how little institutional racism still exists; it's just a way to figure how long might be appropriate to combat it.

These are just some of the questions I have. There are others, but I struggle to find a Obama supporter who will have a intelligent, fact based conversation. I for one, however naive, am tired of the name calling and hatred.

Off to review the McCain site and speeches, will have questions for that to post soon......

Again, good luck! Hope I didn't use any name calling and hatred!