Senators Barack Obama and John McCain are heading into their conventions neck and neck in the presidential race, with voters focused overwhelmingly on economic issues but convinced that the candidates are not paying enough attention to their priorities, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
Slim majorities said neither candidate had made clear what he would do as president, suggesting that both need to use their conventions to provide voters with a better sense of their plans for addressing the deteriorating economy, high energy prices, access to health care and national security.
Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is still closely associated with the deeply unpopular President Bush. Nearly half of those surveyed said that they expected him to continue the Bush administration’s policies if he were elected president. But voters, by a wide margin, view Mr. McCain as better prepared to be president than Mr. Obama, and as more likely to be an effective commander in chief.
Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, was trusted more by voters to handle their top concern, the economy. Sixty-five percent of those surveyed said they were confident that Mr. Obama would make the right decisions on the economy, compared with 54 percent who expressed confidence that Mr. McCain would. When it came to foreign policy, the image was inverted: 66 percent expressed confidence in Mr. McCain to make the right decisions, and 55 percent in Mr. Obama.
Yep, 65% of voters thought Obama would make the right decisions on the economy. That includes the 28% vs. 15% tax increase on capital gains, thus, discouraging investors on Wall Street. The $300 million in earmarks that Obama has asked for for THIS FISCAL YEAR ALONE, threats of raising taxes across the board, and more.
This is in contrast to McCain's 2008 earmark total of $0.
This is in contrast to McCain's TOTAL 24 year's in Congress earmark total of $29 million.
That above mentioned total is 1/10th of the money asked for from Obama. What's even better, is that total was come up with by thinkprogress.org, one of the most liberal sites on the internet today.
It's hard to argue with that point.
So, tell me, now that you have the FACTS, do 65% of you think maybe you're wrong about your assumptions?
right wing lunatic? it makes sense that your question is a typical non-sequitur, one of the lunatic's favorite tricks.
ReplyDeleteAnswer to your question: 65% do believe that Obama will do a better job with the economy, regardless of the earmark situation. That's because they are smart enough to see that earmarks are nothing compared to the price of the war in Iraq. People are losing so much money because of the price of health care, education, and houses... McCain has no plan whatsoever to fix any of that, and in fact will continue Bush's policies on those, spend more in Iraq, and make the overall situation worse. Obama has a plan and you can check it out at barackobama.com.
65% of Americans are really smart to see through McCain's BS about insignificant earmarks (as compared to the Iraq war's price). That's just a way to divert attention.
The biggest tax we pay is the money we give to health care insurance companies for substandard service, the expensive education system and mortgages. Whoever provides relief on that will offer an actual tax cut to most people, unlike the income tax cut, only for the rich, that McCain proposes.
Earmarks totaled $24 billion dollars on the last budget that they passed. That's $80 per person in America. Doesn't sound like much, but that's for every person, not including people who don't pay taxes such as students, prisoners, and some senior citizens, so the amount may be upwards of $200 per person.
ReplyDeleteThat's just in earmarks.
With the war in Iraq dying down, the cost is significantly going to change. It was and continues to be important to finish up the work we're doing there and they are.
In fact, if I remember correctly, we have signed an agreement with the Iraqi government to be completely out of the country by the end of 2009 or 2011, I'm not quite sure on the date. It's early in the morning, and I'm feeling lazy and don't want to look up the exact date.
If Democrats win seats in both parts of Congress, which is likely to happen, and Obama in office, it will be easier to pass even larger earmarks.
The Senates biggest earmark offenders are all Democrat (John Murtha, Hillary Clinton, etc.)
So, I'm going off of the track record of McCain, which is something that Obama wants us to avoid looking at.
Specifically, McCain talks of spending cuts, while Obama talks of Universal Health Care, and other programs that will cost money.
How does he plan on paying for it? With higher taxes.
People in general, you and me included, don't like paying taxes. We'll do everything we can to avoid them. With Obama in office, he wants to tax the wealthy significantly higher and higher. If he continues to do that, the wealthy will simply move their funds elsewhere and we'll get $0 from taxes from them.
This is why we need a flat tax of say 20% or some other such number. That way, the more you earn, the more you pay.
My worry is that Democrats get a veto busting majority in both houses of Congress, and we elect either McCain or Obama, and Congress goes on a wild spending spree.
The war in Iraq is actually a smaller piece of the cost of Congress' spending. I wrote about it here:
http://www.rightwinglunatic.com/2008/09/democrats-pushing-lies.html
Tax revenue is up, contrary to what Democratic lies are being told. Democratically controlled Congress has shot up spending by over $400 billion dollars in the two years they've had power. That's about $1,200 for every man, woman, and child in America.
That's ADDITIONAL spending. Those on the Left don't talk about spending cuts, which is something that simply must happen. They talk about the war in Iraq costing x amount of money, and how we should be putting that money towards other things.
Nevermind the money is actually being borrowed rather than spent.
My healthcare is being taken care of by my employer. If they gave me shitty service, I'd complain and we'd look for a better provider (which actually happened about 2 years ago)
It's not the government's job to get involved in healthcare or your mortgage.
If you bought a mortgage larger then you could afford, sell it and move into an apartment. It's been that way forever. If you didn't plan on losing your job when you bought the house, or if losing the job means you can no longer afford the home, the only person you can blame is yourself. How about a little personal responsibility?
Education I agree is shoddy. Kids need to be taught, not passed through. We should be asking what we are getting for the money we are giving them, instead of giving them more and more money.
When a new school is built, it should be a normal looking building, not some art deco piece. Money should go towards more teachers, higher teacher wages, better equipment, up to date text books, not more bullshit administrators who keep passing kids through to the next grade while the kid cannot spell worth shit.
The war in Iraq is expensive, I will agree. But we need to look at spending cuts, not more taxes. In fact, I pay more in taxes then a lot of people make in a year. I want to know what kind of returns I'm getting for my money. If you increase my taxes and don't give me anything of value for it in return, such as reducing the deficit, increasing jobs, or our infrastructure, then I'm going to get creative with my money and avoid as much taxes as possible and then, where are you going to get your revenue from? Obama wants to lower taxes on the middle class and poor, so you won't be getting the money from them.
I'm simply looking at the track record of each candidate when it comes to fiscal responsibility, and there is simply no comparison. Obama has asked for hundreds of millions, including money towards his wife's employer at the time, and McCain has asked for almost nothing in comparison.
Travis
OK, the Iraq war so far has cost about $700 billion, or $470 per person in America every year. This is a lot more than earmarks. Nobel prize economist Joseph Stiglitz estimated that altogether, the bill could be as high as 3 trillion dollars for this war, a lot of it because of the health care needed for the 10s of thousands of wounded vets. McCain has no intention to change the Iraq policy and wants to stay there indefinitely. The surge has reduced violence, but has failed to bring political stability, so Iraq is a timebomb that will explode again if the US stays there. So if your real priority was to eliminate government waste, you’d focus on limiting the financial damage that the war is causing, and that means keeping McCain away from the white house.
ReplyDeleteYou are also wrong about your earmarks statistics. First, John Murtha is in the house, not in the senate. Go to cagw.org to check who are the top 3 senate earmark spenders: it’s Cochran, Stevens and Shelby. Yes, they’re all republicans. Altogether, they already took 1.8 billion dollars in earmarks. In 2008. That’s 4 times more than Murtha and Clinton combined. Look, I’d like the earmark loophole to be fixed up too, but if you’re republican, clean up your backyard first. A good start would be by exposing Palin, who accumulated >$200 earmarks for each of her constituents, which is 10 times more than Obama’s earmarks for each of his constituents.
What’s funny about a lot of what you said is that you are afraid of democrats going on a spending spree, when it’s Bush and the rubber-stamp congress that have broken all records in government spending and pretty much doubled the debt in just 8 years. Clinton reduced the debt. So who’s more careful with your tax dollars? Just like with the earmarks: it’s the Democrats.
The tax revenue is up, yes, and it’s up a lot less than it would have been if the Bush war-time tax cuts for the rich hadn’t been passed. Spending cuts, yes: cut the cost of war and cut the military (for instance, start with closing some of the 800 overseas military bases) – invest in infrastructure and productive stuff like clean energy, which the free market doesn’t seem to be able to promote so well. This crazy idea that we should pamper the rich and let them have more money, while normal people’s wages – adjusted for inflation - have fallen over the past 8 years, is just obscene. The fact is, this tax-cut policy didn’t work during the Reagan reign, which ended with an economic crisis (forcing Bush I to raise taxes), it didn’t work under Bush II as we’re entering a recession. Shouldn’t you look at such facts?
As far as the expansive universal health care – again, look at the facts: the US spending on health care, in proportion to its GDP, is 3 times higher than other OECD countries. Yet, 47 million are not covered, and the quality of care (as reported by the WHO) is worse. France has the best health care in the world, wouldn’t you want to be better than them? You want to save people some money: get government-run universal health care, and eliminate the insurance companies’s massive theft that is draining our small businesses, large businesses, and all the economy.
I’m amazed at the shallowness of your comments on health care and mortages. Obviously, you got lucky with your health care coverage. My situation is OK too, but it’s been more and more costly. You got to look beyond your own situation before claiming everything is great. Same thing with the mortgages. I know your narrative about it sounds so nice and simple. You really believe the irresponsible home buyers managed to bring the entire economy down, all by themselves just like that? How about finding out who is really responsible for this economic mess?
I'll be happy to answer that. First off, I'm talking about raw spending, and yes, that includes the House. Personally, I view any Republican who has out of control spending with disdain. I can't understand why someone can't just cut the budget in areas that we don't need.
ReplyDeleteHillary Clinton, IIRC, wanted $50k to fund the viability of a mule museum. I wish I were making that up.
While you complain about the spending of the military, every veteran I've spoken with has said that the cuts during the 90's, when they were in the military, was very detrimental to the overall health and readiness of the military.
When things were cut to the bone, services that directly benefited veterans were cut. I'm not even talking about some article I've read somewhere, I'm talking about direct from a veteran who experienced it.
McCain has not said he wants us there "indefinitely". He has said he wants us there until Iraq is stable and can take care of their own security and stability.
Those words were then twisted by those on the Left and the media and been ran with it. (100 years in Iraq, I believe they say)
I don't think Palin was a good choice for McCain. I see why he did it, he wanted the women voters who abandoned the Left because Hillary didn't get the nod.
Personally, I would have chosen someone with better qualifications.
Any Republican or Democrat who put in earmarks into spending bills that had nothing to do with the core issue of the bill deserves to be put out on their asses.
I've given you a direct fact about the spending of the Democratically controlled Congress, and you come back with "the past 8 years".
If Nancy Pelosi and her ilk were doing their jobs, there wouldn't be such a deficit. Republicans are just as guilty and should be voted out of office just as much.
What I'd like to know is, every pushes around the "47 million uninsured", but many of those aren't the stereotypical people who are poor, or disadvantaged in some way. How many make too much money, or are self employed? How accurate is that number?
Where do you get the idea that France has better health care then the US? Why is it that Canadians, who have UHC, gripe about long waits for seemingly minor medical issues to be taken care of? You can't tell me that we wouldn't experience the same problems.
Of course, there are horror stories about healthcare from both sides of the argument.
Why is my comments about mortgages shallow? We've run on the same principles for hundreds of years now, and all of a sudden, with the housing boom, people took unnecessary financial risks, and it backfired on them. How is telling them "well, tough", shallow?
For example, many people bought homes they simply could not afford. Why are we supposed to bail people out when they buy homes that are larger then what they could normally get?
What about "house flippers"? Are we supposed to bail these people out who just wanted to get rich quickly?
What about the mortgage companies themselves? They were pushing exotic loans on everyday people, (including myself when I bought my home), and they couldn't handle the backlash from the massive defaults.
None of these people should be bailed out. Collectively, Freddie and Fannie control I believe around $5 trillion dollars worth of mortgages. These are in turn, sold as investments, and when they turned sour, they took the economy with them.
It's a domino effect. First, the mortgage companies couldn't handle people defaulting. Investment people went scrambling in a panic, the dollar fell, oil prices went up, other commodities went up, and the whole thing went into free fall.
I'm not saying that's the only thing that punched the economy in the gut, but it was a major factor. People can't afford their homes, so they default, losing thousands. SUV owners can't afford to fill up their gas tanks, and then it comes tumbling down.
This is why I have a "plan B"...ALWAYS. The thing is completely cyclical. The same thing happened in 1929 with the stock market crash and the Great Depression. People took unnecessary financial risks (this time buying stock on margin), and it blew up in people's faces.
My personal financial situation came about because I always asked "what if" when I made any large purchase.
What if I get fired?
What if I become disabled?
What if my wife is fired?
What if we have a fire/flood/earthquake?
I could EASILY live in a home double in size and value then I do, but because I don't go for the flash and glitz of having a home with a hot tub in the master bedroom, or having the latest, trendy car, I have a comfortable living that allows me to weather fiscal storms like this.
It's really not that difficult, and when people make stupid decisions about their financial life, I cannot feel sorry for them, nor do I feel the need to bail them out, person or corporation.
You know, you do bring up great counter points. If you'd like, I'd be happy to have an article written by you and I'd gladly post it on the front page.
I enjoy a spirited debate from all sides of the political spectrum. :)
Travis
hey Travis - I guess I'll address the last part of your reply first :) Left/right debates can quickly turn into insult contests these days, so I appreciate the compliment and front page offer. I got on your blog by accident last Friday, but given what I read on your other posts, you can bet I'll have more material to send you!
ReplyDeleteA few more things on this one, though:
- I'll skip on the military situation. I need to collect more data/statistics/sources to prove a point either way. As to the McCain, it's not hard to prove that he is the most hawkish, least likely politician -besides Dick Cheney- to look for a compromise in Iraq any time soon (guess that's one good idea for a future post). He was the last politician to reluctantly accept the idea of a time table ("horizon") after the white house finally surrendered on that too.
- your point about the last 8 years of spending and demonizing Pelosi is completely at odds with the facts: earmarks for 07/08 are the lowest since 1999!!! Notice how they went down by half after democrats took over? Only under Bush did the earmark abuse really took off, then went back down with Pelosi ( http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reports_porkbarrelreport#trends ). OK - the real trick about earmarks, I admit, is to have opposing parties in the White House and Congress. But still, when left unchecked, republicans are the bigger spenders.
- 40 to 50 million uninsured is easily verifiable. US and France health care performance are based on W.H.O and OECD web sites. Long line gripes are not a good excuse for choosing crappy health care. You want to see long lines? go to any ER in the US. The E in ER is just a joke.
- About the mortgage crisis, we're somewhat on the same page now. But personal responsibility is not the answer - unless you have enough information to take responsibility: the free market solves everything only when all parties are fully informed of all aspects of a transaction. In the real world, where you have to work 40 hours a week, you can never learn everything about real estate, appraisals, mortgage fine prints, interest rates, escrow, etc... so you have to go to the professionals, and your only choice is to trust them. In a sane world, the government would regulate these professionals. The right wing (including democrat right wingers under Clinton) took the regulations away. The mortgage professionals misinformed their customers about risks. Then they misinformed each other to get rid of these loans after raking in the fees. And the results are here. Moral of the story: to help the free market, you need more information. To get more information, you need more government regulation to force businesses to fully inform you about the risks involved. That ironclad rule applies to everything from mortgages to lead-paint toys to pollution to food safety etc..
No problem. I try to be a bit different in political debate on my site simply because I've noticed that a lot of political sites out there that allow public debate, do eventually turn into a "well. @#$#@ you!" and name calling.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't resolve the issue and doesn't add any relevant material to the debate. :) But if you'd like, I can call you names to make you feel more at home. :)
Most of my traffic is generally accidental. :) I get a lot of hits from pages on CNN and other news sites. Occasionally I'll get mentioned on a TV program and I'll get a big spike in traffic.
I blame Nancy for her lack of keeping her campaign promises as well as earmarks in general. I also blame many Republicans for their lack of sticking to core Republican values (Ted Stevens comes to mind).
What I find funny is many in Congress can't seem to keep with their core values.
For example, core Republican values are lesser spending, less government involvement in peoples, lives, and keeping in line with the Constitution.
Yet, I find many Republicans against gay marriage, thus, violating the "lesser government involvement" value.
However, What I have noticed is that many in Democratic circles, Murtha, Clinton and Obama, are spending wildly in earmarks, and it simply needs to stop. Some Republicans, most notably Stevens, are spending wildly too, and I chide them for it as well. The whole "bridge to nowhere" needs to be stopped and a ferry or something much more cost effective needs to be put in place.
As for the healthcare issue, I have not had any problems in waiting in line at the ER, or dealing with my insurance company. Maybe I'm just lucky, but every time I've visited a doctor, I've had nothing but the best care.
As for the mortgage mess, I do agree that a lot of times, people don't understand what they are getting themselves into, and sometimes they fall victim to mortgage folks who either bullshit them into thinking they can afford something they cannot, or other shenanigans.
However, they aren't completely absolved of responsibility here. When purchasing something as large as a home, if you don't understand something, or are uncomfortable about something, why not hire an attorney to explain it to you? A $1,000 attorney could save you from making a $300-$500k mistake.
Regulations can only go so far. At what point do you say to a person, "you should have known better"?
Personally, I'd be happy to give people advice on buying a home in the future, since I've done it twice now. I have given advice to many people here in my office about it. I get some young kid, 25 years old, ready to make that leap, and they are scared to death about buying a home.
I give them the hard realities. If you take your gross income as well as your spouses, multiply it by 3, that's roughly what you can afford for a home on a 30 year fixed mortgage.
If you can't afford that, you can't afford the home. It's a harsh reality, but there are people out there who simply will never be able to afford to buy a home and will likely live in an apartment for the rest of their lives.
But I think my main problem that I've had throughout these past few years, is the lack of personal responsibility in our politicians.
In the two years since Democrats got control over Congress, spending has drastically increased:
http://www.rightwinglunatic.com/2008/09/democrats-pushing-lies.html
I use earmarks as a general benchmark because it shows what happens when people, Democrats and Republicans, do when they are blended in with the group and aren't really held to task over their spending.
I wouldn't even care if it was spending on worthwhile things like roads, infrastructure, or getting us out of debt, but the things I've seen people spend money on is just ludicrous.
I'm in the middle of converting the site from blogger to wordpress (more goodies then blogger), but I'd be happy to have you send in articles and material if you'd wish. The door is always open. Just because I argue a differing opinion, doesn't mean I won't come to your aid when you are in trouble. You're an American, and I take care of my own. :)
Travis