I do not "hate" Obama, I just think he would be terrible for this nation because of the following of his policies, as I understand them (and correct me if I am mistaken!):
1)
Let the Bush tax cuts expire - from my understanding, the Bush tax cuts were not "for the rich" as so many like to say, but were actually an across-the-board tax cut; before them, the tax rates were 39.6, 36, 31, and 28 percent, and after them, 35, 33, 28, and 25 percent. So pretty much every income group except for the very lowest (those making under $10,000 a year) saw their tax rates drop. The thing is, the Bush tax cuts increased tax revenues. If you go the Congressional Budget Office website (
www.cbo.gov) and look at the data, you see that the tax revenues initially dropped off, which is to be expected with tax cuts initially, but as of 2007, the tax revenues were up to $2.56 trillion, their highest ever. So they seem to have worked.
If Obama let's them expire, I believe he will, in a few years, likely decrease tax revenues. I have read Obama only wants to let them expire for those making $250,000 and up, because that is more "fair," but what exactly does the word "fair" mean? "Fair" is just one of those terms politicians toss out there. If you look at the data at the IRS site you will see that the highest-earning 2% pay the lion's share of the total tax burden, about 68% (which is the largest this income group has paid in history as far as the data goes; the lowest-earning portion of the population is paying the smallest portion of the total burden). So I could say it would be more "fair" to tax this 2% at a very low rate, and tax the majority of the middle-class at 95%, to try to even out the revenues. Obviously such a strategy would be ludicrous, but it would be one form of "fairness."
The other thing is, since the Bush tax cuts increased total tax revenues, why increase taxes on those who pay the lion's share, and thus likely will cut down on their economic activity if their taxes go up further?
And finally, small businesses form the backbone of America, and I believe (though I may be mistaken) that the majority of these small businesses are sole proprietorships and thus taxed at the normal tax rates, not the corporte rate.
And let's not forget that $250,000 is still middle-class, it's just well-off middle-class. Such folks are not rich.
2)
Raise the capital gains tax - Again, every time capital gains taxes have been lowered, whether by Democrats or Republicans, tax revenues from them have increased. When John F. Kennedy lowered them, revenues went up. When President Clinton lowered them in the late 1990s, revenues increased; it is believed that Clinton's lowering of them in the late 1990s was partially responsible for the surplus we saw in 2000.
The other issue is I don't think Senator Obama knows enough about economics to understand what he is doing. For example, his economic advisor, University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee (hope I got the spelling right there), has done research and doesn't believe that lowering capital gains taxes, over the long run, increases tax revenues. He thinks that's a misconception. Now I disagree with that, but the thing is, during the ABC debate with Hillary, they asked him, "Why raise capital gains taxes at all?" (since they have always increased revenues when lowered). Instead of responding with something like, "Well, that is a misconception that some people, in particular Republicans, have, that lowering capital gains taxes increases revenues, yada yada..." instead he was just stone-walled it seemed. Which tells me he himself doesn't know enough about the subject it seems.
Also, according to the IRS, I believe that 47% of the total capital gains tax revenues come from people earning below $50,000 a year, and 79% come from people earning $100,000 a year or less; in other words, most capital gains tax revenues come from those who are middle-class.
3)
Raise the minimum wage to over $9 - to me this will only increase unemployment in the inner cities amongst the inner city youth, the very people Obama wants to help. The minimum wage is a price control. If you artificially increase the price of something, you get a surplus. In the case of labor, artificially increasing its price for businesses, the wages, causes a surplus because most of America is employed by small businesses, and small businesses cannot absorb a higher minimum wage like a big business can. It's simply the laws of supply and demand at work.
The other thing is that this will hurt small businesses again, sole proprietorships and incorporated small businesses, as very few can absorb the higher costs of a higher minimum wage. Wal-Mart supports a higher minimum wage, and I am guessing it is because they can absorb it but know it will hurt small business competitors, as Wal-Mart isn't exactly reknowned as a company that cares about people, or its employees, a great deal.
4)
Either raise, or leave as is, the corporate tax rate I'm not sure if Senator Obama intends to raise or leave as is the corporate tax rate, but he seems to act as if claims by Republicans to lower it means giving tax breaks to big corporations. Well, for one thing, corporations pass their taxes, or a portion of them, onto the consumers, so a lower tax could help lower prices. Also, other countries, such as Ireland and Switzerland and Iceland, that have low corporate tax rates, have been stealing a lot of business from both Europe and the United States. Ireland really was able to modernize fast with this. So I would think lowering the American corporate tax rate, one of the highest in the world, would help attract back businesses, or at least prevent current ones here from leaving.
The other thing, however, is that we have a varying corporate tax rate. It is small businesses that earn on the order of around $100,000 to $300,000 that pay the 39% rate. Big corporations pay the 35% rate! Which means that lowering the corporate tax rate, say to a flat 35%, is not giving big business a tax cut, but it IS giving all of the incorporated small businesses, who are the backbone of the economy, in hard economic times, a tax cut.
IF Obama is intending to increase the corporate tax rate, if he increases it where the highest rate still applies to small businesses, they will get hurt (this in addition to an increased minimum wage).
5)
Wants to Increase the Cap On Salaries Subject to the Social Security Payroll Tax - This I believe is currently set at $97,500. Obama contradicted himself in the ABC debate when he said he would not increase taxes on those earning under $250,000, but then said he would increase the cap on salaries subject to the SS payroll tax...but that is $97,500. There are a lot middle-class folks who earn between $97,500 and $250,000.
And ultimately, if he was to pass this tax, for a person who invests, and thus earns capital gains, they might, with letting the Bush tax cuts expire, increasing the capital gains tax, and increasing the cap on salaries subject to the SS payroll tax, see a triple tax increase (depends on if Obama would raise this cap or let the bush tax cuts only expire for those earning $250K and up, etc...).
6)
Wants to Provide Universal Healthcare - This I am staunchly against because I do not think it can work at all. California, the world's 7th largest economy, just recently considered implementing a universal healthcare system, and had to axe it because it was determined it would bankrupt the state. And yet Obama intends to somehow provide all 300 million America with affordable, quality healthcare. Another problem with this is the American healthcare system has some severe efficiency problems, as we spend about twice as much per person on our publicly-funded healthcare as do countries with totally state-funded systems.
Now Obama claims his healthcare plan is not for nationalization of the healthcare industry, but I do not see how such a system could avoid going down the route to becoming a fully state (taxpayer!) - funded, nationalized healthcare system. Germany for years had a quasi-private, quasi-public healthcare system, but is now switching to a fully state-funded system, I am guessing because the current system is too overburdened. Healthcare is 16% of the U.S. GDP. The LAST thing I want to see is 16% of the GDP end up under direct State control.
My final fear is that they would try to outlaw private care, as Canada did, with such a system. In the United Kingdom, the healthcare system is taxpayer-funded, but they have private care available for those who can or are willing to pay for it.
The Fraser Institute just did a study on the increasing wait times for care in the Canadian healthcare system: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/COMMERCE.WEB/product_files/WaitingYourTurn2007rev2.pdf
7)
Obama's Foreign Policy - I disagree with Senator Obama that America can just pull out of Iraq. Agree or disagree with the Iraq War, I think it would be a disaster to pull right out. I also do not think Senator Obama will be able to just sit down with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and "talk" with him about these issues.
8)
Church - I do not trust Obama for sitting in that church with that pastor for twenty years, and then having said pastor as a trusted campaign advisor. Yes, he denounced the church and fired the pastor, yada yada, but if it was 2000 and it had come out that George Bush had attended for twenty years a church with some racist, hate-spewing minister, I think the media would have hung him, castrated him, tared-and-feathered him, stoned him, dragged him through the streets, and stuck a hot coal up his rearend, and that would've just been the warmup! His campaign for Presidency would've been ended. I think Obama got a free pass. Yes, it "possible" he sat in the that church for twenty years and was unaware of his minister's views, but it's also "possible" that I'm really an alien sitting here typing this (none of you have really any way to know :) ).
I just feel the media has given him a free pass on this and it makes me uneasy.
9)
Obama's Stance on Ethanol (most of this information I get from the book "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence") - Obama has used the corporate jets of Archer-Daniels Midland, the nation's biggest ethanol producer, a known price-fixer that controls 60% of the ethanol industry. Obama complains about Big Oil and their "record profits," yet they only consist of about 2% of the global crude supply and operate on a very small profit margin (around 10%). Furthermore, the oil industry is cyclical. No one wanted to help Big Oil back in the 1990s when oil was priced at $2 a barrel and they couldn't make any profit.
YET, Obama seems in the tank for an entire industry that is protected by large tariffs on imported ethanol, gets very large subsidies, and is an industry in which 60% of it is controlled by a company that is a known price-fixer (ADM). Not to mention that ethanol has less energy than gasoline, so you need more of it for the same effect, there isn't enough farmland in America to supply all of America with ethanol, and also I don't like that such a small portion of the American population (less than 1% in Iowa, the main corn state), seem to have such a large say over America's energy policy because of the ethanol lobby.
And then there's the danger of turning our fuel over to a crop. You've all seen the floods in the Midwest, that have destroyed a lot of the crops out there. So, contrary to the folks that say "Growing our fuel is a no-brainer," I disagree; even if ethanol had more energy than gasoline, and even if we had enough land to grow enough to supply all of our fuel, this could be outright dangerous. A series of bad floods or droughts or a combination could cause a literal fuel shortage.
As it is, growing ethanol will skyrocket corn and food prices, make cars less efficient, meanwhile if there was a severe harming of the corn crop, food prices would skyrocket, there could perhaps be a shortage of certain foods, fuel prices could skyrocket, perhaps we would see a shortage of fuel, and then to top it all off, the American taxpayer would have to bail out these ethanol companies which are already subsidized.
John McCain and Hillary Clinton were both staunch critics of the ethanol lobby, calling it a sham, until they began running for President, because the Iowa vote is so important, and Iowa, as I said, is the biggest corn (and thus ethanol) state.
11)
Obama's CO2 Ideas - Senator Obama needs to remember that, as other members have stated above, putting cap or tax or whatnot on carbon emissions will just send American businesses soaring overseas. It will also hurt existing businesses here and possibly drive up energy prices.
He also needs to remember that China in 2009 I believe, should surpass America as the world's largest CO2 outputter, and both China and India have flatly stated that they will not decrease their CO2 output if it will hurt their economies. Furthermore, I believe most of the peer-reviewed economic analyses have stated that at most, CO2 emissions should only be reduced by a minor amount, unless we want to incur serious standard-of-living costs.
12)
"America Is 3% of the World Population, But Uses 25% of the Resources - so in other words, we need to cut back, he seems to be implying. However, America also produces the lion's share of the world's wealth and charitable giving, and we are amongst the most efficient in energy usage on a per-capita basis. When you produce most of the world's wealth and are the world's most productive people, I think it's okay to use the largest chunk of resources.
13)
Senator Obama Said At a College That "Our Individual Greatness Is Because of Our Collectivism" - now that is standard issue Marxism right there, or he got it backwards; it's our collective greatness comes from our individualism. America is founded on individualism. German National Socialism, Maoism, the Soviet Union, etc...all tried that collectivist stuff, and it didn't work too well as we've seen.
14)
Europe Is Speedwalking to Lower Taxes and Decrease Regulation - According to an article I read in either Forbes or the Wall Street Journal, it seems Europe is now finally catching onto the American way of lower taxes, free-trade, and light regulation, I am guessing from having seen the great success countries like Ireland, Iceland, and Switzerland have had with this strategy. So Europe, while not running in this direction, seems to be speedwalking towards it.
And yet, right in tough economic times, and while the rest of the world is copying America, Senator Obama seems to want to take us backwards on these policies
15)
Anti-Free Trade - Senator Obama criticized NAFTA highly (something which scared many other world leaders). I do not see how free-trade is a bad thing. Yes, it can sting at first, as people who had secure factory jobs lose them as they are shipped overseas, but overall, in the long-run, many more jobs and wealth are created. Goolsbee, his economic advisor, went to Canada to assure the leaders there that Obama was talking more rhetoric with regards to NAFTA, something that embarassed the Senator. he has since watered down his NAFTA and free-trade thinking, to saying essentially that he is for free-trade, but wants "fair" free-trade, in contrast to the Republicans who seem to think that "any free-trade is good." I may be mistaken, but I do not see how free-trade can be made "fair." It's FREE-trade. Businesses and individuals decide whether they will trade with each other, and if it's where both parties benefit from the transaction, they trade. I don't believe "protectionist" or "fairness" measures will work.
16)
Claims George Bush "Ran Up the Deficit" - this I saw in one of the debates. The thing is that this is not true. The deficit has shrank under President Bush (check the CBO website for the data). And this is not the largest deficit in history, as many seem to say. In terms of overall dollars perhaps, then yes, but that isn't what one goes by. You go by the size of the deficit to the GDP. The deficit is actually at a historical low-point as of now. It might even be a surplus if Bush and the Republicans hadn't spent money like a kid in a candy store.
The truly largest deficit was during World War II, when the government ran a deficit on the order of two-thirds of the economy. But that was a world war.
I probably have other criticism of Obama as well, but I can't remember them right now. I also have a lot of criticisms of McCain as well, but I agree with what Thomas Sowell said: "Senator McCain could never convince me to vote for him; only Senator Obama could convince me to vote for Senator McCain."
