What do you propose we do with the minimum wage?
Eliminate the Federal minimum wage and leave it to the states; those states with their own minimum wages that make them higher than the federal minimum wage, businesses must pay the state minimum wage, so there would be no difference in those states. States who do not want the effects of a minimum wage would be free; if states find that they do not like the federal minimum wage being rescinded and think a minimum wage or minimum wage increase is needed, they can implement one.
The highest earners in Obama's tax plan will still be paying lower taxes than they paid under Reagan.
Under Reagan, I believe the highest income tax rate was 28%; prior to the Bush tax cuts, the highest-rate was 39.6%. The thing to remember though is that due to revenue shortages, many states are considering increasing their state tax rates as well.
Under McCain's plan, someone earning 2 million gets a 10% tax cut, while a person earning 20K gets a 0.1% tax cut. That's not class warfare?
People making $20K pay no taxes; they get it all back. A person earning $2 million is in the portion of the population paying a very large chunk of the total tax revenue. Also, folks earning $2 million consist of a very small portion of the highest-earners; I'm thinking more of folks earning $250K, $300K, etc...
Speaking of class-warfare, someone that may know a little about the subject had this to say:
There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.
Yes, I am aware of Warren Buffett's claim, but I think he is either a liar or he doesn't understand what he is saying. He called for flat-out increasing the capital gains and dividends tax, which would hit a lot of middle-class folk (Obama has since said he will only raise it for those making $250K or more). He also claims that he pays less in taxes than the middle-class, which I disagree with. Most of his income is from dividends, which are taxed at the 15% rate (0% if you have no ordinary income right now), but the thing to remember is the corporate tax rate paid and the tax on income from investments these big corporations make. Big corporations are taxed at about 11% for their investment income and a 35% corporate tax rate, along with the dividends which are taxed at 15%.
Which specific plans are these? You really haven't posted a single reference or direct quote/excerpt.
Well his universal healthcare plan, as I have stated, I think will cost far more than he projects, especially if one looks at how historically many health plans go over their projected costs. I fear his trying to provide universal healthcare for all Americans would lead to an overstraining of the system and eventually lead to a fully state-funded healthcare system, which will cost who knows how much.
One look at Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Massachusettes, Germany, the UK, California, and the health plans in some other states that were implemented and went way overbudget, make me very fearful of something like this. Remember, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid already take up a large portion of the Federal budget, and no one knows if the projections of their future costs alone are correct.
Yes, economists can say this or that, but the future introduces unforeseen variables, or if the system is solvent, politicians find a way to rob it (as they did with Social Security).
For example, the fund Long Term Capital Management was run by a group including two future Nobel Prize-winning economists (the whole fund were geniuses pretty much) and they calculated that they had a one in six billion chance of a blowup, yet they almost brought down the global financial system.
I also believe a Nobel Prize-winning economist (I may be mistaken here) had said that the Dot Com bubble would not burst. And some economists also said housing prices would not come down.
So my point is just even some brilliant economists can be dead wrong on things.
Regarding free-trade, well Senator Obama has been very vocal about NAFTA and how he will work to "reform" NAFTA and create more fair trade. Some months ago, his economic advisor, economist Austan Goolsbee made a statement saying that Senator Obama was essentially just talking rhetoric on NAFTA, because it had scared some foreign leaders.
The thing is, there is no such thing as "fair" trade. It's either free trade or protectionism of some type.
He has no such plan, and we've been through this before.
I know he had supported an increase, then in a previous thread, you had said he said he would not increase it, however I think I read somwehre (albeit I cannot find the link at the moment) that he had said he would raise it up to $200K; if this is still incorrect though, my mistake.
I disagree with this one too, but Palin has the same thing going in Alaska.
I think hers was a little different though (although this might be stretching things, I'm not sure). She raised their royalty rate, because she considers the oil owned by the people of Alaska, so she reasoned that the people should be entitled to a bigger portion of the revenues from it, even though it is oil companies drilling for it. What is good though is she distributed the money directly to the people, instead of support for bigger government.
I believe that much of the oil drilled by Big Oil right now is not owned by the American taxpayers, but by the oil companies themselves, so they should be entitled fully to the profits. I may be mistaken though.
Okay. What about it scares you?
The area could collapse into complete chaos and Iran and the terrorists could take over.
Obama's plan for military funding involves a raise in spending, not a cut. He has said though, that he will cut millions of dollars in wasteful military spending.
How will he determine what is wasteful though?
How exactly was it poor? Was it poor because it didn't involve the war mongering blustery rhetoric of McCain's speeches? Sheesh! McCain couldn't even pronounce Saakashvili or Abkhazia correctly. And even Saakashvili recognized McCain bombastic blumbering as nothing more than campaign rhetoric.
What does pronouncement have to do with it? Senator Obama's initial response was for both sides to negotiate a cease-fire and then take it to the United Nations. Does he really think Russia is going to want to "negotiate" anything with Georgia? Also, Russia has veto power in the UN.
And I would not call McCain's response "war mongering."
Now on the other hand, does it not scare you that McCain doesn't know the difference between Sunni and Shia?
It is a concern, but nothing I find very scary. Something he definitely needs to bone up on.
Even GWB learned that lesson a couple years ago. Doesn't it scare you that McCain predicted that the conflict in Iraq would be short? And several months before McCain was parroting the Administration line about a cheap, short-lived war, Obama was dead on with respect to the cost of the war.
Not really; he was wrong, Senator Obama was correct on that. But then McCain supported the surge, while Senator Obama said the surge would not work and the war was lost. Senator Obama referred to Iran as being a tiny country and not much of a threat, then he changed his view.
Doesn't it scare you that McCain doesn't seem to know who Zapatero is? Or that he helped the Administration peddle garbage like connecting the anthrax attacks to Iraq? And then he claims to have foreign policy expertise? Claims to need no "on the job training" while Lieberman has to whisper in his ear that al Qaeda is a Sunni group? Please!
I agree here.
Because he is too hot tempered, and too impulsive to make rational decisions. Try for instance, this quote from Republican Senator Thad Cochran: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."
Hot tempered yes, impulsive I would not say so. One thing also to consider, is he hot-tempered if he doesn't get his way, or hot-tempered if he has to deal with stupid people?
Essentially, because she's a joke.
Oh please. If you consider her a joke, then Senator Obama is an even bigger joke. And unlike him, when she discovered corruption, she actually worked against it and managed to beat it.
What is a joke is that a Senator who has been associated with some very Leftwing radicals in his past (Saul Alinsky, Frank Marshal Davis), whose church had a radical minister whom he had as a trusted advisor on his campaign, who did absolutely nothing to beat out corruption in one of the most corrupt political establishments in the nation, who got caught making an elitist comment about middle American "clinging to their guns and religion," and whose entire rise to fame has come from making grand speeches that floor people, has somehow become a viable candidate for the Presidency.
If he was white, his minister said crazy things about America and had traveled with let's say a KKK member to meet some Nazis in Germany (Wright traveled with Farrakhan), and had been involved with some very questionable characters in his past, etc...the Left would be hysterically terrified of him.
They're terrified of Governor Palin and she is no such extremist.
I see you didn't bother to either read the post that I pointed to or decided you didn't have the arguments to refute it ... so why bother?
I didn't, but I forgot to mention that; the post number you gave was incorrect.
She is a parochial pol that has shown no eagerness to think about events at a national or trans-national level.
I would think pipeline project counts. Remember however, she is a governor, not a Senator.
While Obama was still a state senator, he produced a dead on correct projection of the Iraq War.
And a dead-wrong one. He got one right, one wrong. So did McCain. He could have been wrong if Iraq had been executed better.
