Yeah I came from a dysfunctional family.....

They taught me family values, Pride in doing a job the best you can, a proper work ethic and to not be afraid to get durty doing it, Patriotic values, a Moral code and how to treat a woman right. (Mom drummed that into me).

For all of that you get a Hard worker that loves his Family and Country and that person gets flaming mad when people Domestic and Foreign threaten our Family and our way of life. I have Pride in my Kids, Country and my job. YOu also get a person that Speaks my mind and is willing to listen to all viewpoints. They may differ from mine but I will listen and all I expect is that they listen to mine ans have an intelligent discussion. Morons just piss me off.

I should preface my remarks by admitting that I'm not an economist. It's my understanding that taxation and exemptions are arrived upon by an number of quantitive factors like earned income, number of dependents, etc. In that case, I don't see how any metric for taxation can look at qualitative factors like "performance standards, reliability, and how they interact with other employees." The argument posted in the OP was about a business owner choosing to lay off workers based on a political choice, which I personally didn't see as linked to the aforementioned performance measurements. Guess I didn't get the joke like everyone else did, but given the amount of stuff thrown at either candidate during "silly season" I think my standard for humor's probably pretty out of whack.

With regards to "socialism" and this election- I don't see anything in Obama's economic policies that reflect that. Take a look at the table found here: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfa....cfm?Docid=213

Obama proposed a top income tax rate of 36.9%- that's the same as Clinton's, and if you look at the data here, lower than all but 2 years of the administration of the central figure of modern American conservatism- Ronald Reagan.

His proposed health care plan still plays off the principle of the free market by allowing individuals to pick their providers, plans, and doctors. It doesn't call for a truly socialized health care system where the government creates an overarching bureaucracy or nationalizes existing health care providers.

With regards to regulating the market, even Greenspan admitted that deregulation and the free market had failed the American economy. History has demonstrated that free markets work best with the boundaries clearly delineated- I don't want to see government regulating every facet of American business, but I'm not in favor seeing the mistakes of the past repeated. I freely admit that Clinton's economic policies in the later 1990s (starting the ball rolling on deregulation) bear as much of the blame for our current predicament as do Bush's.

Those dictators rose to power because they made populist appeals to economic and social ills and promised quick fixes to complicated issues. However, you'd be hard pressed to find an office seeker who DIDN'T do that. The way the middle class has surged to the forefront of every recent political speech by EITHER candidate exemplifies this. I think applying Godwin's Law to Obama is just as absurd as it is to apply it to McCain or Bush. This is just electoral politics at its ugly and perverse conclusion. I wish that the American public had more of an attention span for substantial discussion of the issues, but that's a topic for another thread.

Do I think Obama represents some sort of grand shift towards an American-style socialism, or despotism? No. When faced with our mounting deficit, I'd rather see us looking inward to refunding social programs rather than having Chinese bankers buy up our debt. I wholeheartedly agree that American businesses and workers are among the most hard-working and innovative in the world, and I want to see it stay that way. I'm hoping that an Obama administration will lead the way in stimulating green business and development practices, so we can again make American technical ingenuity indispensable to our allies and aspiring nations alike.

One thing I'll give you all is that I'm not a big fan of the kind of messianism many associate with Obama. I personally like the guy, but the way some people act you'd think he'd solve every problem in the world in his first five minutes in office. I just happen to like him because most of what he's proposing makes sense to me.

Trying not to get to deep for some.
 

Several things.
We can not always vote for who we would like and this has lead to my philosophy of voting to continue my pledge to "up hold and defend the constitution." So I vote on the most likely candidate to up hold the constitution. Usually that means voting against someone. In this case BHO.

Really foolish people believe in the BHO tax plan. By not taxing 95% of citizens and raising the taxes of the remaining 5%, he has created a "Back Door" tax. Yep, The 95% will be paying for that tax increase in the form of increased costs to the businesses supplying the goods and services. Fools all.

As to the Health care issues too many of the sheep are looking at the pretty paint and not the primer. Yes sure you make the choices he's promising But he's crew will be hands on dictating what insurance companies will be allowed the charge and cover.
In the end he's a liar. has not released his birth certificate. Had his cousin running Kenya put his Grandmother, who said she was at his birth IN KENA, put in "Protective custody".

BLITZ

Blitz
Do not forget the 1/2 Auntie that is illegal in Boston that he threw under the bus and said she should get what is coming to her.:eek:

Most people would at least try to help or defend a family member no matter what they had done but he is such a politician he is worried about the next job above family.....

dividebyzero,

You've done well explaining what you have been taught. But, what do you know?

You didn't answer my simple question from the first page that I've quoted above.

Pat

Sorry, I meant to address it earlier but got sidetracked by other replies.

I'd assume that it's because a small business is classified as less than 50 employees, and that the owners want to take advantage of tax breaks available to small business owners?

You assume? Get back to me when you know!

Pat

If you believe that a Business owner firing people based off their political affiliation is "Un-American", how do you justify a tax system which punishes people for no greater sin than greater productivity? How is it that in one case you seek to encourage productivity, but in the other you purposefully impose restrictions upon it?


maybe so...

Then I would encourage you to read more Engels and Marx. redistribution of wealth is a socialist principle. Simply being adopted by a major political party, or even major figures on each side of the political perspective does not change this reality.

This is misleading for a couple of reasons...

1. Clinton also had very socialist leanings

2. Reagan did not set the budget. he was forced to work with a democratically controlled congress for most of his presidency. He advocated conservative fiscal policy throughout with great success. Yet somehow people are still unable to put his achievements in context.

Not to mention the fact that you are completely ignoring additional tax increases on capitol gains, inheritance, dividends, minimum wage increases, etc. This is all doubly taxed money for the most part.

Furthermore these "tax cuts" Obama refers to bear little resemblance to the name. "Cutting" someones taxes implies that they are paying them in the first place. By Obama giving a tax cut larger than the taxes paid, he is merely redistributing wealth (a socialist policy).

Actually it doesn't...

This is government regulation. And when you implement a policy such as the one he would like to, what you are really doing is inevitably enforcing direct nationalization. Essentially you are now going to have to pay more for health care if you don't want to use a government approved insurer, the end result being that you are paying twice for health care much like you pay twice for education if you choose to send your kids to a private school. The end result being that private companies are forced into competition with the government, which is really no competition at all.

Politicians love to bring up that they simply want to grant the same health insurance that politicians get through their federal system. The problem with this is that currently we have over 190 million Americans financing health care for a much smaller number of government employees. What happens when that pool increases exponentially, but the people paying for it does not? I highly suggest reading economist Thomas Sowell on this issue.

No one is suggesting that there should be zero regulation of the market. There of course needs to be laws governing fraud, pollution, etc. But this absurd notion that deregulation of the free market is what led to our current economic crisis is so painfully, and obviously wrong that it frustrates the living hell out of me to have to explain it.

What led to the current problems was not a failure to regulate "free markets", what happened was government intervention INTO the free market. had the government never attempted to apply an "affirmative action" program on lenders, this never would have happened.

The government stepped in and directed lending agencies to deliver high risk loans that they wouldn't have normally issued. This resulted in the creation of government backed institutions (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) which specialized in bundling and selling such loans. The failure of regulation came when democrats refused to put the breaks on a monster they helped create. But everyone seems to miss the foundational problem...THE GOVERNMENT SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN THE FIRST PLACE!

TAKE THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF THE EQUATION, AND YOU NO LONGER NEED THE REGULATION THAT THEY FAILED TO IMPLEMENT.

Bottom line...

Wealth redistribution programs are socialist in nature. Simply because we have become used to a progressive tax system does not in any way, shape or form prevent it from being socialist. I am thrilled that we are finally calling such programs by their true names, instead of making up more politically correct monikers.

Obama, has stated before that he thinks "fairness" should be a factor in considering tax policy regardless of teh tax revenue it actually generates. Did you get that! Even if it generates LESS revenue there is a "fairness" taht must be achieved...very well

Explain to me what is fair about making someone pay more, because they make more?

In no other enterprise that I can think of do we require something so unfair as to demand that he/she who has more MUST pay more or face criminal charges and incarceration.

When I go to dinner with a wealthy friend, I don't demand that they pay a portion of my share. Further more, if they DID pay a part of my share, and then received a small refund; I wouldn't think of demanding that they give me some of the refund as well!

One more point, I think its sweet that Alan Greenspan's comments have been interpreted as a condemnation of the free market; but the facts remain. Banks behaved the way they did because of GOVERNMENT, not free market pressure. they begrudgingly took on high risk loans due to thinly veiled threats form the government at first, and then because a government bailout was expected if these highly risky, yet potentially profitable loans should fail.

And why shouldnt they have felt that way...it happened didn't it?

Whats amazing, is the lefts complete unwillingness to recognize this for what it was...a failure of government intervention.

Being a liberal politician must be great...when any or all of your political or economic policies fail, you simply blame the rich (producers) and ask for more power and money, and your base comes out of the woodwork for you. Class warfare works like a charm.

We are still paying for the sins of Wilson and FDR.

Thanks USANick7, I was hoping someone would reply in this manner. You read my mind and put this in words I could not. Don't be frustrated with having to repeat it. It bears repeating until everyone understands the reality of what we are facing.:munchin

Speaking of Thomas Sowell, I found this read interesting. He hits on BHO's socialist/marxist views a bit...

http://townhall.com/columnists/Thoma...&comments=true


Some elections are routine, some are important and some are historic. If Senator John McCain wins this election, it will probably go down in history as routine. But if Senator Barack Obama wins, it is more likely to be historic-- and catastrophic.

Once the election is over, the glittering generalities of rhetoric and style will mean nothing. Everything will depend on performance in facing huge challenges, domestic and foreign.

Performance is where Barack Obama has nothing to show for his political career, either in Illinois or in Washington.

Policies that he proposes under the banner of "change" are almost all policies that have been tried repeatedly in other countries-- and failed repeatedly in other countries.

Politicians telling businesses how to operate? That's been tried in countries around the world, especially during the second half of the 20th century. It has failed so often and so badly that even socialist and communist governments were freeing up their markets by the end of the century.

The economies of China and India began their take-off into high rates of growth when they got rid of precisely the kinds of policies that Obama is advocating for the United States under the magic mantra of "change."

Putting restrictions on international trade in order to save jobs at home? That was tried here with the Hawley-Smoot tariff during the Great Depression.

Unemployment was 9 percent when that tariff was passed to save jobs, but unemployment went up instead of down, and reached 25 percent before the decade was over.

Higher taxes to "spread the well around," as Obama puts it? The idea of redistributing wealth has turned into the reality of redistributing poverty, in countries where wealth has fled and the production of new wealth has been stifled by a lack of incentives.

Economic disasters, however, may pale by comparison with the catastrophe of Iran with nuclear weapons. Glib rhetoric about Iran being "a small country," as Obama called it, will be a bitter irony for Americans who will have to live in the shadow of a nuclear threat that cannot be deterred, as that of the Soviet Union could be, by the threat of a nuclear counter-attack.

Suicidal fanatics cannot be deterred. If they are willing to die and we are not, then we are at their mercy-- and they have no mercy. Moreover, once they get nuclear weapons, that is a situation which cannot be reversed, either in this generation or in generations to come.

Is this the legacy we wish to leave our children and grandchildren, by voting on the basis of style and symbolism, rather than substance?

If Barack Obama thinks that such a catastrophe can be avoided by sitting down and talking with the leaders of Iran, then he is repeating a fallacy that helped bring on World War II.

In a nuclear age, one country does not have to send troops to occupy another country in order to conquer it. A country is conquered if another country can dictate who rules it, as the Mongols once did with Russia, and as Osama bin Laden tried to do when he threatened retaliation against places in the United States that voted for George W. Bush. But he didn't have nuclear weapons to back up that threat-- yet.

America has never been a conquered country, so it may be very hard for most Americans even to conceive what that can mean. After France was conquered in 1940, it was reduced to turning over some of its own innocent citizens to the Nazis to kill, just because those citizens were Jewish.

Do you think our leaders wouldn't do that? Not even if the alternative was to see New York and Los Angeles go up in mushroom clouds? If I were Jewish, I wouldn't bet my life on that.

What the Middle East fanatics want is not just our resources or even our lives, but our humiliation first, in whatever sadistic ways they can think of. Their lust for humiliation has already been repeatedly demonstrated in their videotaped beheadings that find such an eager market in the Middle East.

None of this can be prevented by glib talk, but only by character, courage and decisive actions-- none of which Barack Obama has ever demonstrated.

+1 Muy Bueno, I'm going to have some of my Dim friends read that, I'm debating hard trying to enlighten them.