Barack Obama Elected President!

[George008]

Do you also feel that small business owners that have an income of $250,000 or more should still carry the majority of the tax burden? No matter if they have to turn around and spend $249,999 on business expenses? It doesn't matter to the IRS how much of that income is reinvested, as long as they technically make $250,000 they are still in the highest tax bracket. How is that fair? Keep in mind small business are the largest employer in the country. How in anyway could it be beneficial to our country in the long run to tax our country's entrepreneurs and the people that create jobs>

[Roman]

1. I don't, never had and never will, give one tinker's damn about the oil companies. If you want to promote their interests........once again, right on to you. I won't waste my time telling working-class americans that we shold do everything possible to see that the oil companies receive as much record profits as possible.

2. Listening to those on the ultra right win is the reason we're in this fix now........you know, not electing someone because they dared go to Iraq (After being told they didn't have the guts to go) and when the candidate tours Europe, 200,000 Germans who are sick of the beyond-failed Bush foreign policy have the audacity to come out and actually see what he has to say.

The nerve of Obama. How dare he?

Billions of dollars for the oil companies, after bailing out savings and loan companies with tax payers money and oil companies enjoying record profits.........and I should insure they receive more.

Damn.

Yes.

I do.

Glad I could clear that up.

[Roman]

And Casey....

You feelthat those who work two-three jobs and are double or triple taxed should pay more taxes than someone who makes $250,000 a year?

[George008]

Good to know your view point. It's nice to see support for hard working people that create jobs.

Last time I checked Germans do not have a say as to who our president will be. And if you are interested in Foreign Policy I would recommend McCain over the zero experience of Obama.

I don't feel that any group should be double or triple taxed. I know of no one that does want that. And furthermore I do not believe that someone that works 2-3 jobs would be making enough to pay taxes anyway. The IRS does not total the income of any individual working more than one job, they only take the highest number from all of the jobs. Anyone working 3 jobs would probably be working part time at each or at minimum wage jobs, and their income would less than threshold to require tax payment. They will receive back all of what they pay in, in the form of refunds.

[Roman]

McCain's foreign policy.

You mean this?

From Newsweek:

McCain Gets Wiki

Andrew Romano

John McCain may be a self-confessed Internet "illiterate" who doesn't know his way around "a Google." But that doesn't mean his staffers are iGnoramuses as well. In fact, judging by the latest blip to qualify as "breaking news" in these dog days of summer, Team McCain may be a little too familiar with pointing and clicking. Or cutting and pasting, as it were.

Seeking to boost his national-security cred while rival Barack Obama splashes in the Aloha State surf, McCain appeared before reporters yesterday morning to "offer a lengthy primer on Russia-Georgia crisis." It was only a matter of hours, however, before an editor of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia emailed blogger Taegan Goddard to "point out some similarities between Sen. John McCain's speech today on the crisis in Georgia and the Wikipedia article on the country Georgia." Under a rather racy headline--Did McCain Plagiarize His Speech on the Georgia Crisis?--Goddard concluded that "given the closeness of the words and sentence structure, most would consider parts of McCain's speech to be derived directly from Wikipedia. The offending lines, according to Goddard, included "one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion," which resembled Wikipedia's original "one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion," as well as the following paragraph...

After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises.

... which he compared to this section from Wikipedia:

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of independence as a Democratic Republic (1918-1921), which was terminated by the Red Army invasion of Georgia. Georgia became part of the Soviet Union in 1922 and regained its independence in 1991. Early post-Soviet years were marked by a civil unrest and economic crisis.

By this morning, the Politico's Jonathan Martin was arguing that "the claim could undermine McCain's expertise on foreign affairs—one of the campaign's cornerstones against the more inexperienced Obama."

To borrow a phrase: "baloney."

I get what Goddard and Martin are getting at. Delivering presidential campaign speeches peppered with phrases from an online resource written by thousands of anonymous Web nerds isn't the most effective way to convey foreign-policy expertise. And even though Team McCain claims that "there are only so many ways to state basic historical facts and dates and that any similarities to Wikipedia were only coincidental," I don't doubt that whomever wrote the historical passage consulted Wikipedia for a refresher course (something that the campaign wouldn't deny "outright"). I mean, there are simply too many repeated phrases, conveniently rearranged to evade detection, to suggest anything but a schoolboy copy job.

That said, I'm not sure what the infraction has to do with McCain. As Martin reported this morning, the candidate called top speechwriter Mark Salter Sunday afternoon requesting (according to Salter's email to staff) "a little Georgian history": "Old nation. Absorbed into USSR. Independent after Cold War. Plagued by corruption. Then Rose Revolution. President U.S. educated." That some young speechwriter assigned to cook up the necessary grafs familiarized himself with an unfamiliar country on Wikipedia and then failed to excise every last trace of the encyclopedia entry in his finished product--which, after all, didn't regurgitate entire sentences or original ideas--shouldn't reflect poorly on a candidate, who, like all of his political peers, simply doesn't have the time to write his own daily remarks.

Unless, of course, you suspect that McCain was surfing around Wikipedia all by himself.

Right. That's what I thought.

Although something does tell me the Arizona senator take the next available opportunity to lecture his young aides on the virtues of Encyclopedia Britannica--the print edition.

So you mean to tell me that the foreign policy expert has to get his information from Wikipedia?

[George008]

At least he/his team is doing research on the matter. At least they are interested in it and trying. I find it encouraging that they realize the impact it could have on our country. I'm glad they acknowledge that our citizens are concerned about this conflict.

Where is Obama? Oh yeah...Hawaii vacationing, splashing in the Aloha surf as your article states.

Please don't turn this thread into a "silly mistake" forum. I can post several silly mistakes and little white lies that Obama has told. Have you heard about him commenting on his parents meeting at a civil rights movement in Selma AL, that happened after he was born? Or that his father was a goat herder...I could go on, but I am being hypocritical. Like I said I don't want this discussion to go down that path.

[Roman]

He got his information from a website?!

This is the same man who wanted to enter his wife in the "Miss Buffalo Chip" beauty pageant..........

Not realizing that there is nudity involved and that some women have to do things with a banana!

Yeah......I want him as my president. Are you serious?! I'm glad Obama is taking a vacation.....

Lord Knows the current occupent of the WH has seen MORE than his share of vacations.

[George008]

This is usually what happens anytime that you try to discuss pertanent issues with liberals ("progressives" as you like to be called now)...I thought we could have a higher level discussion here, but I guess I was wrong.

[Jess]

OK Casey, I'll accept that you do not think we are communist. :lol: Maybe just socialist.

Anyway, back on health care. Interestingly, IMO, McCain's plan would move closer to a government subsidized system if my understanding of it is correct. He is suggesting that the government provide tax rebates to families to provide health care. I think it is $5,000. Now if he accomplished his objective of using tax rebates to provide incentives for individuals to purchase health care, I think a couple of things would have to happen. He first would have to mandate insurers to provide coverage to anyone who applied and at the same price as other individuals. That is how it works with business-provided insurance. You cannot deny coverage and everyone in the business gets to purchase in for the same price. Secondly, I think he will have to adjust the rebates based on family size and age. Otherwise the $5,000 will not cover the cost of insurance and the problem of uninsured will increase and not decrease. In effect, it will be government subsidized health care and paid for by taxpayers, but without the strings placed on providers.

I think Obama's plan has a big hole in that it does not require every individual to have access to affordable health insurance. If a small business opts out of the pool, employees are still without insurance.

I personally believe that there should be some guarantee of affordable insurance for everyone. It may sound silly, but I think it is in the best interest of society. Sky-rocketing health care costs are as hard on the economy as sky-rocketing fuel prices and have the same effect on inflation. Also, I think when we establish a system that allows for preventative care that people are not as sick when they go to a doctor and as a result the cost of health care is not as high.

In my opinion, that is where the debate should be -- not on whether its communist or socialist -- but on individual beliefs on whether everyone is entitled to affordable health care and what role the government should play in health care.

Damn, I thought I was being pretty intelligent. :lol:

[George008]

Thanks! . I appreciate you understanding what I was saying. LOL

Yeah! You're right. McCain does want to encourage privatized healthcare by offering rebates of $5,000. That's pretty much the extent to which he wants the government involved. It would be very damaging to mandate insurance companies to provide service to everyone that applied. We would be going down the same road as the mortgage companies in the late 90's early 00's and we all know where that lead!

McCain believes that promoting the free market and competition will be the closest thing to a guarantee of affordable coverage for the majority of people. Its hard to ensure anything for everyone. Unfortunately, there are just some people out there that would be harmed if services are guaranteed, mainly the service provider. (eg: the mortgage companies). There is a delicate balance to look out for the little man and the service provider at the same time. I personally think that LESS government involvement is the answer rather than a government run program. In almost every case the private sector handles service much better than the federal government. I believe healthcare would be no exception.

Jess, you do contribute to an intelligent and stimulating conversation. BTW, I never meant that you didn't. You weren't the one that brought up women doing things with a banana!

[Roman]

You were, Jess.

I mean......I didn't mention Bush being on vacation until it was introduced by someone else.

But, I'm just a silly progressive. WTF do I know? (Apparently morethan the conservative who currently sits in the OO).

[Jess]

My PhD is in public policy and I like these conversations.

[Roman]

I do as well, when they are not reduced to people being labled.

If it stays on the topic, we can talk about it all day.

But once I hear the "See, that is what you Libbys problem is..." that is when Ijust can't take a person seriously, because it automatically reduces the conversation to the BS points.

That and the fact of outright lies being told (Like Obama raising taxes on everyone).

[George008]

I'm not sure if you are refering to me again. Sorry if you are not. If you are, I'm finding it very hard to have a fluid conversation with you. I've said this many times now...I never said Obama would raise taxes on everyone. I start to lose respect for someone when they talk about women doing things with bananas in a Presidential Election thread. Sorry if you don't agree with the "labels", but your ideology seems to fit the on-going definition for a liberal. Are you ashamed or something?

[Roman]

As I with you, because you feel you have the right to say what I am, but at the very same time you don't label anyone.

And......if some homework was done on McCain's visit to Sturgys with his wife, Cindy, and what he said there.......then maybe you could see what I'm talking about.

And......in my last post, did I mention you by name......orare you assuming I was talking about you?