Barack Obama Elected President!

[EricaKane70]

Obama's speech was great and the fireworks at the end were spectacular.

[George008]

I will admit Obama is a great speaker, but I still feel that he lacks substance. Hell, if he could do all of the things that he said he could I would vote for him!

But what he continually fails to do is speak about HOW he will accomplish all of this! Who is going to fund his educational programs, increased millitary spending, or his universal healthcare?

I noticed that not once did he mention anything about a reduction in spending. This would be the most logical answer. Taxes are not the answer to everything.

I guess that is the main difference between the Democratic and Republican ideals. Democrats feel government has a role to play in all matters of life. Let's tax the rich and have programs for the needy. While the Republicans want less government, less spending hense less taxes. That is the main reason that Bush's economic policies which were framed from Reagan did not work. He did not reduce spending. McCain understands the need for reduction of spending, like Reagan. And this is what will distance him from Bush. Historically, in times of economic woes Republicans and conservatism have been the answer. Like Reagan after Carter, because less government involvement promotes economic stimulation. Bush tried to play both sides. He reduced taxes but not spending.

He is going to increase taxes on the rich, while reducing taxes on the middle class? Right? Well he also said he will stop the tax cuts for companies that have gone over seas. That is the reason the majority of them left! They were taxed to death under Clinton and the went to countries that held less of a tax burden. The recent tax cuts have allowed for several companies to come back. Just for example Sara Lee and Playtex who left for the Dominican Republic have come back in the last year. I guess Obama will force them back out.

I agree everyone should have a job, but how in the world are you going to accomplish this if you tax the EMPLOYERS to death!?

Also, I am sick and tired of hearing about the "windfall profits" for the oil companies! Can anyone understand the difference between profits vs. profit MARGINS!? The oil companies have a very very expensive rate of expendature. They have lower profit margins than companies like McDonalds or Coca Cola. It costs a great deal to drill, refine, and distribute gasoline. Could you imagine if MORE taxes were put on top of oil companies? They would be forced to embed those taxes in the cost of gas and it would just trickle down to the consumer!

It sounds great and simple enough to say we need to tax the rich, BUT it would be impossible to promote jobs and tax the employers at the same time.

[Southofnowhere]

Just like her said he tells u how he's going to pay for everything.

Just checkout his website.

He can do everything he said he will do.

U mean just like McCain has been saying that giviing the big companies all these tax breaks will trickle down to poor peeps. Haven't happened in the past 20 years and won't happen EVER!

[Roman]

He has mentioned how he would raise the money for these programs.

By ending the useless war in Irag and bringing our fighting men and woemn home, thus saving $20 billion dollars a month in treasure.

I have heard him say this many times.

Glad I was listening.

[Southofnowhere]

Then the Boss himself took to the stage!

[Wales2004]

I'm not sure who you're referring to specifically but I can say that I've mentioned bias in the primaries as well. Obama may have received a lot of media coverage and he did benefit from the fact that he wasn't expected to do much of anything and even some contempt for the Clintons from some members of the media but there were members of the media that held him to a higher standard than they do other candidates.

I'm not sure what qualifies as a positive spin towards McCain since the only thing I ever hear the media gush about is that he was a POW. If the media said anything positive about him, it wouldn't bother me. I take issue with them giving him a free pass on his gaffes and lack of campaign substance and outright lies because he was a POW. At least Andrea Mitchell was adamant in challenging one of his team members on the lie in McCain's ad regarding his overseas trip and not visiting the troops.

I don't think it makes sense to attack Obama as lacking substance when McCain isn't saying anything at all save for attacking Obama. Hold them both to them same standards and all is well but don't say Obama needs to have a specific plan about a and b when McCain doesn't have one.

[Roman]

So why did the U.S. have a record deficit at the time Reagan left office?

[George008]

(Behind GWB?) They look like Romanesque columns, which are prominent in Washington architecture. Not so much a greek temple, which is what Obama spoke in front of tonight. I heard CNN say that the same people that build stages for Britney Spears built that stage. LOL!

**I was talking about the article that you posted. It was complaining about the media coverage of Obama as of late. Right? Am I missing something? I wasn't talking about your personal feelings about the media. I have no idea how you personally feel. I was simply commenting on the article.

I copied and pasted the comment from the first post that someone wrote on the website forum (after the article) that you, Roman, put a link to in this thread.

Look, I'm not sure why you take such offense to everything I say. In the future, I'm not going to directly respond to ANY of your comments. And to be honest with you, I never had respect for your off topic banter anyway. I lost respect for you when you continually wanted to talk about your personal feelings about labels or what you like or dont like. I've been trying to have an intelligent conversation about the political issues in this campaign. I could care less about who you respect or dont respect.

[Ryan]

Casey, Obama didn't speak in front something that was to represent a greek temple. It was supposed to echo the Lincoln Memorial.

And I don't see what the big deal is about the stage anyway. That's just my opinion.

[George008]

check out this site

http://wfhummel.cnchost.com/debtdeficit.html

Thats fine. I just see it as a little vulgar. It just plays into the "celebrity" of Obama.

Just from my personal experince I have never heard of a right wing bias in the media except for the recent inception of Fox News.

[Roman]

This coming from the same person who comes in here and tells me that Obama will raise taxes, even after I posted a artciel from the WP that shows he would lower them for working families.

And if you want to waste your precious time telling about the difference between Romanesque colums and Greek temples, be my guest, please. One does it )Obama) and it's a problem. The other does it (Bush) and everything's cool and dandy.

And.....the reason why I don't take anything you say seriously is that your post your opinion, which is beyond your right, and then post nothing at all from any source to back up these opinions. On top of the fact that if anyone (Like me) challenges you on these ponts, you then say that is not what you were talking about. Like I'm the one that's crazy and didn't read what you just posted.

Obama can't do one thing that will change your mind Casey, and that's fine. John McCain is the worst choice for POTUS, IMO. We can't change each other's mind.

But please don't continue to tell me that 4 more years of this BS is what's best for this country.

Enjoy.

[Ryan]

I find the entire "celebrity" thing to be in poor taste. So because Obama is popular, people like him and his speeches raise a lot of praise he's a rock star? Then I guess President Bush was a "celebrity" for a few years too.

I mean seriously, it sounds like a jealous (and I'm not saying McCain is jealous) kid mad because someone else is popular. McCain is a celebrity in his own right, the same way Obama is, the same way the Clintons are, the same way a lot of popular politicians are.

This isn't directed at you, but celebrity my ass. I lost a LOT of respect for people on radio and tv today trying to make jokes about the stage. Oh, is Obama gonna come out wearing a toga? Is the light from the celestial heavens going to shine down upon him tonight? Criticizing him for holding his acceptance speech in an stadium, when McCain has given rallies, and will accept his nomination as well in a stadium (albiet a smaller one).

Now that they saw what it looked like, it doesn't in any way shape or form resemble a Greek/Roman temple/coliseum/church or any other reference the Republicans were trying to spin.

[Roman]

Ronald Reagan's Legacy

His destructive economic policies do not deserve the press's praise.

by John Miller

Dollars and Sense magazine, July / August 2004

Two days after his death, the Wall Street journal ran a lengthy editorial tribute to Ronald Reagan, in the editors' estimation the most important president since FDR. In their paean to the fortieth president, Reagan gets credit for everything from winning the Cold War to renewing a sense of optimism at home. Oh, and he gets extra kudos for doing it all with that famously sunny disposition.

On economic policy, as the journal tells the story, by tying the hands of meddlesome government bureaucrats and cutting taxes, Reaganomics ignited an episode of miraculous economic growth that restored prosperity to the U.S. economy. But like much of what Reagan had to say while he was president, what the journal offers is just so much happy talk that masks a mean-spirited, economically unsound, and socially destructive policy agenda.

First off, claims that Reagan's economic agenda restored prosperity are overblown. The so-called Reagan boom was in fact a rather middling episode of economic growth. Shorter than either the 1960s and 1990s expansions, the 1980s economic expansion was still the third longest on record. But it was hardly robust. The economy grew much more slowly in the 1980s than during the 1960s, more slowly than the postwar average of 3.6% annual growth, and no faster than in the 1970s or the 1990s. Nor did Reagan administration regulatory rollbacks unleash a productivity boom. Productivity gains in the 1980s failed to match those in the decades before and after, and couldn't hold a candle to the productivity gains of the 1960s boom.

The Reagan years showed mixed results on a number of other economic measures. The "great American jobs machine," missing in action since George W. Bush took office, was up and running during the Reagan administration. The rate of job growth was higher in the 1980s than in the 1990s-but lower than in either the 1960s or the 1970s.

In addition, unemployment rates remained quite high throughout the decade: 5.2% at the boom's end in 1989, well above the 3.5% and 4.1% rates achieved at the end of the 1960s and 1990s booms. The 1980s economy did more to improve the purchasing power of the median family than the 1990s boom. But again, those gains were extremely modest compared to what the 1960s boom did for that representative family.

None of this speaks to the lopsided distribution of the benefits of Reagan era economic growth. Investors made out during the 1980s, while workers lost out. After seeing their investments lose value during the 1970s, shareholders enjoyed real returns (i.e., adjusted for inflation) in the 1980s that rivaled those of the next decade's stock market bubble and far outdistanced the returns of the 1960s. Real weekly wages for nonsupervisory workers, on the other hand, took a beating, declining even more quickly than they had during the 1970s. Today, the average real earnings of nonsupervisory workers remain far below those of 30 years ago, despite healthy wage gains in the second half of the 1990s expansion, when unemployment rates dropped toward 4%.

Nor did Reagan era growth do much to alleviate poverty. The poverty rate in 1989 at the end of Reagan's two terms was still 12.8%. That was just one percentage point lower than at beginning of his administration. In contrast, the 1990s boom knocked three percentage points off the nation's poverty rate, while the 1960s boom nearly cut it in half.

Reagan administration economic policies did not result in a 1960s-style prosperity, when workers' real wages went up in tandem with the value of stock holdings-just the opposite. Since 1980, the gains from U.S. economic growth have gone overwhelmingly to the well-to-do, and economic inequality has steadily worsened. By 2000, the ratio of the family income of the top 5% to that of the bottom 20% stood at 19.1, a dramatic rise over the 1979 ratio of 11.4. Reagan's economic policies ushered in the return of levels of inequality unseen since the eve of the Great Depression.

In one area the 1980s boom did post genuinely outstanding numbers: reducing inflation. But Federal Reserve Board chair Paul Volcker, not the Reagan administration, administered the fight against inflation. Voicker's tight monetary policy induced the 1982 recession and helped keep a lid on wage growth. Thus the credit for breaking inflation goes more properly to the workers who endured a decade of declining purchasing power administered in the name of price stability.

But what about the particulars of Reaganomics (or supply-side economics), which in practice meant large tax cuts targeted at the rich, a military buildup, and slashing social spending? That too is a disturbing story.

The tax cuts came in 1981, Reagan's first year in office. The administration's plan slashed corporate and individual income tax rates, with the biggest cut in the top rate. The Reagan team promised that their tax cuts would jolt the economy back to life because, as the Wall Street Journal's editors put it, "high taxes interfere with natural human creativity and drive." And the true believers went so far as to suggest that the economy would grow fast enough that tax revenues would actually rise, making the tax cuts painless.

The results never came close to measuring up to the supply-side rhetoric. For starters, the tax cuts busted the federal budget. The federal deficit ballooned from 2.7% of GDP in 1980 to 6% of GDP in 1983, the largest peacetime deficit in history, and was still 5% of GDP in 1986. Tax revenues did pick up, especially after the 1983 payroll tax increase kicked in, reducing the deficit somewhat. Still, tax revenues grew far more slowly over than the 1980s business cycle (2.5% from 1979 to 1989) than they did in the 1990s business cycle (4.1% from 1989 to 2000).

Nor did the claim that tax cuts would encourage work effort, savings, and investment, the central premise of Reaganomics, hold up. When mainstream economists, such as Barry Bosworth and Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution, checked out the effects of the 1981 tax cut, they found that something quite different had happened. After the tax cut, men didn't work much more at all; although women did work longer hours, their earnings failed to improve. And relative to the size of the economy, net investment declined and savings plummeted. The Economic Policy Institute, a labor-funded think tank, reports that the annual increase in real investment in the 1980s business cycle (2.5% per year) was less than half of that during the 1990s business cycle (5.9% per year).

Worse yet, most low-income taxpayers missed out on the Reagan tax cuts. The bottom 40% of households paid out more of their income in federal taxes in 1988 than they had in 1980. Increases in the payroll taxes that finance Social Security and Medicare, which made up a far higher portion of their federal tax bill than income taxes, swamped what little benefit these taxpayers received from lower income tax rates. For the richest 1%, on the other hand, the Reagan tax cuts were pure elixir. This group saw their effective federal tax rate drop from 34.6% to 29.7%, according to a recent study conducted by the Congressional Budget Office. As these numbers suggest, Reagan left a far less progressive federal tax code than he found.

While the Reagan military buildup kept overall government spending from shrinking, Reagan's budgets slashed social spending. Domestic discretionary spending, which includes just about all non-defense spending outside of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, was the special target of Reagan's budget cutting. Relative to the size of the economy, one-third of domestic discretionary spending disappeared: it fell from 4.7% of GDP in 1980 to 3.1% in 1988. Hardest hit were programs for low-income Americans, which in real terms suffered a withering 54% cut in federal spending from 1981 to 1988. After correcting for inflation, subsidized housing lost 80.7% of its support, training and employment services 68.3%, and housing assistance for the elderly 47.1%. These programs have never returned to their pre-Reagan spending levels. In fact, under the Clinton administration spending on domestic discretionary programs continued to decline relative to the size of the economy.

Reagan's economic legacy endures. Government continues to turn its back on social spending for the poor in favor of ineffectual tax giveaways for the rich, at same time that it finds unlimited monies for military adventures. Lopsided economic growth showers benefits on stock investors while doing precious little for workers or-not an entirely separate group-the poor. And today's Depression-level inequality is not mitigated as much as it once was by the tax code

Ronald Reagan did profoundly alter the economic policy agenda of our nation. But the Reagan legacy ought to be condemned, not celebrated. And we continue to do battle with its crippling effects. Whether under a Clinton presidency, a Bush presidency, or now perhaps a Kerry presidency, it is up to us to restore all that has been lost since Reagan came to power nearly a generation ago.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ronald_R...gan_Legacy.html

[Ryan]

I don't consider myself a hardcore Democrat. I've voted for Republicans in the past, and will continue to do so with those I feel have the best policies and plans in mind.

I damn sure chose Doug Forrester (the Republican) over our hackneyed ass current Governor Jon Corzine. Reducing our property taxes my ass.....they've gone up, and we're still in a deficit because of poor management by the Dems and Republicans in office in NJ.

[George008]

You sure do reply to my comments with a lot of fever to not take them seriously.

You are right. I am not trying to change anyone's mind. I would prefer to talk about the differences of opinions on political issues and I would prefer not to bicker back and forth about your sensitivity.

Again. I never said Obama would raise taxes on the working class. I made the general statement that Obama would raise taxes as a whole. I thought it was common knowledge that its the democratic agenda to raise taxes on the wealthy.

What sources do you want? What specific issue would you like me to back up with a source? I will be happy to provide it to you.

When have I ever said, "that is not what I was talking about"?

I am still waiting for an explaination of how Obama will fund all of his spending. I have heard you say that you were "listening". Well how is he going to promote jobs and not hurting the employers all at the same time?