The comments about SP's advisors should JMcC go to meet his maker prematurely led me to ponder on the way life so often imitates art. If the McCain/Palin ticket was to win in November and if JMcC did leave this mortal coil in the next foiur years, Sarah Palin would be left in the Geena Davis role from the (truly awful and thankfully axed) 'Commander in Chief'.
(I've been lurking here in observer mode but am just popping up to comment on this...)
Exactly what struck me a month back, as they're running the series on Hallmark Television back in India, and my sister is a major fan.
Life has a tendency (worrying, or otherwise) to imitate art sometimes!
[Palinrant on] Now, I *know* its hard for y'all to believe, gosh darn it! 'Cause, fersure we *ALL* really *do* care a whole lot about so *MANY* important things such as more important tax cuts for America's wealthiest families, doggonit? An' y'all are so very nice an' folksy.[/Palinrant off]
Darn it, we've had one cowboy in da White House for 8 years, who was proud of not being very complicated about his thinking and hardly reading a book. Isn't that enough? I betcha, who wants to take the chance to have a Hockey Mom as the Commander in Chief of the Most Powerful Nation on the Earth?
PS I wonder, does Palin actually knows what an Achilles Heel is, when she started to summerize her strong points? Reminds me of Junior telling he doesn't have any weaknesses.
Forgotten Foot Soldiers In War On Success
By BRAD O'LEARY | Posted Thursday, October 02, 2008 4:20 PM PT
One of the greatest achievements in the life of an astronomer is to discover a new planet or solar system. In the political world, the equivalent is uncovering a new voting bloc.
When writing my latest book, "The Audacity of Deceit: Barack Obama's War on American Values," I discovered a relatively unknown constituency: the 30% of American voters who do not pay federal income taxes.
These Americans are exempt from paying income taxes either because their income level is below the threshold that would require them to pay, or their total deductions leave them with no income-tax liability. So I set out to determine exactly who these people are and what makes them tick. In conjunction with Zogby America, I conducted a series of carefully orchestrated polls. For more results than I can write about here, you'll have to buy my book or go to BarackObamaTest.com ::: Before you vote... take the test.
First, I found that 60% of likely voters among nontaxpaying Americans favor Obama for president, whereas only 31% favor John McCain. In addition, a majority of the 30% of Americans who don't pay federal income taxes agree with Obama's $65 billion plan to institute taxpayer-funded, universal health coverage. On the other side, a majority of the 70% of Americans who pay federal income taxes (i.e., the folks who would have to foot the bill for this boondoggle) are opposed to Obama's health care plan.
A majority of nontaxpayers (57%) also favor raising the individual income-tax rate for those in the highest bracket to 54% from 35%. A majority of nontaxpayers (59%) also favor raising Social Security taxes by 4% for any individual or business that makes at least $250,000.
Nontaxpayers support Obama's plans for increased tax deductions for lower-income Americans along with higher overall tax rates levied against middle- and upper-income households as well.
They also want to expand their ranks from 30% of all Americans to 40%. Obama's tax plan, with its smorgasbord of deductions and credits aimed at lower-income households, would do exactly that.
Today, 70% of Americans shoulder the majority of the federal budgetary burden for all Americans. These Americans, by and large, do most of the risk-taking and innovating that produces the wealth, jobs and products that drive the American economy — not to mention pay the taxes that fund an ever expanding array of federal welfare programs and handouts.
Obama claims 95% of Americans would get a tax cut under his tax plan. Yet only 70% of Americans actually pay federal income taxes. How does this compute? Is he going to give more money to nontaxpayers? The math simply does not add up. You can't give a tax cut to 95% of Americans if only 70% of them pay federal income taxes in the first place.
Then again, math may not be Obama's strong suit, and judging by his earlier foray into "improving" education, it isn't a priority. When Obama worked with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the foundation doled out $160 million to effect education "reform" in the Chicago school system. Yet students at Annenberg schools showed no marked improvement over non-Annenberg students.
This is because Obama, Ayers and the Annenberg Challenge focused their resources on projects designed to promote an awareness of social injustice among students, as well as a general disrespect for authority — as opposed to projects that focused on core subjects like math and science. Projects like the Chicago Algebra Project and the District 5 Math and Science Initiative were rejected by the Annenberg Challenge. Meanwhile, the Challenge shelled out $200,000 to the South Shore African Village Collaborative to help them celebrate "Juneteenth."
Obama's lack of devotion to math aside, he fails to understand that successful, hardworking, taxpaying Americans have created the world's No. 1 economy — by far. Even when recession threatened earlier this year, U.S. gross domestic product still weighed in at an eye-popping $13.8 trillion.
However, if Barack Obama and his legions of nontaxpaying supporters are allowed to set America's economic policies and priorities, a wrench will be thrown into the gears of our remarkable economic machine. America will face a new war. Call it Obama's "war on success." In this war, there will be no winners — only losers — taxpayers and nontaxpayers alike.
O'Leary is president of ATI-News.com, which offers real-time links to hundreds of international news sources.
This is interesting. I undertook the poll in the link above and below is the link to my answers (link didn't work so I deleted it) as compared with those of 'all Americans' as deduced from various other Poll results. I disagree with Obama 85% of the time apparently - no surprise there. But what I find interesting is so do most Americans if the quoted poll results reflect reality. It will be interesting to see what happens next month.
Last edited by Chimbu chuckles : 3rd October 2008 at 21:29.
I think Obama should just step aside and let McCain/Palin in for the next 8 years or so. That way they can finish the legacy that George Dubya has started and the US will see a total meltdown of its financial institutions and the rest of the crock of s**t that has appeared under the Bush administration. A great country is on the brink of ruination. If Obama wins, then when the $700 billion bail out (sorry rescue package), fails to have the desired effect then it will be Obama that is blamed. Do yourself a favour Barrack, you're young enough to wait 8 years more.
RS the US economy is going into the toilet no matter what they do or who is in office next month.
The next shoes to drop will be commercial real estate doing exactly what private real estate has done - crash - and the highly leveraged collateralised debt instruments associated with them also becoming worthless. The there is the the consumer credit crisis which also has been packaged into CDSs/CDOs and packaged up and sold likewise. As night follows day the logical outcomes of recession and increasing unemployment/reducing real wages will cause ripple effects in everything associated with an economy that relies 70% on consumers.
Shopping malls, theaters, fast food outlets, restaurants and the transport infrastructure that supports them will all suffer and as they lay off staff it just becomes worse and worse. More banks failing as there exposure to leveraged toxic financial trickery and defaulting customers and another rock hits the pond causing yet more ripples. The car industry, the airlines, the marine industry, the aircraft industry - can you believe how badly timed the Boeing strike is?.
But this I firmly believe - The blame for this lays mostly with political meddling (some well intentioned, some extremely inept and some plain cronyism of the worst kind) going back at least as far as Carter and while there is plenty of blame to go around BOTH sides of the house the larger proportion of that blame lays with Democrats and ill thought out social engineering gone terribly wrong in very predictable ways. This disaster WAS PREDICTED with almost chilling accuracy and MOSTLY by Republicans going right back to 1992.
This is not Bush's fault. You can blame him for some stuff but not this. He has tried 17 times in the last 8 years to regulate Fannie and Freddie and was stopped every time, mostly by Democrats, but a few Republicans as well.
I’m voting Democrat because I believe the Government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.
I’m voting Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.
I’m voting Democrat because when we pull out of Iraq I trust that the bad guys will stop what they’re doing because they now think we’re good people.
I’m voting Democrat because I believe that people who can’t tell us if it will rain on Friday CAN tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don’t start driving a Prius.
I’m voting Democrat because I’m not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.
I’m voting Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as THEY see fit.
I’m voting Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would NEVER get their agendas past the voters.
I’m voting Democrat because I believe that open borders and government give-aways to foreigners is a great way to grow a nation.
I’m voting Democrat because I’m way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves.
I’m voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I’ve decided to marry my horse.
I’m voting Democrat because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t.
I’m voting Democrat because my head is so firmly planted up my ass it’s unlikely that I’ll ever have another point of view.
Two good posts The first shores up my belief that only those that have picture ID, a IRS 1040 showing they paid income taxes and a property deed should be allowed into a voting booth. If you don't have stake in the outcome, you don't have a vote.
There is a real danger as we approach the point where 50% of the population do not pay federal taxes. Then the electoral majority have no financial stake in the positions they take. The ramifications are enormous, and if you play them through the end result is collapse or revolution.
The reality today is that it doesn't even require the 50% level of pay nothings when a portion of taxpayers can be convinced to join the 30% on egalitarian appeals to their generosity and good will.
I think we are getting too perilously close to that point. In the not-to-distant future, I'm afraid you may need gold, land to provide your own food, and a weapon with which to protect yourself and family - to get by. Mad Max. Unless the direction changes.
One positive change would be to set the minimum tax bracket at five or ten percent so that the cost of government and government programs is at least somewhat, in some small measure, borne by everyone.
Which candidate under these premises would move us in the right direction and which in the wrong one?
The "Poll Tax" I believe that is called and I think we tried it and then discarded it in favour of "Universal Sufferance". Well, white men first but then it kind of got out of control so that nowadays just about anybody who is a citizen of the U.S.A. can vote.
Ever read "Huckleberry Finn"? You might want to go back to it and see what Huck's father had to say about that. It was a pretty rousing speech!
Should we tidy things up a bit in pursuit of true liberty and only let the right sort of people vote, good, solid taxpayers? What we have is a bit messy, yes...
GTF seems to have a dim opinion of the American Enterprise Institute:
But this guy - quoted in the NY Times in 1999 - had insight few others showed:
''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''
In a free-market corporation, the board of directors regulates the enterprise under the authority of the stockholders (owners), who can replace the board at their will. That's the way ever-present risk is managed. It's happened many times.
In a GSE the government theoretically assumes the regulatory role, because the risk factor is borne (for all practical purposes) by the taxpayer. I say theoretically, because in recent events, the lack of effective oversight is painfully obvious. Warnings about the subprime risk were swept under the rug.
And the excessive risk-taking, coupled with poor-to-no oversight, goes back at least a decade. Such are our friends inside the beltway.
As far as I am concerned, to be allowed to vote in the United States of America is just two things.
1. Proof of citizenship.
2. An identification card, or what ever you call it, proving that you are the person who is US citizen, with an address. Even if the address is, 'under the 5th Street Bridge'.
Now, would any Democratic here please explain to me what is wrong with the above?
GTF?
(I'm still in favor of a multi-vote system. It will never happen, but one can hope.)
A very broad brush assumption for which you have not one shred of evidence, just a nice rabble rousing bit of vitriol, given McCain's approach to the job why on earth would you assume he will take on the same set of advisor's?
Is your web browser broke, Parab ? Did you not see the links ? "...not one shred of evidence..." There's mountains of evidence. It would take you days to read it. Follow the links.
Here is a new one I just found -- just for you. It's the first time I read it -- tell me what you think. All I did was type in +Olin +Scaife on Google.
(BTW, in case you don't recognize the names it's John M. Olin (careful, there's more than one Olin Foundation) and Richard Mellon Scaife
Since the 1970s, charitable foundations established by families with politically conservative views have donated billions of dollars to what the National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy, a watchdog group, has called "an extraordinary effort to reshape politics and public policy priorities at the national, state and local level." 1
Five foundations are of special note for the magnitude of their donations to political and religious organizations. They are: the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation; the Adolph Coors Foundation; the John M. Olin Foundation, which ceased operations last year; the Smith-Richardson Trust and the Scaife Family Foundations. Much of the foundations' largesse supports institutions and individuals active in public policy, including think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institute and individuals such as William Bennett, Charles Murray ( The Bell Curve ) and Dinesh D'Souza ( The End of Racism ).
However, the foundations' activities also extend into the nation's churches-particularly its mainline Protestant churches. The foundations have provided millions of dollars to the IRD 2 which, in a fundraising appeal in 2000, said it sought to "restructure the permanent governing structure" of "theologically flawed" Protestant denominations and to "discredit and diminish the Religious Left's influence."
Coors, Scaife, Olin, the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation -- their fingerprints are all over the Republican Party. Including George W. Bush and John McCain.
Or maybe you think the Episcopal Church is full of wild-eyed radicals.
Bombay Duck, re life imitating art: Maybe in this case, it should be life improving on art, as I think Sarah P has better legs than Geena Davis, but God help us all if she gets to be Prez and is as bad as that dreadful programme.
Chimbu, apropos your first post and people who don't pay tax voting about how taxes should be spent, the following tale from Dunnunda, whiuch applies just as much to the US, makes really interesting reading:
Quote:
.......THE STUPIDITY OF GREED
Here is the real story to lighten the Budget discussion! You've heard the cry in the last couple of weeks from across Australia: "It's just a tax cut for the rich!", and it is accepted as fact. But what does that really mean?
The following explanation may help.....
Suppose that every night, 10 men go out for dinner at La Porchetta's. The bill for all 10 comes to $100.They decided to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, and it went like this:
* The first four men (the poorest) paid nothing.
* The fifth paid $1.
* The sixth $3.
* The seventh $7.
* The eighth $12.
* The ninth $18.
* The tenth man (the richest) paid $59.
All 10 were quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner said: "Since you are all such good customers, I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."
So now dinner for the 10 only cost $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.
The first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free.
But how should the other six, the paying customers, divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"?
They realised that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth and sixth men would each end up being paid to eat. The restaurateur suggested reducing each man's bill by roughly the same percentage, thus:
* The fifth man paid nothing (like the first four) instead of $1 (100%saving).
* The sixth paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
* The seventh paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
* The eighth paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
* The ninth paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
* The tenth paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).
Each of the six was better off, and the first four continued to eat for free, as now did the fifth - but outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man "but he got $10!"
"That's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"
"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner. The nine sat down and ate without him, but when they came to pay the bill, they discovered that they didn't have enough money between all of them to meet even half of the bill!
That, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.
There are lots of good restaurants in Monaco and the Caribbean.
[With thanks to David R. Kamerschen, Professor of Economics, University of NSW.]
The first shores up my belief that only those that have picture ID, a IRS 1040 showing they paid income taxes and a property deed should be allowed into a voting booth. If you don't have stake in the outcome, you don't have a vote.
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