Che Obama

Alright, the election is over and there's nothing any of us can do about it (except complain).

I am getting really freaking sick of all the Obama supporters telling me that we need to, "Come together," now that their guy won. Stop trying to make the rest of us feel bad by not running around singing Obama's praises, riding on unicorns, farting colored marshmallows and collecting our strawberry scented welfare checks.

-

When I hear this garbage coming from a liberal's mouth, here are a few things that come to mind:

It's like all of a sudden, now that their guy is in office, we aren't allowed to disagree? Or have we instantly forgotten that dissent is patriotic?

-

So in the words of Ann Coulter:

"In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president."

Question for Obama supporters

Obama says that 95% of people will get a tax cut under his plan (sometimes he says 95% of ‘working families'). http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/26/debate.mississippi.transcript/

But 32% of people who filed taxes in 2006 had zero tax liability. http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/1410.html

I want to know how Obama is going to give a tax cut to those 43 million Americans who don’t pay any taxes. My suspicion is that this isn't really a tax cut at all. Obama has cleverly disguised the world 'welfare' by using the term 'tax cut'.

Lucky for him, there are millions of Americans who care more about getting a couple hundred dollars back from Uncle Sam than they care about the far-reaching detrimental effect Obama's plan will have on our country as a whole.

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
-Thomas Jefferson

"A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have."
-Gerald R. Ford

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

Obama Bin Lyin'

Obama says he is going to raise taxes only on the top 5% of wage earners, and says 95% of tax payers will see a decrease in their taxes.

The top 5% pay 57% of the total federal income taxes.
http://www.american.com/archive/2007/november-december-magazine-contents/guess-who-really-pays-the-taxes

The total income taxes collected by the federal government last year was $1.25 trillion.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/hist.html

If the top 5% paid 57% of that, that means that the top 5% of taxpayers paid $712.5 billion.

As it is now, people in that tax bracket pay 35% of their money in taxes. So that means that the top 5% of people made $2.034 trillion.

So, assuming that they made that same amount of money under Obama’s tax plan (39.6%), the federal government would collect $805.5 billion.

That means Obama will collect $93 billion more from the richest 5%.

Obama has promised $270 billion in tax cuts for the poor and middle class.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/url.cfm?ID=411693

Obama has promised $293 billion in new spending, annually.
http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=97

So, Obama will collect $93 billion more from the richest 5% but he has promised $563 billion in extra spending and tax cuts to the poor and middle class per year.

Here is what I can conclude, either:

1. He is lying about who he will raise taxes on (he’ll have to raise taxes on many more people).

2. He is lying about giving tax cuts to the poor and middle class and also lying about the spending that he is promising to special interest groups (since there is no way he’ll be able to afford all those promises).

3. He is going to increase the federal deficit by approximately $470 billion per year.

Charity: Obama vs. McCain

In Obama’s convention address, he stated:

“That's the promise of America, the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.”

It’s no surprise coming from the democrat presidential nominee that he would advocate helping out our fellow Americans, and a big part of his campaign has been focused on what he’ll do to help out the poor and middle class. But does Obama live by his own credo?

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/03/obama-releases.html

I thought it was very interesting that someone who is so actively involved in promoting social change and progressive values seems to be so stingy with his own pocket book. Some years, he gave less than 1% of his income to charity. What I find even more interesting is that he couldn't even donate the extra money that he was able to keep because of Bush's tax cuts.

By the way, Obama’s actual half brother lives in Africa, surviving off pennies per month, so I guess Obama doesn’t really think he should have to be his brother’s keeper. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/08/20/2008-08-20_barack_obamas_povertystricken_halfbrothe.html

Anyway, I got curious and looked up McCain’s tax records:

“In 2007, the Arizona senator reported $405,409 in total income and contributed $105,467, or 26 percent of his total income, to charity. In 2006, Mr. McCain said he had $358,414 in total income and donated $64,695, or 18 percent of his total income, to charity.” http://philanthropy.com/news/updates/4437/john-mccain-discloses-data-o%20n-his-charity-giving

So which is more noble? Trying to use power to force everyone else to help the poor through taxes, or actually putting your money where your mouth is to give sizable portions of your income to those who are less fortunate?

If you like Michigan's economy, you'll love Obama's

I started trying to put this into my own words, but the original article was just too good so a lot is copied directly from the original article:

One of the main issues in the upcoming election is the state of the economy. While we can only speculate what the candidates’ plans will do to our economy, we can get a pretty good idea by looking at the plans on a smaller scale.

Individual states are able to exercise substantial freedom in pursing their own economic fortune – or misfortune. As a result, the states provide a laboratory for testing various policies. In other words, if we want to see what Obama’s and McCain’s plans will do, we can see them in action on a smaller scale (the states).

Ranking states by domestic migration, per-capita income growth and employment growth, American Legislative Exchange Council found that from 1996 through 2006, Texas, Florida and Arizona were the three most successful states. Illinois, Ohio and Michigan were the three least successful. Their analysis showed that “generally speaking, states that tax less, particularly on productive activities such as working or investing, experience higher growth rates than states that tax and spend more.”

From 1996 to 2006, Texas Florida and Arizona were the three most successful states. Illinois, Ohio and Michigan were the three least successful.

Texas gained 1.7 million net new jobs, Florida gained 1.4 million and Arizona gained 600,000. While the U.S. average job growth percentage was 9.9%, Texas, Florida and Arizona had job growth of 18.5%, 21.4% and 28.9% respectively. A third of all the jobs in the US in the last 10 years were created in these 3 states. The population of the three highest performing states grew twice as fast as the national average, per-capita real income still grew by $6,563 or 21.4% in Texas, Florida and Arizona. That’s a $26,252 increase for a typical family of four.

By comparison, Illinois gained only 122,000 jobs, Ohio lost 62,900 and Michigan lost 318,000. Population growth in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois was only 4.2%, a third the national average, and real income per capita rose by only $3,466, just 58% of the national average. Workers in the three least successful states had to contend with a quarter-million fewer jobs rather than taking their pick of the 3.7 million new jobs that were available in the three fastest-growing states.

What explains this relative performance over the last 10 years? The simple answer is that governance, taxes and regulatory policy matter. The playing field among the states was not flat. Business conditions were better in the successful states than in the lagging ones. Capital and labor gravitated to where the burdens were smaller and the opportunities greater.

Incredibly, the business climate in Michigan is now so unfavorable that it has overwhelmed the considerable comparative advantage in auto production that Michigan spent a century building up. No one should let Michigan politicians blame their problems solely on the decline of the U.S. auto industry. Yes, Michigan lost 83,000 auto manufacturing jobs during the past decade and a half, but more than 91,000 new auto manufacturing jobs sprung up in Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Texas.

So what do the state laboratories tell us about the potential success of the economic programs presented by Barack Obama and John McCain?

Mr. McCain will lower taxes. Mr. Obama will raise them, especially on small businesses. To understand why, you need to know something about the "infamous" top 1% of income tax filers: In order to avoid high corporate tax rates and the double taxation of dividends, small business owners have increasingly filed as individuals rather than corporations. When Democrats talk about soaking the rich, it isn't the Rockefellers they're talking about; it's the companies where most Americans work. Three out of four individual income tax filers in the top 1% are, in fact, small businesses.

In the name of taxing the rich, Mr. Obama would raise the marginal tax rates to over 50% on millions of small businesses that provide 75% of all new jobs in America. Investors and corporations will also pay higher taxes under the Obama program, but, as the Michigan-Ohio-Illinois experience painfully demonstrates, workers ultimately pay for higher taxes in lower wages and fewer jobs.

Mr. Obama would spend all the savings from walking out of Iraq to expand the government. Mr. McCain would reserve all the savings from our success in Iraq to shrink the deficit, as part of a credible and internally consistent program to balance the budget by the end of his first term. Mr. Obama's program offers no hope, or even a promise, of ever achieving a balanced budget.

Mr. Obama would stimulate the economy by increasing federal spending. Mr. McCain would stimulate the economy by cutting the corporate tax rate. Mr. Obama would expand unionism by denying workers the right to a secret ballot on the decision to form a union, and would dramatically increase the minimum wage. Mr. Obama would also expand the role of government in the economy, and stop reforms in areas like tort abuse.

The states have already tested the McCain and Obama programs, and the results are clear. We now face a national choice to determine if everything that has failed the families of Michigan, Ohio and Illinois will be imposed on a grander scale across the nation. In an appropriate twist of fate, Michigan and Ohio, the two states that have suffered the most from the policies that Mr. Obama proposes, have it within their power not only to reverse their own misfortunes but to spare the nation from a similar fate.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122126282034130461.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Gas Rebates

So I came across this article talking about how Obama now wants to send out $1,000 rebates to American families to help soften the blow from the pressure we’ve felt at the pump. Where is he going to get that money? He’s going to take it from the oil companies, of course!

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/08/01/obama-calls-for-1000-rebates-to-offset-energy-costs/

But I thought he said he was going to raise taxes on the oil companies and use the money for alternative fuel exploration…? I guess we can add another lie to his long list of empty promises.

Exxon mobile already pays more money in taxes to our federal government than the entire bottom 50% of American tax payers (http://seekingalpha.com/article/88703-exxon-s-record-taxes-capital-and-exploration-spending-in-perspective).

Exxon’s profit margins were around 10%, which is right around the industry average, and oil company's margins are worse than firms in the chemicals industry, pharmaceuticals, and the beverages and tobacco industries (http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/08/04/does-exxon-mobill-have-windfall-profits/).

So Obama’s platform is going to be to punish corporations for earning profits? Should we expect to see Obama start to steal money from Microsoft, Google, Wal-mart, and Berkshire Hathaway and spread it out among the poor and middle class as well?

Obama's spending

Obama keeps promising more and more money to special interest groups. Just for the things he has promised in his speeches, they are estimating that he plans on spending around $800 BILLION http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/02/obamas_gloomy_biggovernment_vi.html

He claims he is going to be cutting taxes for the poor and middle class while raising taxes on the rich. If he raises taxes up to 39% for the rich while simultaneously giving all the tax cuts he has promised to the poor and middle class, he will end up with a $80 billion deficit. All the money that is supposed to be coming in from the rich will easily be offset by the tax cuts he is promising the poor and middle class.

The federal budget is around $3 Trillion per year, and Obama has promised over $800 Billion in new spending. Either he's completely lying and he's not going to fund all the projects he is promising or he's not going to be able to give all those tax cuts he's promising to the poor and middle class. The richest 1% alone can't foot the $800 Billion bill.

But let's pretend he TRIED to make the top 1% of wage earners pay for all his spending. The top 1% of wage earners already pay 37% of the federal income tax received. That's more than $1 Trillion of federal money that comes just from the top 1%. If he needs $800 Billion more money from those people, he's going to have to double their taxes. The rich can't pay 78% of their money in federal income taxes. After FICA, state and local taxes, sales taxes and any other taxes, they wouldn't have any money.

So I'd love to know where Obama is going to get the money for all the projects he is promising. If he can't come up with $800 Billion (a conservative estimate) then he's got to be lying about something.

NObama in 2008

I am getting so tired of the Obama frenzy. I’m pretty much at my breaking point, and whenever I ask an Obama supporter why they like him, the response is always the same:

“Blah blah blah change, blah blah blah hope, blah blah he's different.”

I’ve never actually heard an Obama supporter give a good reason as to why they want this man to be our next president. It’s never about the issues that our country faces every day. It’s always a rehearsed catch phrase that has no substance behind it.

“He wants change.” – Has there ever been a presidential candidate whose platform was, “I want everything to be exactly the same.” Absolutely not. Every candidate wants things to change. We are a constantly evolving nation. If Obama is elected, you’ll see change, but I doubt it will be what you’re expecting. Obama supporters see a land where nobody goes hungry, there is always peace, and everybody has a pony and a puppy and there is a rainbow in the sky every day.

One thing Obama wants to change is health care. He wants every American to be guaranteed health coverage. Obama claims that his national health care plan will cost $50-65 billion (http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080222/EDITORIAL/457737055/1013).

In 2007 the US spent 15.3% of our GDP in healthcare. Of this amount the government already pays 45.1%. The United States’ 2007 GDP is 13.86 trillion dollars. So here is the math:Our health care expenditures are 15.3% of $13.86T, or $2.12T. The government already pays $956B (2.12T * 45.1%) in health care costs. Thus, the actual cost of universal healthcare is $1.16T annually. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html If Obama only picks up the tab for the 45M uninsured Americans, that would indicate only an increase of $318B [(45M/300M) * $2.12T]. That is six times more than Obama admits.

Many Obama supporters think that we’ll have more money available (for things like healthcare) if Obama is president because they think he’ll pull out of Iraq.

“Regarding the peace dividend, it must be recalled that Mr. Obama declined in September to promise that all U.S. troops would be out of Iraq by January 2013, which was more than five years down the road.” (http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080222/EDITORIAL/457737055/1013)

So the US won’t see any additional monies from leaving Iraq. Obama says that he will cut certain taxes for middle class families (about $80 billion).

That means Obama plans on spending an additional $318 billion annually while cutting $80 billion worth of taxes. Not to mention he has promised other programs for various special interest groups.

Obama is pro-choice, that’s no surprise. But what may be a surprise is that he believes women should be given the choice to have partial birth abortions (meaning, a woman can abort a baby when she is 9 months along). I won’t get into the details of partial birth abortions, because it is absolutely horrifying.

Not only does he think women should be able to abort their 9 month old ‘fetus’ but he also believes minors should be able to have abortions without their parents’ consent. Minors can’t go tanning or go on a field trip without parental consent, but a controversial medical procedure is just fine according to Obama.

While I don’t think that it’s fair to judge a person based on what their wife or pastor says, I think it speaks volumes about what kind of people Obama has chosen to surround himself with. His wife has never been proud of our country until very recently and his pastor is a bigot.

Among other slipups, Obama has said that small town people cling to guns and religion to explain their frustrations (even though I’m pretty sure people have had religion and guns for centuries) and he also said that there were 57 states. The funniest thing about the 57 states is that the people who love Obama are many of the same people who make fun of Bush for being an idiot. If Bush had said there were 57 states in a speech, people would be all over him.

I could seriously go on and ON about other things that I can’t stand about this man. It would really sadden me to see him in the white house because I think he will do a great deal of damage to our country.