Obama

Obama is caring and intelligent --two important qualities that should be required of those responsible for others. He expresses himself genuinely, which is extremely rare in a politician. I'm very proud of Americans willingness to put differences aside and see their fellow man for what he really is.

In the past, I've been misunderstood by some, thinking I’m an anti American. However, nothing is further from the truth. I was born in Iran, during the chaotic Iranian revolution. I have lived through the over 8 year long war between Iran and Iraq. I've seen the result of war, up close and personal, all while being systematically persecuted due to religious beliefs. I know what its like to be denied the right to leave the country that persecutes you, and have to cross the border under gun fire. I know what its like to feel like an outsider, once, twice, and then, again. I've come to see my world controlled by those who came before me, thinking being first somehow gives them the right to enslave masses. I do not recognize borders or races. Earth is my home. More specifically, currently, that is a piece of land called America. I personally don't doubt my love for this land, but some have and still do, which is fine by me.

I'd like Obama to succeed. Other than him being caring, who and what he is provides great leverage for this country’s global relations. He is by far the best candidate for improving other nation’s view of America. In my opinion, which I hope you have an idea of after having read the above, this will be good for us all. I mean all of us humans, everywhere.
I posted this a while ago, but since it may be considered contradicting by some, I thought I’d be the first to point it out.

Better Obama then Clinton. Sadly, as long as these things called 'humans' live, all of whatever will stay forever.

I got thinking. A capitalist market focuses on human greed to bring better things into the market. Basically, it takes something selfish and turns it into a good thing. I wonder if we can do that somehow with human relationships...Wingding love?

I take human weakness into account every time I rob someon.....enter a business relationship.

...*waits*...

Yes. You?

As a lesbian lover I thought you would be into Clinton? Lets face it she is a dyke.

I think Bill was just fooling around with Monica. Let's face it...Monica is not a great piece of ass. Nor does she swallow.

ugly people make me sad...

I drink heavily

Please pull those troops out now, if you really supported the troops you would do everything you could to end this war. Why?

%u201COf all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing many under the domination of a few%u201D
--James Madison 1797

The Bush regime just wants to further its imperialists goals anyway. They don't give a **** about the soldiers, as evidence by the veterans hospitals, low salaries (what 30k, while oil engineers get 100k over there, that lets you know what the real reason is for the war), and a doubling in tours.

AAAAARRRGHH!!!!!

*headbutts all people within this thread, inflicting multiple concussions, fractures, and various blunt-head-trauma wounds*

Front line grunts making $30K. ENGINEERS making $100K. That sounds about right...

What do the high ranking generals over there make a year?

You know what, don't answer that, or anything else.

Ever.

The only thing I like about Obama is that he's making so many promises he can't keep. IF he should by reason of stupidity in America be elected, he'll fail to get a lot of things done, thus leaving the least amount of impact on this country.

Let's cover a few things on Obama:

First, he wants to raise the Capital Gains Tax. ANYONE with any intelligence knows this is NOT A GOOD IDEA. Obama wants to raise this tax to generate revenue to pay for other 'things.' The Capital Gains Tax is a tax placed on money basically in the Stock Market. America as a whole is not doing a good job in saving their money. This is a major problem as we all know resulted in the credit crunch and new FICO ruleset coming out in February.
Effects of raising the CGT:
If you have money invested in the stock market, if you withdrawl the money, you pay higher taxes. This money was already taxed once when you earned now, you put it in the market and pay a meager tax on it. He wants to raise the taxes on any money you earn? Where the hell is this fair? Why do you want to invest? The concept behind Bush's Tax Cuts (for the wealthy as others say) meant that people who had money in a savings account could invest that money into the stock market with less risk because of lower taxes. With the Tax Cuts, we saw the Stock Market take off. Raise this tax, you'll see the stock market drop at a good pace because no one wants to pay higher taxes on money they saved and risked in the stock market. The risk is too great to invest in the market if you're getting taxed higher on it!
Most importantly, raising the CGT will effect the retired people who have all their money in the stock market and have annuities on it, or have a 401k. You have to pay taxes on the money you pull out for retirement, meaning we effectively have raised taxes on our Baby Boomer generation, giving them less money, all the while Obama wants to re-evaluate and help out the Baby Boombers with more social security?! This does not make sense.

Universal Medical care is a joke. Ask a socialogy student or psychology student and they learn immediately that if you give someone something for free, it will be abused. On paper, everyone having medical coverage from the Government is great. But you and I with Benefits don't rush into the hospital that much and when we do, we pay. If its free, how many people are going to rush into the hospital and abuse it? X amount of money might be set aside from these expenses, but we don't know how many people are going to use it nor how many people are going to abuse it. Thus, taxes will get increased to pay this bill. People will abuse it and run up the bill because its free, or exceedingly cheap for them to use. This is not a good idea.
Though, if this path is taken, I would propose that individuals get 1-2 'free' or cheap visits to doctors/ER. After that, deducitibles start going up to reduce people from abusing it. If you have to pay, you're less likely to abuse the system, thus give people 1-2 ER visits a year to reduce people from abusing it.

Obama is an elitist. He is out of touch with the working middle class and the retired. On his perch, he looks down past the middle class and looks towards the people who would benefit the most by him giving them something, giving them 'Hope' that they will have it easier under them. Unfortuantely, he's not telling them they need to work for it. No, he's telling the rest of America that "we need to feel the hurt" along with them. Well, I've felt the hurt and I worked so I wouldn't be there. I believe everyone has this option to improve their life. Opportunties are everywhere to create a better life for you. The less you have, the less you have holding yourself back from improving your life. Mr. BomberBill himself once said on this very forum that he had lost everything. His exact quote was, "A man with nothing to lose is no longer blind." Those who claim to have nothing should have the vision to have anything they want. No jobs in your area? Move. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Its when you have everything to lose that this doesn't work. Obama does not recognize this in his inexperience in working through the ranks. He's a politician and a smooth talker.

I think he's an overall great guy and compassionate, but I don't believe he understands the effects of what he proposes. It may work in isolated places like Chicago. On a national level, this will not work. His experiences are based on working in and around Chicago. He has no experience outside of that view. He lacks a National Vision to improve this country due to his cookie cutter approach to what may have helped Chicago's inner city youth.

Many things Obama stand for are vague and weak in concept when checked into. He's not ready to be President due to his far too optimistic outlook and lack of a realistic approach. This is a man who is basically promising this country the World; something we have absolutely no right to.

I personally will be voting for McCain. I'm not the biggest supporter of him but I respect the fact that he's the straightest talker of the three and he has the best economic approach for this country. He's the only guy who really has any experience in an economy. Hillary and Obama both lack experience in dealing with an economy but both of them have experience in Giving to the less fortunate while giving the finger to everyone else.

I heard a quote on Friday. "If you're a Republican at the age of 20, you have no heart. If you're a Democrat at age 40, you have no brains."

Let it be known that more than once I've been told on this forum that I lack compassion for others in a less than fortunate. I can because I sat in that position at one point too and I made the choices to make my life and I'll be damned if I'm going to support Obama or Hillary in giving my work away to someone unworthy of my efforts!

Good Economic proposals from McCain:

John McCain Will Cut Taxes For Middle Class Families. John McCain will permanently repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax(AMT) – a tax that will be paid nearly exclusively by 25 million middle class families. Repealing this onerous tax will save middle class families nearly $60 billion in a single year. Under McCain's plan, a middle class family with children set to pay the AMT will save an average of over $2,700 – a real tax cut for working families.

John McCain Will Keep Tax Rates Low. Entrepreneurs are at the heart of American innovation, growth and prosperity. They create the ultimate job security – a new, better opportunity if your current job goes away. Entrepreneurs should not be taxed into submission. John McCain will maintain the current income and investment tax rates and fight the Democrats' plans for a crippling tax increase in 2011. Left to their devices, Democrats will impose a massive $100 billion tax hike, almost $700 per taxpayer every year. John McCain has also long sought permanent and immediate reform of the estate tax, and supports raising the exemption from taxation on estates up to $10 million while cutting the tax rate to 15 percent.

John McCain Will Reward Saving, Investment And Risk-Taking. Low taxes on dividends and capital gains promote saving, channel investment dollars to innovative, high-value uses and not wasteful financial planning. John McCain will keep the current rates on dividends and capital gains and fight anti-growth efforts by Democrats.


John McCain Will Reduce The Federal Corporate Tax Rate To 25 Percent From 35 Percent. John McCain believes the taxes we impose on American companies should be no higher than the average rate our major trading partners impose on theirs. We currently have the second-highest combined corporate-tax rate in the industrialized world, and it is driving many businesses and the jobs they create overseas

John McCain Proposes A One-Year Spending Pause To Evaluate Programs. He believes that outside of essential military and veterans programs there should be a one-year pause in discretionary spending growth that should be used for a top-to-bottom review of the effectiveness of federal programs. (Not going to happen but...)

Bad ideas:

John McCain Believes We Should Institute A Summer Gas Tax Holiday. Hard-working American families are suffering from higher gasoline prices. John McCain calls on Congress to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

John McCain Will Stop Filling The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) To Reduce Demand. International demand for oil is bolstered by federal purchases for the SPR. There is no reason to fill it when oil is so expensive, the overall SPR is of adequate size, and when it places further upward pressure on prices.



Compare that to Hillary or Obama and McCain would be the most in touch of the three.

I don't think the Summer Holiday tax thing by McCain was truly meant to be put money in people's pockets but to show how much money the government makes off each gallon of gas.

But I really do believe in cutting tax rates for businesses. I mean, they're 35% right now which is insane. Besides that, American companies are (I think) the highest (if not in the top) taxed in the world.

Cutting the taxes on them will allow them to reinvest and create jobs.

If anyone caught the news with the interview of the Shell Oil presient or some high up.. he said everyone is bitching about big oil making windfall profits and all this and that.
He came out with the numbers... even on their billions of dollars of sales, they only make 7 1/2% profit. That's ok business, not great but definately not horrible. My company is looking to do 15% consistently per year. These numbers are accurate due to the government even checking into to the numbers with them.. so its not up for dispute that they're faking the numbers.

Drop the taxes on the businesses to give them more money and allow them to hire more people. Having such high taxes is the incentive to go over seas where you can pay someone less and take the bite away from the high taxes. If you're getting taxed at 35% and have to pay someone an American wage (against an Indian/Chinese one) you slash the profitability of the company.

Drop the taxes and companies should be able to reduce or hold off on inflation of their prices which will help the economy out tremendously. But once a price is set, a company won't back down. It will slow inflation though.

I find it interesting that so many of us repeat the same thought process every election. It’s almost as if we forget the outcome every time. I’m not a republican or a democrat. I’m not a fan of universal healthcare either. I’m interested in deeper things than surface claims. To be honest, there are many claims each candidate has made which I don’t support, but to break things down the way you have… I can’t agree with that method. This is not a math problem where you can add this to that and get a result. A candidate is not made of promises and claims only. A candidate is a person who is influenced by all the same things you and I are.

While I try not to ever impose my opinion, I will say this; it doesn’t matter if the next president is a democrat or a republican. What matters is that he or she cares about people. THAT is at the core, from where will and intention stem. THAT is what determines whether he or she will do things that help you and me. If he or she is not a caring person, many will always suffer, as has been the case.

Yeah, but you get free bullets.

Well at least you don't work for Best Buy Geek Squad. Either you would kill your co-workers, your boss, the customers, blow up the store or just do all the aforementioned actions.

Are you back home?

Let's just say, the Second Coming isn't going to be the hippy-drippy all is forgiven fest that people think it's gonna be.

Depends who gets BBQ'd.

BAH to taxes...

I never said I wouldn't pay my taxes. I just said I didn't like them.

I understand what they are used for, but damn, do they suck...

No thanks.

...*resumes bitching about tax*...

Give me a few more weeks and I might join you on that one. At the moment I'm loving the redirection of Strangests tax bill to my benefits payments

get a Job hippy.