Hey, flist?

[preussisch_blau]

Can we be reasonable, rational human beings when it comes to politics?

I think we can. No, scratch that. I know we can.

Right now, there's a big election coming up for us Americans. And honestly? I have a lot of questions I'd like answered. So, hopefully we can be civilised while I get these questions answered.

Here's how it goes. I'll be making a public post every couple of days, with one of my questions. Anyone can participate. You can even send your friends over here to participate. However, there will be ground rules.

1./ There will be no insults thrown. This applies to your fellow commenters AND to the politicians. For those of you who need specific examples, there is to be no mention of "kool-aid" in reference to either party (unless we're actually discussing kool-aid), there will be no comments like "Grumpy McSame" or "Osama bin Biden", and there will definitely be NO calling anyone a cunt. We're going to be respectful here.

2./ Please make ONE point per comment. You may have a lot of answers. However, I like things organised. So, if I ask a question you can give a lot of different responses to, please leave each point as a separate comment. For example, if I were to ask "What do you like about chicken noodle soup and why?" and your answer is "the chicken and the noodles", you would leave two separate comments; one about the chicken, and one about the noodles.

3./ If someone's already made the point you wanted to make, please just continue in the thread they started. I think this one explains itself.

4./ Anyone is free to express their opinion in any thread they desire. Please keep opinions/comments related to the thread at hand, however. The corollary to this being that if you don't like someone's opinion about a candidate, calling them racist or misogynist is not the way to go. I don't tolerate pointless bandying about of the race or sex card. That, and it falls under Rule 1.

5./ Opinions are opinions, not facts. If it's your opinion, you don't need to back it up. Just realise I will ask WHY you think that way. Also realise someone may have facts that run contrary to your opinion. If you tout something as fact, I will demand proof. Take as long as you need to find proof. I won't rush you, so long as you don't rush me. Same applies to everyone else.

6./ Celebrities are neither political nor legal experts. So I'd be very careful bringing any actors or musicians into this.

Breaking these rules will result in frozen threads, banned users, and possible deleted comments if the comment is THAT offensive. Also, this is my personal blog, so if I say the discussion is over, it is over. You can carry it on in your blog, you can IM eachother about it, knock yourselves out, but don't let it continue in my blog.

THAT business out of the way, I have my first question.

Why should I vote for Obama?

Comments

[alouette-sparra.livejournal.com]

What will he bring that favours the middle class American? I need specifics here. I mean, I can't just decide based off of a general feel-good statement.

[foofighter0234.livejournal.com]

He will give tax breaks to 95% of Americans; basically, anyone who makes less than $100,000 per year will get a tax break, and cut off said tax breaks for oil companies and big businesses.

[alouette-sparra.livejournal.com]

40% of Americans don't pay taxes*, according to this article in the Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/13/obama-tax-cut-refunds-those-who-dont-pay/). How is he going to give tax cuts to people who don't pay taxes?

Also, I'd hardly say that big businesses get tax breaks, as America has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. Source for that is here. (http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/1471.html) Now, that's just an average figure, but still. If I owned a corporation, I wouldn't want to have my main workforce in America. More likely that I'll have to spend a lot of money on taxes. I'd rather have my workforce overseas, where there aren't such high taxes on corporations.

*Edit: My apologies. After looking further into the matter, I've discovered that this only refers to income taxes. Those 40%, however, do still pay taxes for Social Security and such. My new question is, how can he give those people a tax cut when Social Security, Medicare, and similar programs are things EVERYONE is supposed to be taxed on?

[foofighter0234.livejournal.com]

This would be a general tax cut, not for stuff like Social Security and Medicare.

Read this...

[alouette-sparra.livejournal.com]

Obama says that he'll cut taxes for no less than 95% of "working families." He also says he'll cut taxes enough that the government's tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2% (lower than it is today).

Let's ignore the fact that he is proposing the largest tax hike in history on the other 5% of Americans, to the extent that 1.13 million Americans (1%) will pay more taxes than 128 million Americans (80%) combined.

How is he going to cut taxes when, as mentioned before, roughly 40% do not pay, or pay an extremely small amount of, income tax and similar taxes?

He's redefining tax cut.

With his plan, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. Now, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase "tax credit." The plan is to create or expand seven such credits (at least):

- A $500 tax credit ($1,000 a couple) to "make work pay" that phases out at income of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 per couple.

- A $4,000 tax credit for college tuition.

- A 10% mortgage interest tax credit (on top of the existing mortgage interest deduction and other housing subsidies).

- A "savings" tax credit of 50% up to $1,000.

- An expansion of the earned-income tax credit that would allow single workers to receive as much as $555 a year, up from $175 now, and give these workers up to $1,110 if they are paying child support.

- A child care credit of 50% up to $6,000 of expenses a year.

- A "clean car" tax credit of up to $7,000 on the purchase of certain vehicles.

All but the clean car credit would be "refundable". In plain English, that means you get those checks even if you don't otherwise have any income tax liability. They are an income transfer from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. In other words, "tax cut" is just a shiny new way of saying "welfare".

This is a summary of the primary points of this article at the Wall Street Journal. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122385651698727257.html)