Why I?????m Voting for Obama and Mormonism

[_Jason Bourne]

To me, it is clear Barak Obama is a Democrat after the order of FDR. He believes that the government should provide a basic safety net and actively pursue a society with a healthy middle class rather than the “winner take all” system where the rich get ultra-rich and the working class flounders. He agrees with Warren Buffet that it is unconscionable that Buffet pays a lower tax rate than his administrative assistant does.

Let us set the record straight. Buffet pays a lower rate because his income is made up of primarily of capital gains, both taxed at 15%. However dividends are double tax and the overall burden on them is still 50%(15% to the person who receives it and 35% at the corporate level). Buffet also pays 35% on his salary but because his investment income is so much higher than his salary he pays an overall lower rate. But he pays far more tax than his secretary. This however is really obfuscation and not as simple as Obama and Buffet make it. I have been disappointed that Buffet has played along with this silliness.

Now, people can disagree with his viewpoints. They can believe there shouldn’t be a social safety net. They can believe that the government can burden our children with even more debt so that we can give more tax breaks to the ultra-rich.

Once again this is a lie and all levels of income have enjoyed major tax cuts under the Bush tax cuts. All levels and some have gotten out of tax entirely at very low income levels. Also Bush has added child tax credits, savings credits, college credits and student loan interest deductions as well as other credits that all phase out at levels that only leave these benefits for up to upper middle class income levels. I tire of this flat out lie about the Bush tax cuts.

Have the wealthy benefited as well? Sure! Have they at the expense of tax burdens on the middle class and lower income tax payer. Not at all.

[_Calculus Crusader]

To me, it is clear Barak Obama is a Democrat after the order of FDR. He believes that the government should provide a basic safety net and actively pursue a society with a healthy middle class rather than the “winner take all” system where the rich get ultra-rich and the working class flounders. He agrees with Warren Buffet that it is unconscionable that Buffet pays a lower tax rate than his administrative assistant does.

In other words, he is an unabashed liberal American after the order of FDR. Further, he recognizes the complexities of issues and, and is generally respectful and empathetic to other points of view.

Now, people can disagree with his viewpoints. They can believe there shouldn’t be a social safety net. They can believe that the government can burden our children with even more debt so that we can give more tax breaks to the ultra-rich. They can believe that the government shouldn’t ensure that everybody gets a quality education or basic health care.

But the anti-Obama crowd goes beyond that. They describe Obama as a Marxist after the order of Pol Pot who not only will “ruin economies, scar and impoverish human potential, and level, flatten, and emaciate entire peoples culturally, intellectually, morally, and economical” but, if his core beliefs are taken to their logical conclusion, also “will fill graves from horizon to horizon.” In the words of antishock8, he fears Obama will literally, “jail and kill Conservatives.”

What I’m trying to figure out is if this is what they think of liberals after the order of FDR in general, or if they think that Obama really doesn’t believe what he says he does, but rather is a terrorist-communist-boogey-man who is just posing until he gets enough power to round up conservatives into concentration camps.

In either case, they are way past having jumped the shark of reasonability. I'm just curious if their paranoid delusions are aimed at all Democrats, or just at Obama.

There are fevered rants on both sides, although the preponderance may come from the right.

I don't think Obama is a Marxist. He is closer to a socialist in the European mold. I agree with those who point out that he would be a good fit for many European "Conservative" parties, although, I see that as an indictment of European politics, not American politics.

[_asbestosman]

However, I do seem to recall that had the US not involved itself in the last two world wars things might be very different in the world today.

You mean the US would be speaking Japanese sometime after Dec. 7, 1941? Kinda hard not to involve yourself when someone attacks you.

[_bcspace]

There are fevered rants on both sides, although the preponderance may come from the right.

The fawning protection of Obama by the mainstream media sure turns that around in a hurry.

[_Jason Bourne]

[/quote]
You mean the US would be speaking Japanese sometime after Dec. 7, 1941? Kinda hard not to involve yourself when someone attacks you.[/quote]


The US was actively involved in the war before it jumped in with all its might. Lend/Lease was in full force in Europe. Many pacifists argued that Japan simply wanted to make sure the US had no naval ability to stop their expansion in the Pacific and would not have done anything more than Pearl Harbor and the Philippines to the US had we not jumped in.

[_Analytics]

Let us set the record straight. Buffet pays a lower rate because his income is made up of primarily of capital gains, both taxed at 15%. However dividends are double tax and the overall burden on them is still 50%(15% to the person who receives it and 35% at the corporate level). Buffet also pays 35% on his salary but because his investment income is so much higher than his salary he pays an overall lower rate. But he pays far more tax than his secretary. This however is really obfuscation and not as simple as Obama and Buffet make it. I have been disappointed that Buffet has played along with this silliness.

I assure you that Buffet understands these details, has no intention of obfuscating why what he says is true, and takes the position he does as a matter of principle. It is your right to disagree with him, but condescendingly dismissing him with the words "playing along with silliness" isn't going to win you an argument.

Now, people can disagree with his viewpoints. They can believe there shouldn’t be a social safety net. They can believe that the government can burden our children with even more debt so that we can give more tax breaks to the ultra-rich.

Once again this is a lie and all levels of income have enjoyed major tax cuts under the Bush tax cuts. All levels and some have gotten out of tax entirely at very low income levels....

Have the wealthy benefited as well? Sure! Have they at the expense of tax burdens on the middle class and lower income tax payer. Not at all.

Your response ignores what I actually said. I said, "They can believe that the government can burden our children with even more debt so that we can give more tax breaks to the ultra-rich." The wealthy, middle class, and lower income-tax payer have all benefited. Our children--you know, the ones who will inherit the national debt--are the ones who are not benefiting from the Republican increase-spending-decrease-taxes-increase-deficits fiscal plan.

Over the last 30 years, the income of the medium wage has stayed flat and the income of the top hundreth of a percent increased by 500%. Given how well the top earners are doing compared to the rest of America, it's not obvious why our children should have to inherit an even more gigantic national debt so that the ultra-rich can get bigger tax breaks. That is my point.

[_Jason Bourne]

I assure you that Buffet understands these details, has no intention of obfuscating why what he says is true, and takes the position he does as a matter of principle. It is your right to disagree with him, but condescendingly dismissing him with the words "playing along with silliness" isn't going to win you an argument.

I have no doubt he understands it. Thus the way he talks about it makes all the more disingenuous. Yes I think it is such. If he explained it as I did then it would not be. And you ignore the fact that dividends are still taxed at 50% overall. If you ratchet the rate on them back up to the ordinary rate and the recipient is in the 39% bracket Obama proposes then they will be taxed at 74%. I think that is egregious. Perhaps a solution is to let Corporations deduct dividends.

But tax law is complex and politicians often make talking points that obscure the truth. Obama has done this his entire campaign when he talks about the Bush tax cuts.

Now, people can disagree with his viewpoints. They can believe there shouldn’t be a social safety net. They can believe that the government can burden our children with even more debt so that we can give more tax breaks to the ultra-rich.

Once again this is a lie and all levels of income have enjoyed major tax cuts under the Bush tax cuts. All levels and some have gotten out of tax entirely at very low income levels....

Have the wealthy benefited as well? Sure! Have they at the expense of tax burdens on the middle class and lower income tax payer. Not at all.

Your response ignores what I actually said. I said, "They can believe that the government can burden our children with even more debt so that we can give more tax breaks to the ultra-rich." The wealthy, middle class, and lower income-tax payer have all benefited. Our children--you know, the ones who will inherit the national debt--are the ones who are not benefiting from the Republican increase-spending-decrease-taxes-increase-deficits fiscal plan.

Yes I did misread you. Sorry. But how about this. Let's cut spending too! You know I am in a fairly high tax bracket. And guess what. I would be happy to pay more IF I trusted the government to cut spending and balance the budget and build a surplus and pay start to pay down this 11 trillion dollar debt. And do it with real money. Don't print and inflate your way out of it. I would also like to see something done to deal with the 50 trillion of unfunded liabilities that will come due in the next 40 years in the form of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as well as other programs.

[_Analytics]

I have no doubt he understands it. Thus the way he talks about it makes all the more disingenuous. Yes I think it is such. If he explained it as I did then it would not be.

In The Audacity of Hope after quoting Buffett, Obama says,

Buffet’s low rates are a consequence of the fact that, like most wealthy Americans, almost all his income comes from dividends and capital gains, investment income that since 2003 has been taxed at only 15%. The receptionist’s salary, on the other hand, was taxed at almost twice that rate once FICA was included.

Do you think that is a disingenuous explanation?

And you ignore the fact that dividends are still taxed at 50% overall. If you ratchet the rate on them back up to the ordinary rate and the recipient is in the 39% bracket Obama proposes then they will be taxed at 74%. I think that is egregious. Perhaps a solution is to let Corporations deduct dividends.

These are fair points to discuss, but given the enormous advantages accrued to the company that organizes as a corporation (as opposed to, say, a partnership), and the risks and costs that such entities can shift to society as a whole, I think it is totally fair to tax corporations in addition to taxing dividends.

I totally agree with you that this is complex stuff that Obama has oversimplified, but the sad truth of democracy is that most voters don't have the background, time, or inclination to dive into the details. You can't say that distorting complex issues into 30-second commercials and catchy sound bites is something that only Obama or Democrats does. Everybody does it. I don't blame them, really. The sad reality is that distorting the truth into catchy sound bites is what gets people elected in our society. Those who are unwilling to do so don't get elected.

Yes I did misread you. Sorry. But how about this. Let's cut spending too! You know I am in a fairly high tax bracket. And guess what. I would be happy to pay more IF I trusted the government to cut spending and balance the budget and build a surplus and pay start to pay down this 11 trillion dollar debt. And do it with real money. Don't print and inflate your way out of it. I would also like to see something done to deal with the 50 trillion of unfunded liabilities that will come due in the next 40 years in the form of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as well as other programs.

I agree with you 100% on these points.

One of the main reasons I've become so turned off by the Republicans involves their abandonment of fiscal responsibility. They used to make arguments involving the Laffer curve that states that there is a point where raising taxes won’t increase government revenue, and hence if taxes are beyond that point that lowering taxes will actually increase revenue. In theory, I can see that point, but then they always made the tenuous assumption that we were on the backside of the Laffer curve, regardless of what the tax rates were.

Now they’ve gone beyond the argument that there is a tax rate where tax revenue maxes out to the pernicious lie that the solution to any economic difficulty is to lower taxes, regardless of the level and regardless of what they wanted to spend.

Getting back to the stupid American voter, they love the claim that solutions never involve sacrifice, and that lower taxes will solve everything. It appears that both camps have figured out that this argument wins elections, regardless of whether or not it is true. What worries me about McCain is I’m afraid he actually believes it. Obama at least seems to understand these issues, even if he doesn't campaign on them.

[_Analytics]

I have no doubt he understands it. Thus the way he talks about it makes all the more disingenuous. Yes I think it is such. If he explained it as I did then it would not be. And you ignore the fact that dividends are still taxed at 50% overall. If you ratchet the rate on them back up to the ordinary rate and the recipient is in the 39% bracket Obama proposes then they will be taxed at 74%. I think that is egregious. Perhaps a solution is to let Corporations deduct dividends.

Not meaning to quibble, but I think you are making some algebraic mistakes that is exaggerating your point. If a corporation makes $100, then after a 35% federal income tax, it will pass $65 onto its shareholders. If they then pay 15% tax on the $65 dividend, then they'll have $55.25 free-and-clear; thus, the total corporate tax is currently 44.75%, not 50%.

Similarly, if the income tax on dividends was raised from 15% to 39%, then the after-tax income would be (1-.39)*65 = $39.65, or total tax burden of 60.35%. Granted that is high, but it's a 52% higher after-tax income than that after 74% you asserted.

Now, if you look at the receptionist's total tax burden, there would be 15% FICA tax (including the employeers share, which I think is fair), say 10% in income tax, and another say 15% of her income would go towards property tax, sales tax, gas tax, and all the other marginal taxes that hit people who have to spend their income on living expenses. This crude analysis gets the receptionist's tax burden up to 40%. That's not too far away from the 44.75% that Buffett is paying even when you include the corporate income tax. If this analysis was refined further, are you sure that you wouldn't find out that Jane the receptionist pays a higher total tax rate than Buffett?

[_asbestosman]

Dumb question: how much will Obama's taxes hurt my retirement prospects given that most of it is in stock? Most of my current income is salary, but I am transferring it to stock as my nest egg. If the account is tax-deffered, doesn't that still decrease my future expected value? A 30-second soundbite just won't help me there.