Teh Ricer Civic!

Ah so the senate finally started making fiscally responsible choices. Odd time to start, but then again TARP can do whatever the hell it wants so fiscal responsibility is still a lost cause. Not that it matters anyways, our deficit will only grow as recession weighs in. More and more of our expenditures will go to paying off intrest, but no lackluster programs will be cut to compensate, because thats not how you win votes. We will run the risk of massive future inflation and possibly ruining the value of our currency to the point that we may be forced to adopt the Euro... after we meet the EU financial standards that is. These governments offering up money only represents why the automotive field isn't fair to begin with. When governments get involved in the private sector it screws everything up. Japan boosts Toyota power, which gives it an unfair advantage. The Euros do similar stuff with their companies (plus taxpayer funded healthcare for retirees). United States companies relied on their own resolve to overcome these barriers but that resolve seems to have long faded. America used to compete on ingenuity but these days... what the hell, its the governments job to protect you. Why should you be responsible when you don't have to. Do you really want America to become like jolly old England, a shell of its former self? Made some bad decisions? No fear! its not your fault, your just a simple peon, you can do no wrong, Uncle Sam will keep you safe. At this rate America will just be another European nanny state and you will begin to see other more capitalistic countries begin to take power (or china...). The era of American exceptionalism has come to an end. may it rest in peace.

Cheap American beer or wine for me thank you!

Kiera Knightly!

Well Obama's "outdated" liberal thought got us into the terrible economic conditions of the 70s and 80s, which was finally fixed by "conservative" thought. Prior to this, "conservative" thought was fixed by "liberal" thought in the 40s and 50s. It's all cyclical. Neither theory is ever outdated, it just falls in and out of vogue.

The middle class will be hit with the tax increase in the form of rising prices. While wealth may not trickle down always, taxes always do. Plus tax shelters start to flourish and financial firms get more business because it becomes profitable to avoid taxes... and remember tax AVOIDANCE is legal, just not tax evasion. Several of my friends who work for accounting firms have said inquiries for "what does this mean for us" have been coming in quite non-stop recently. As i have argued previously, tax increases are NOT socialism. However entitlement programs ARE socialism. Obama has just managed to successfully disguise these entitlement programs as "tax cuts." Of course if people really thought about it, its pretty hard to cut $0 for 40% of the population. Additionally if Obama does allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, then the top 2 brackets would default back to 1 bracket at 39%, which means that anyone making over $150,000 will be paying more in taxes, not $200,000. Now if Obama decides not to create the entitlement programs for the lower classes, and instead is very conservative fiscally and repays our debts, then i will be content with him in office, so long as he does not decide to wage war on the rule of law or the constitution.

Just because someone is a constitutional scholar does not mean they practice what they say. Sure it may be called hipocracy but applying the law DIFFERENTLY to different people is not the rule of law... it is the rule of judges. It is no different than a policeman who abuses his power. People tend to look down on lawyers because they are good at finding loopholes... who is to say a constitutional scholar cannot find "loopholes" too? And Obama's saying that the warren court did not break from its constraints clearly shows that he must not believe too much in the constitution... possibly even less than the hackjob we have in office now. On the plus side, the GOP tends to be very good fiscally and on issues such as these when they are minorities in the house/senate so as long as the democrats do not get super majorities we oughta be fine.

I argue against Obama since he himself has stated that he would pick judges who had empathy for the impoverished and minorities. Which leads me to believe that he favors judges who judge the person, and not the rule of law which is SUPPOSED to be blind to who you are and of what walk of life. That and the fact that he has stated that the warren court was not "radical" enough and did not break free of the "bonds" that held it back (which is the US constitution of course). So i just figured if this is Obama's stance, i would rather take a chance with McCain's Constructionalist judge choices... at last he seems to believe in the rule of law. Oh well, it will be fun to not have to defend anyone for at least 4 years... plus Rush Limbaugh is way more entertaining during Democrat presidencies... hope they dont reenact the fairness doctrine.

Well, we fought the good fight. McCain did a damn fine job giving that every single card was stacked against the Republicans this time around. I hope Obama has the foresight to not implement all the silly economic ideas that he has as they will make our recession worse... if he must implement them he should slowly stagger their implementation and wait out our current recession. That being said, i still hold out some hope that perhaps he truly will act in a bi-partisan fashion... but its getting harder to delude myself of this notion. I also hope that he respects the Constitution and does not disregard the document that our country was built on and does not eliminate the rule of law so central to our countries greatness. No man is greater than another under the eyes of the law... as of today... hopefully it stays like that. Oh well, Congrats to Obama and all his supporters. Here's to a reformed libertarianesque Republican party for 2012!

Unfortunately i have to deal with both wacko leftists and wacko rightists. Both scare me equally, and it only takes a few minutes before either one gets on my nerves and i start arguing with them. I did successfully manage to convince one stupid far right winger that socialism was good though. Stupid saps.

60609

You obviously lack understanding of Obama's plan or how refundable tax credits work. I would recommend you read up on it. And arguably you must also include rich people and large corporations that share in the benefit of government spending... depending on the spending of course, Iraq for example (unless of course it turns out that Iraq actually served a purpose). 21%?? WHO? Credit card guys? You do not realize how low interest rates are these days compared to the late 70s/early 80s. If nothing else it was this ease of credit that got us into this whole financial mess... if banks were charging 21% do you really think many of these subprime mortgages woulda gone through? Probably not... but that would also mean that inflation was running around 16-18% for a 21% interest rate.

I would if there were not the myriad of refundable tax credits that makes Obama's plan redistributionist. I would have very little problem (other than objecting to questionable policies during a recession) with an across the board tax hike... or even just restoring the top brackets to clinton era rates... But when you start to throw in a ton of credits that are REFUNDABLE for the lower brackets (if they weren't refundable i wouldn't really care). That, my friends, is income redistribution. Hiking takes back up to clinton era without any new REFUNDABLE tax credits would be OK if the vast majority of that money went to eliminating our debt. So why wont you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE acknowledge that these are redistrubtionist due to the LOTS of credits for the lower brackets. And you all make the argument that somehow earning money is income redistribution, which just confounds me as that makes no sense. The simple fact is that the majority of NEW WEALTH has gone towards the top 1% of the nation. It has not really redistributed any current wealth as many of you purport.

Gm4life your sig is really big. Anywho i dont even know why im voting, its not like it will affect my states choice. Oh well, i got other important issues to vote on, such as mayor

Im sorry your right. We should not have to work to make money. We should penalize those who succeed... because they are not submitting to the leftist agenda of giving all their money to homeless people. And as far as the courts go. do ALL OF YOU disregard our constitution? Do you realize that under a "living document" style of interpretation that our CONSTITUTION IS NOTHING MORE THAN A WORTHLESS PIECE OF PAPER? if you don't like something then under the living document style it is meaningless. Sure it may not be prefect, but it has gotten us a long way... It has already been eroded seriously in recent years, but under Obama it will be damn near irrelevant.

True, but by the 2nd term 2 more judges may retire opening the way for a left dominated supreme court. ADDITIONALLY, Bush was never able to fill all of the lower courts with judges because the democrates did an excellent job blocking him. Obama would be able to fill those with a democrat dominated government. heres a good read on it. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122515067227674187.html It is true that Americans have the amongst the least time off. However aside from the Nordic states, Switzerland, and Germany which are all pretty close to the US in productivity most of the rest of Europe is not as productive, especially France where the legal work limit for a week is 35 hours. And... im sorry... but you cannot compare infrastructure of countries the size of New York + Pennsylvania to all of the US. Those are on completely different scales. That may be, but considering i have some first hand knowledge of your "provider of last result," even that does not look good to me.

No because Clinton era tax rates were higher for everyone, they did not really redistribute much wealth. Sure it does, the constitution... well it used... to provide safeguards to private property, as that safeguard has fallen by the wayside so that government can seize your land and sell it to some business to build a mall... what makes you think putting judges with little regard for the intent of the constitution will do to the rest of society? America has been the post WW2 power because of our economy. Our economy was capitalistic, the socialized economies of Europe have traditionally always lagged behind us. Higher tax rates for EVERYONE (and don't forget that the bottom 1/3 or so didnt pay tax under Clinton either) is a democratic policy.... but its not socialism. Middle class tax cutes are OKAY so long as they aren't receiving money for essentially nothing (and considering a lot of money is phased out by that point in obama's plan its not really a big deal) HOWEVER it does give a lot of money to the people under the middle class which is classic redistribution. And of course healthcare is part of it, every socialized country in the world has it... and Canada. The point of the matter is that any government sponsored ANYTHING is bound to be inefficient. At least McCains policy would still encourage private firms to compete. Trust me, i have seen how inefficient government ran companies are (even if they are not directly taxpayer funded). As a result this will be less efficient than if private companies were to do it... and the best healthcare at the best price will never come from the government unless you get a real doozie of a guy running a ship shape operation... but come on that will never happen in government. That being said, private practices also have their downsides, such as denying people with previous health issues etc etc, although that is a matter of staying alive as a company of course. In this particular case i suppose a lender of last resort would be okay up to the point that no taxpayer dollars are used for it (well except for the after-tax dollars that go to fund it).

light urple

Ok 1 quick thing first, im not saying he is communistic, im saying he is socialistic... there is a difference. well 1) there's the redistribution thing, but that's already been covered... Its not about raising taxes... its about raising taxes on some and GIVING that money to others who don't pay taxes in the first place (and don't try to argue that he is not GIVING money to people who nominally do not pay taxes). The other implications is that it increases the marginal rates by a LOT on the lower brackets. By that logic i should not tip my waiter, i should go outside and give that tip money to some homeless person... because he is more needing of it. Given that Marx himself has said this is a key tenant of his philosophy (to each to his ability, to each his needs), this is quite socialistic. As one could argue, this policy does little to encourage creating new wealth, while merely spreading around existing wealth. 2) his interpretation of the constitution as a "living document" and aptitude to appoint judges who "understand what its like to come from a disadvantaged viewpoint" undermines the entire point of the constitution... The entire point of America is that the law is supreme in America, all people are to be treated the same and the supreme law is the constitution... it is not something to change willy nilly (which, lets face it, you can "interpret" anything anyway you want to). This may not necessarily be socialistic, but it does go against what the vast majority of Americans believe in. 3) With bush already pushing us down the path of socialization it seems rather scary that Obama could build upon it (think Hoovers last ditch effort before FDR took office) 4) Universal health care is also a socialistic policy. There is really no difference between Obama's policy than another countries health care plans, except that the $$ will be paid directly into the state system instead of through taxes. And of course since this is also known as socialized medicine i would say that is socialistic. I'm sure i could come up with other reason why, but these are the main ones.

Its all okay, once the nation sees what a socialist Obama is the makeup of the government will quickly change again. Plus Obama has no means of changing the supreme courts composition really... except to replace two liberal judges with younger ones... which i guess is sorta a significant change... but more of maintaining a status quo into the future. however, considering that Obama has said that he feels essentially that the constitution is a drag on America (i'm assuming hes referring to minorities or something) I don't feel good about the type of judges he would replace them with. But uh, i don't think i would want Palin running in 2012... i dont believe i would vote for her during the primaries anywho. We need an old fashion progressive conservative for 2012... its an old breed of republican.... but i believe it still exists out there... and would probably pretty easily win over most independents even if the far right are not terribly fond of said candidate.

Hmmm how about General Motors with the added Chrysler brands as brands? Or Big 1.8 Motors

And the era of the American superpower will slowly fade away... well have to start listening to to the EU... hell we will probably join the EU.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/20..._obama-225.html it updates the tracking polls daily, so its kinda hard to compare those to from the past, but they have dropped. many are now back within statistical insignificance.

talkie