Tag: Issues

Obama And Economics

This is a list compiled by Bussiness Week and is a lengthy piece, however if one wants to see where Obama stands on economic issues it is well worth the read.

Obama on Taxes

• Income Taxes: Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) would hold most income tax rates steady, making permanent the Bush tax cuts for the vast majority of individual taxpayers. With those cuts scheduled to expire in 2011, he would allow rates for households making more than $250,000 (or individuals making more than roughly $200,000) to return to earlier levels. Earners who now pay today’s maximum 35% rate would see their top marginal rate go back to the 36.9% in effect in the Clinton years, for example.

• Estate Taxes: Obama proposes setting inheritance taxes permanently at 45% on estates over $3.5 million.

• Capital-Gains Taxes: Obama would again limit any increases in capital-gains rates, as well as taxes on dividends, to households making more than $250,000 or individuals bringing in more than $200,000. For those folks, he proposes increasing the maximum rate to somewhere between 20% and 25%.

• New Tax Cuts: Obama has proposed a handful of new tax credits and other adjustments aimed at helping struggling families, students, and others. He would institute a refundable tax credit of 6.2% of earnings, up to a maximum of $8,100, for example, along with a refundable mortgage credit equal to 10% of loan payments for homeowners who don’t itemize their deductions. Students would be eligible for a $4,000 annual credit to help defray college costs, while Obama would eliminate income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000.

• Economic Stimulus: Obama has proposed giving businesses a $3,000 tax credit this year and next for every net new job they create to help jump-start the stalled economy. He would also temporarily eliminate taxes on unemployment benefits and calls for legislation that would allow struggling individuals to take up to $10,000 from their IRA or 401(k) retirement accounts this year and next without paying the normal tax penalty for early withdrawals.

• Business Taxes: Obama has proposed eliminating all capital-gains taxes on investments in small business. He would also make permanent the R&D tax credit and credits for renewable energy production. But elsewhere, he would eke more revenue out of the corporate sector: He would like eliminate loopholes that he says favor oil and gas companies, for one. And he favors shifting the tax code to favor companies that create jobs in the U.S. and increase taxes on those that move jobs overseas.

Obama on Jobs

• Job Creation: Obama wants to steer $50 billion into an economic stimulus. He proposes that $25 billion go into a “Jobs and Growth Fund” to prevent cuts in road and bridge maintenance, and to fund school repair. He says this effort will save more than 1 million jobs.

• ‘Green’ Jobs: Obama wants to create 5 million new “green jobs” and invest $150 billion over 10 years in biofuels and fuel infrastructure, plug-in hybrids, commercial-scale renewable energy, low-emissions coal plants, and a new digital electricity grid. He also wants to expand federal transportation investments to the tune of $60 billion over 10 years, which he says will create 2 million jobs.

• Unemployment: Obama is calling for a temporary expansion of the unemployment insurance program for those who have exhausted their current benefits. He’d also extend unemployment insurance to a bigger pool of workers, including some part-time workers.

• Trade: Obama says he opposes new deals that lack labor and environmental safeguards. Obama wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico so it has more favorable terms for U.S. workers. He wants to expand the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which trains workers who lose their jobs because of offshoring.

• Labor Rights: Obama wants to strengthen the ability of workers to organize unions through what’s known as the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The bill allows workers to join a union if a simple majority sign authorization cards instead of holding an election. He has won the support of the two major U.S. labor federations, the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, whose leaders say EFCA is their top legislative priority.

• Immigration: Obama supports strengthening border security with more personnel, technology, and infrastructure. He also wants to create tougher penalties against employers who hire undocumented immigrants. At the same time, he wants to increase the number of legal immigrants in order to keep families together and meet the demand for jobs that employers say they can’t fill. Undocumented workers who clear background checks will have a path to citizenship.

• Work/Family Balance: Obama wants to double funding for after-school programs, provide low-income families with a refundable tax credit to help with child-care expenses, and encourage flexible work schedules. Obama wants to extend the Family Medical Leave Act—which allows workers three months of unpaid leave—to cover eldercare and cases of domestic violence.

• Minimum Wage: Obama wants to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2011 (up from 2009’s rate of $7.25 an hour) and index it to inflation. He says these measures will help ensure that full-time workers earn a “living wage.”

Obama on Education

• Early Childhood Education: Obama proposes a $10 billion “Zero to Five” early childhood education plan that would expand access to Early Head Start, preschool, and child-care services. Would establish an early learning council to coordinate federal and state early childhood education programs.

• K-12 Education: Obama supports goals of No Child Left Behind but says law has significant flaws, including lack of adequate funding. Says he will improve assessments and accountability for NCLB. Proposes funding of intervention strategies to reduce dropouts.

• Teacher Pay and Training: Obama supports bonus pay for teachers and additional support and training for teachers and principals. Wants to make it easier to remove bad teachers from classrooms. Proposes that all teaching programs be accredited.

• Math and Science: Obama says math and science must be a national priority. Will step up recruiting of math and science teachers. Wants to enhance science instruction and enhance science assessments.

• School Choice: Obama wants to increase federal funding for charter schools from $200 million a year to $400 million, but wants to make it easier to close low-performing charter schools. Opposes school vouchers for private and parochial schools.

• School Funding: Obama’s early childhood and K-12 plans call for additional spending of $18 billion a year. Obama says cost of plan would be offset by spending cuts and reforming federal contracting procedures.

• Classroom Technology: Obama proposes a $500 million matching fund for technology in the classroom. Program will include more classroom technology and student performance data tracking. Will create a new technology-based curriculum.

• Higher Education: Obama wants to change the student loan program by eliminating the subsidies to private lenders and mandating that all federal student loans be provided through the federal direct loan program. Proposes a $4,000 refundable tax credit for college tuition; recipients of the credit will be required to perform 100 hours of community service.

Obama on Health Care

• His Approach: Obama would achieve universal coverage through an expansion of employer-based and government insurance programs, and create programs and incentives that will rein in health-care inflation.

• Coverage: Obama thinks all employers should be required to offer insurance or pay into a public fund, with subsidies available to small businesses. All children would be covered, Medicaid would be expanded, and a National Health Insurance Exchange created to offer policies to individuals not covered through their employers.

• Insurance Changes: Obama would prohibit the denial of coverage due to a preexisting condition.

• Malpractice Reform: Obama wants to reform malpractice while preserving patient rights by coming up with new forums for addressing physician errors.

• Drug Prices: Obama wants to allow re-importation of drugs and faster introduction of generics, and would repeal the ban against Medicare negotiating prices directly with drug companies.

• Technology: Obama wants to commit $50 billion to the adoption of electronic medical records and wider deployment of information technology.

• Quality of Care: Obama wants to support a national institute to monitor quality and set standards, and reward health-care providers for high-quality care.

Obama on the Financial Crisis

• Homeowners: Obama has proposed requiring financial institutions participating in the Treasury Dept.’s assistance programs to halt foreclosures for 90 days for homeowners living in their homes and making “good faith” efforts to pay. He has also backed efforts, including a law passed this summer, to encourage mortgage lenders and servicers to modify more loans voluntarily but requiring them to give up some of the loans’ value. As with McCain’s plan, and nascent Treasury loan-modification efforts, it is unclear how many such homeowner-relief programs would apply to mortgages that had been divvied up into tranches and sold to investors. Before the crisis worsened this fall, Obama proposed more scrutiny of the subprime mortgage industry, standardized disclosure of mortgage terms, and allowing judges to modify mortgage terms in bankruptcy, much as they can modify the terms of other loans.

• Unemployment: Obama also proposes temporarily eliminating taxes on unemployment benefits, and proposes to extend unemployment benefits.

• Jobs: Obama is calling for a temporary $3,000 tax credit for each net new full-time job companies create in the U.S. over the next two years. He also proposes a national, $50 billion program to improve roads and other infrastructure, and supports spending $150 billion on green-energy initiatives, both of which his campaign touts as fostering job growth.

• Other: Obama proposes short-term federal loans for cash-strapped state and municipal governments, which are facing dramatically lower tax receipts and gaping budget deficits amid the housing downturn and weakening economy.

Obama on Retirement

• Temporary Assistance: Obama proposes allowing working Americans to make withdrawals of up to 15% from IRAs and 401(k)s during 2008 and 2009, to a maximum of $10,000, without triggering the standard early-withdrawal penalty of 10%; the withdrawals would still be subject to income taxes. Like McCain, Obama supports temporarily suspending mandatory minimum withdrawal rules for retirees over 70½, but he also proposes to temporarily waive taxes on withdrawals for those who do withdraw up to those minimums.

• Retirement Plans: Obama proposes matching 50¢ on the dollar for the first $1,000 of retirement-plan contributions for families earning less than $75,000 a year, to encourage savings. He also has proposed requiring employers that don’t sponsor employee retirement plans to set up automatic contributions to IRAs for employees, with provisions allowing workers to opt out.

• Taxes: Obama proposes eliminating income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000, which the campaign estimates will save 7 million seniors an average of $1,400.

• Social Security: Obama supports increasing payroll taxes on annual income over $250,000, perhaps by 2% to 4%, to improve Social Security’s financial position; currently, only income under $250,000 is subject to the 12.4% withholding tax, which is split between employers and employees. He opposes increasing the age at which Social Security benefits may be collected, which is another commonly cited fix for the program, and also opposes privatizing benefits.

I sincerely hope that this was of help in your decision.  I want to be fair and will find what I can on McCain and economics.

McCain And Alt Energy

IN the last two debates MvcCain has said much about alt energy but in reality he has not been that keen on it.
For the second straight presidential debate, John McCain delivered a confused and misleading picture of his position on renewable energy sources. In the Oct. 15th debate, McCain said, “So the point is, with nuclear power, with wind, tide, solar, natural gas, with the development of flex fuel, hybrid, clean coal technology, clean coal technology is a key in the heartland of America that is hurting rather badly. So I think we can easily within seven, eight, ten years, if we put our minds to it, we can eliminate our dependence on the places in the world that harm our national security if we don’t achieve our independence from it.”

While this rhetoric is laudable, it simply doesn’t reflect John McCain’s actual record on alternative energy. Between 1992 and 2006, McCain voted against tax incentives for the renewable energy sector at least nine times, according to the Senate record. Between 2002 and 2005, as the public grew more in favor of promoting alternative energy sources, McCain vote four times to block renewable energy mandates. And between 1992 and 2005, McCain voted an additional 12 times against alternative energy proposals.

John McCain has insisted that he has supported “alternate fuel all of my time,” but he just hasn’t seemed to ever cast his Senate vote for it. A recent analysis of McCain’s record by FactCheck.org showed that while McCain has lent rhetorical support for renewable energy, as a Senator “he has declined opportunities to support it.”

Sorry, but there is not much rubber left on the tires of the “Straight Talk Express”.  The “straight shooter” is shooting himself in the foot.  Does anyone in the McCain campaign know how to use a pc?

McCain Hiccups

These are also notes that I took on the McCain campaign that I did not put into a post. Just wanted to put them out there for comment by my readers. Never fear I will also be posting on Obama’s Oops’.

1– McCain keeps harping on a small government, but yet some of his policies will entail spending billions. How will he do this, especially since he has promised the voter that there will bve a balanced budget by the end of his first term. Please explain.

2–McCain’s wife is blaming the vets for their PTSD. She said that they were not trained to handle it.

3–The campaign is blaming ACORN and the poor for the economic crisis.

4–His last mortgage bailout proposal will be very expensive and help only the mortgage holders. Will do little for the people suffering thru foreclosure.

5–The McCain/Palin campaign seems to be a bit schizophrenic –omni-directional with no rudder for guidance. They are throwing sh*t at the wall to see what will stick.

6–The campaign still cannot grasp the idea that the internet sees all and knows all……they still use crap and when it is found on the web they go about spinning it into something hopefully positive….and not doing very well at that.

Tonite’s The Nite–Yet Again

Tonite will be the last in the string oif presidential debates….may I have an AMEN?  Hopefully they will be a little more thrilling than the last three, 2 presidential and 1 VP.  It should be popular because of the negative attacks that have been flying around in the last week or so.

What could this debate hold for the viewer?  That will depend on which candidate shows up.  The angry old man or the “happy” warrior.  Obama has bascially offered a challenge to McCain to say the negative stuff to his face or shut up.  Will McCain take the bait and face the music?  If he does, hius chances will diminish.  Why?  Polls are reflecting the fact that the people are not thrilled with the personal attacks when the economy is going up in flames.

Hell, even staunch conservs are telling McCain to knock it off or lose the election.  Writers like George Will, Kristol, Inghram to mention only a few are slowly abandoning him.  Even surrogates are not too thrilled with him, people like Mitt and Crist.

Will the viewer get a discussion on issues or will it be one of those things where the candidate only answers questions they like?  What will we see tonite?  A lurching McCain, lurching from position to position, or the guy who reminds us every other word that he was a POW.  Or maybe we will see a candidate that has FINALLY pick a position and will stay with it.

I will be posting my analysis of the debate here later in the day.  I usual record it and watch it twice before I make my post…so good luck and good viewing.

What Brought Us To This Moment?

I have spent a lifetime trying to figure out why the American voter is a moron.  I know that is harsh!  But a little slice of reality nonetheless.  For the last thirty years the voter has not once looked to the future.  It has always been about the moment.  The voter had a chance in the 70’s to have the alt energy that they so badly want now.  In the 80’s they had the chance for a more equitable society for all, but greed won that battle.  The 80’s started the massive partisanship, the old “us against them” thinking that has destroyed Washington.

The one bright spot was the 90’s, a balanced budget and a good economy, but with all that it was still based on greed and deception.  But the partisanship got deeper and more ugly.   Then we tripped and babbled our way into the 21st century.  Partisanship is still a pathetic drag on the government.  Oil and Wall Street took a lead role in the government and deficit spending made a return.

Now it is election time once again and the normal uglier side of politics has returned.  But the question I ask is , in this election will the voter look to the past or for once look to the future?  The voter has shown promise in past election only to let that promise melt away into a vote for ignorance.  Which voter will show up on Nov 4th?

Doctors Pick Obama’s Health Plan

While the looming economic recession may have displaced the country’s broken health care system and the Iraq war as the top concern for Americans in recent weeks, universal, affordable access to health care remains a vital issue for voters. Many groups from the labor movement and health care advocates even to the Obama campaign have linked the need for health care reform to economic recovery.

This past week more than 5,000 physicians endorsed Barack Obama’s plan for health care reform. In a press statement, Doctors for Obama-Biden 2008 described the Obama plan as “the first step in ensuring that all Americans have access to a quality, affordable and secure health care.”

With skyrocketing costs totaling at least $2 trillion annually, 45 million uninsured Americans and many millions more with inadequate health care coverage, health care is an immediate issue for most people. “Furthermore,” the statement read, “the on-going fiscal crisis gripping the nation makes the need for reforming the health care system even more compelling.”

Doctors are backing Obama because in addition to the decline in affordable access, the quality of health care is also suffering. Emergency rooms are overcrowded and funding for research and development for serious illnesses has dried up.
Both the Economic Policy Institute and a separate study published in Health Affairs have indicated that under McCain’s plan as many as 27 million Americans would lose their employment-based health insurance and be forced to deal alone with private insurers for expensive and often inadequate health care coverage.

The First And Only VP Debate

OK, how many here watched the to see if the babbling Palin would be the one to show up?

First, I would like to say that I wish I had watched this through the bottom of a shot glass.

This debate as with the last debate as with all these things are just flippin’ boring.  A new style or format is badly needed.  If any of them are popular it is because of something other than the content.  The drinking game may be the only way to make these things interesting.

Onto the analysis–If the plan was to “do no harm” then both candidates did a pretty good job.  Biden stuck to and regurgitated the Oba stand on the wealth of issues, Israel, diplomacy, healthcrare, on and on and on……Palin did not push the McCain position so well–no real specifics.

Palin was sort of “aw shucks” style with a few cute little folksy quips.  Biden was short and to the point–that was unusual for him–but in the long run he was teetering on boring.  Biden is full of….facts, Palin is full of–talking points, she was well schooled but none of it sounded like it was something she really believed.

As always, Americans need a winner and a loser, it is part of the DNA.  I scored it a sloght win of Biden.  Why?  He was on the Obama/Biden points, he defended Obama as well as himself well.  Palin, while well schooled did not seem, to me, to defend MCCain very well and that was her job for the evening and she failed.  The good news is she did not shoot anybody in the butt with glib answers.

Candidates And Science

What follows is a digest of their answers, as posted by Science Debate 2008. The private group, in an effort endorsed by leading scientific organizations, has worked since November to get candidates to articulate positions on science policy. The full answers are at www.sciencedebate2008.com.

iencedebate2008.com.

INNOVATION Mr. Obama calls for doubling federal budgets for basic research over a decade and supports broadband Internet connections “for all Americans.” Mr. McCain stresses policies to provide “broad pools of capital, low taxes and incentives for research in America,” as well as the streamlining of “burdensome regulations.” Mr. McCain also said Congress, “under my guiding hand,” adopted wireless policies that “spurred the rapid rise of mobile phones and WiFi technology.”

CLIMATE CHANGE Both candidates talk of human activities’ warming the planet, with Mr. McCain saying that they “threaten disastrous changes” and Mr. Obama that “they are influencing the global climate.” In terms of 1990 levels of carbon emissions, Mr. McCain would ultimately have the nation’s output drop by 60 percent and Mr. Obama by 80 percent.

ENERGY Mr. Obama would increase federal investment in clean energy by $150 billion over a decade, including research on alternative fuels and conservation. Mr. McCain would speed the building of 45 new reactors and make government “an ally but not an arbiter” in developing alternative energy sources.

EDUCATION Both candidates advocate policies to develop a highly skilled workforce, partly with cash incentives for teachers. Mr. McCain would put $250 million into a program to help states expand online education.

NATIONAL SECURITY Mr. Obama would put his administration “on a path” to doubling federal spending on basic defense research. Mr. McCain is much less specific, speaking of ensuring “that America retains the edge.”

GENETICS RESEARCH Both laud the potential benefits and point out the social dangers, with Mr. Obama saying he backed the recently passed Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. Mr. McCain speaks of “a new green revolution” in food development.

STEM CELLS Both support federal financing for embryonic stem cell research.

SPACE Both candidates say they want to revitalize space exploration, with Mr. McCain calling for “new technologies to take Americans to the Moon, Mars and beyond.” He also suggests possibly extending the space shuttle’s life. Mr. Obama would re-establish a White House Space Council to coordinate all the nation’s space efforts, including ones intended to aid understanding of climate change and expand “our reach into the heavens.”

This is just my small way of letting the voter know where each of the candidates stands on certain issues.  Maybe it will help them make an informed choice in november.

Candidates And Health Care

This is a piece written by Perry Bacon Jrin The Trail In WaPo
Barack Obama and John McCain are both proposing more than $100 billion a year in spending for health care, but the candidates’ plans have vastly different goals, and vastly different outcomes. New studies from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center and the policy journal Health Affairs suggest that Obama’s proposal would eventually cover more than 34 million of the roughly 47 million Americans currently without insurance, while McCain’s would cover at best 5 million uninsured.

Obama’s plan relies on a variety of measures to reduce the number of uninsured, such as increasing the number of people in programs such as Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, requiring all children to have insurance and offering subsidies for people who cannot currently afford insurance.

Obama’s plan was crafted with the intention of creating universal health insurance, although both studies suggest some people would remain uninsured. McCain, meanwhile, touts his plan as one that will rely more on the consumer market to reform health care.

Currently, the value of a person’s health care plan is not taxed, creating essentially a subsidy by the government for health care. McCain would tax health benefits while creating a $5,000 tax credit — $5,000 for families or $2,500 for individuals — to subscribe for insurance coverage. The studies assume that millions of Americans will use this credit to purchase health care and that some businesses will drop employees from their health insurance plans, resulting in some people losing insurance as well.

Both proposals would face an uphill climb to becoming law. Virtually all congressional Democrats are opposed to McCain’s health care vision, which they believe would destroy the employer-based health care system and replace it with one that benefits the young and healthy but not people who are older or sick. (Health insurance companies charge much higher prices for people who are older or have chronic illnesses.)

With the federal budget deficit increasing and a huge list of other projects already proposed, it’s not clear that a Democratic Congress would push through Obama’s health-care plan either. Some congressional Democrats are already touting more modest goals, such as making sure that all children have health insurance.

A very simple look at both candidates and their health care proposals and now you decide which is best.

Nader’s Four Point Plan

First, he called for universal health care. This would be a single-payer set-up based upon “private delivery” of medical goods and services. He pointed to the irrationality of the US health care industry, which he said costs twice as much per capita compared to Canada and Switzerland.

Second, Nader called for what he termed a “living wage.” He was not specific about just what this would be, but he seemed to suggest that the current minimum wage should be based upon an incremental increase of the 1968 minimum wage adjusted to subsequent inflation. This would put the figure at nearly $11 per hour, he said.

Third, Nader called for a “massive expansion of law enforcement against corporate crime.” He pointed to the gutting of the regulatory agencies of the federal government as a basic cause of a number of problems, including workplace accidents and environmental degradation.

Fourth, he proposed a shift in US foreign policy in the Middle East. Nader called for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq within six months, and derided Obama’s proposed “withdrawal” that would leave 50,000 US military personnel and permanent bases in Iraq. Nader spent more time, however, discussing the Israeli-Palestinian question. He called for a two-state solution, and criticized Obama’s fervently pro-Israeli position as a betrayal that he sees arising from the power of the pro-Israeli lobbying group AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) over US politics.