Obama Problem 2 of 2

OK, I'm cooled down now about Obama's infomercial last night. I swear.

In an effort to get some more useful information about both Senators Obama and McCain, I'll discuss the other roadblock preventing me from voting for Obama now, and then discuss some of McCain's flaws, and then on Monday night, I'll possibly disclose who I'm going to vote for Tuesday morning:

The bogus attack on Obama's tax plan as being "Socialist" is not the reason to dislike his ideas. This is the one area in which I think Obama is somewhat wrong, but not because it's Socialist. I cringed every time during the campaign, when Obama would be at a rally somewhere, and took the liberty to drop the phrase "the last 8 years are a result of the failed economic policies of George Bush and John McCain." As if John McCain, as a Senator, can be blamed for Executive decisions...
But anyway, Obama is wrong to say that. That's a hollow attack, and I thought his worst during the campaign, because a lot of people don't buy it. He should have tried to explain what the hell his tax plan means instead of bad-mouthing McCain, 'cause I don't think anyone understands it, so I'll attempt to explain it:

The big crux of Obama's plan is just who exactly gets a tax cut. His website says the following:

Provide Middle Class Americans Tax Relief

Obama and Biden will cut income taxes by $1,000 for working families to offset the payroll tax they pay.

* Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama and Biden will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama and Biden will create a new "Making Work Pay" tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The "Making Work Pay" tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.

This is central to Obama's progressive tax ideas, but it isn't a "massive re-distribution of wealth" as McCain claims, it's just sort of re-allocating money that people make and giving it to retired people and people on welfare who are too lazy to get jobs. Make sense ? But it's not Socialism, and I'm serious about that fact. Now, it *seems* like it would be a good idea to tax the rich people more, but not the way that Obama wants to do it. He's constantly changed his number for what the line is for the higher tax bracket, and every time his advisers are asked about it they dodge the question and say they didn't hear that. It started at $250,000 (which gave way to the Joe the Plumber mess), then he said $200,000 at another speech, then his idiot running mate Biden said $150,000 at some speech, and then Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico said $125,000 (without permission, really. He doesn't know what he's talking about). I just want a straight answer out of Obama.

Obama's economic plan also says:
Support Small Business

* Provide Tax Relief for Small Businesses and Start Up Companies: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will eliminate all capital gains taxes on start-up and small businesses to encourage innovation and job creation. Obama and Biden will also support small business owners by providing a $500 “Making Work Pay” tax credit to almost every worker in America. Self-employed small business owners pay both the employee and the employer side of the payroll tax, and this measure will reduce the burdens of this double taxation.

I give Obama brownie points for publicly admitting that small business drives the American economy...but they aren't all Democrats. Some small businesses make quite a bit of money, and would have a higher tax rate if Obama got this plan passed. Do you think a business owner wants to have to hand more over to the government so they can turn around and give it back to people who "need" it more? My Dad owns a small business (it consists of himself) and he's buried in bills and expenses while trying to pay his mortgage and current taxes. Do you think he'd be happy with paying more money in taxes when he has to file for extensions every year cause his income is so sporadic ? I'm not saying Obama's plans wouldn't help people, but at the same time it hurts people. I like the idea of a progressive tax, but there's a certain ceiling it needs to be at in order for companies to be able to keep hiring people and churning out growth. What Obama fails to comprehend, and this is where McCain has him beat, is that the taxes on business are *too* high, and should be cut along with middle income tax brackets. Leave out the part where people who didn't work for it get a tax cut just because Obama told them he'd do it. That's dishonest and it doesn't make the economy compete on the global scale. Yea, he wants to cut the capital gains tax, but that doesn't do crap unless business have a reason to invest in our own economy. He says he'll give tax breaks to companies who keep jobs here, but the jobs are already gone, and won't come back when the Presidnt says "sorry you don't get a tax cut cause you had to outsource to a better business environment so you can make money." Damn you, logical business choices !

More analysis:
I just type in "Obama tax plan analysis" into Google, and pull up one of the top pages, from a credible source that I recognize, and here's what I found: The Heritage Foundation, in sum, thinks McCain has the better economic plan, overall, but Obama does have some things McCain's doesn't, and perhaps McCain would pick out a few things he likes and put them in legislation if elected (entire report here).

One Key Point:
Jobs respond more to McCain's plan than to Obama's. Job growth over the 10-year forecast horizon is more than twice as high under McCain's plan than under Obama's. Total employment grows an average of 915,800 jobs under Obama, and by 2,126,000 under McCain. Both plans encourage job creation in each year of the forecast, but McCain's approach leads to sig­nificantly larger job growth, and sooner. By 2018, McCain's plan, which makes the Bush tax reduc­tions permanent and lowers the tax rate on cor­porate profits, creates an additional 3,426,500 jobs. Senator Obama, however, raises taxes on many of the economy's key investors and busi­ness owners. Job growth under his plan for that same year is lower, at 1,576,200.

It's important for voters to cut through all the stuff and realize that the Obama does not have the almighty economic plan that they think he does, and it is the one reason I may not vote for him.

www.barackobama.com/plan for more on Obama's extensive ideas.