You have to make a fundamental decision about the economy this election season. It is not necessarily a partisan decision as much as it is a philosophical decision. Not a philosophical decision of the naval-gazing kind, but a philosophical decision that will affect the most basic of economic decisions you will make in the future.
The question you have to answer and act on is this:
Do you believe that the tax system is a necessary evil in order to fund government services?
OR
Do you believe the tax system is basically a social services program intended to redistribute wealth: to normalize the gap between rich and poor?
How you answer this question should dictate how you vote in this election, unless of course you don't care which of these philosophies win, in which case you will have to decide on other issues.
I will argue for the former and therefore for McCain.
What Obama is planning is a direct transfer of wealth from one economic class of people to another by means of the tax system. True, we already have a "progressive" tax code that does this to some extent with the Earned Income Credit. But the Senator is proposing expanding that significantly.
McCain points out that Obama is promising a "tax cut" for 95% of Americans even though 40% of Americans do not pay taxes now. To Obama, a tax credit, giving a person back more than they pay in taxes, is a tax cut.
Senator Obama defends himself by saying that these people are paying other payroll taxes that are in addition to Income Tax so his plan would basically refund that too.
But these payroll taxes are for Social Security and Medicare. So now what the Senator is saying that these people will not be paying into the Social Security System either. So will they get Social Security benefits when they retire? The question remains unasked and unanswered but you know the answer: Of Course.
So not only will those who get taxed be responsible for all of the tax burden for existing programs, but they will be responsible for funding Social Security and Medicare as well as another $800 billion dollars in the new spending Obama has proposed.
People may say "tax cuts for the rich" but it is the people with capital that create jobs. And in a recession, the burden of creating jobs falls mostly, in the initial stages of recovery, on small business.
Clearly, it has been shown time and time again, from the Kennedy tax cuts, to the Reagan tax cuts to the Bush tax cuts, giving business more money to grow creates jobs which creates revenue for government which creates more money for social programs and charity to help people who are left behind for one reason or another.
It not only makes sense, there is empirical evidence to support the theory.
On the other hand, raising taxes slows the growth of business because to a business, a tax looks like a business expense that affects the bottom line: Like the cost of raw material, or the cost of energy to heat the buildings, or the cost of labor. A tax hike will replace some number of workers no question.
Fewer workers on the payroll means more workers collecting unemployment, Obama's tax credits, and other social services which then requires more tax hikes to pay for them. Clearly that's a vicious, downward, cycle.
When Obama and others vilify Capitalists and call for increasing the Capital Gains tax, this then becomes a disincentive for people to invest in business. And if people stop investing in business, where do the jobs come from?
And why should business stay in a country with a high cost of doing business?
What will be the result if US businesses move off-shore? What does America become then?
What is worse, while Obama's plan may sound reasonable to you now, what gaurantee do you have that this is what will be implemented? Let's pretend that what Obama is talking about is a tax cut and not a wealth transfer protocol. With a Democratic Congress in place, one that just may have a filibuster-proof super majority, what assurances do we have that Congress will not pass something even more drastic than what Obama is proposing?
And what is the likelihood that Obama will go against the Democratic leadership and veto what they want?
Well, he's never done it before, why would he do it as President?
The $700 billion "bailout" plan passed in Congress already has reshaped the way Capitalism works in this country. And it is loose enough that the next President could use it to create better Capitalism or a better Welfare state.
Obama will seek to implement a better welfare state.
How do we know? Because of his past associations.
You know, it's not so much that Obama hung around with a former domestic terrorist, it's more what that means about his philosophy.
As I pointed out here, everything about his past is radically Left
And that's because of his basic political philosophy which he attempts to hide with seemingly centrist rhetoric.
That philosophy is demostrated by the associations he now denies. But going further back, Gateway Pundit shows that Socialist Ideology has been with him from an early age
His first mentor in high school was noted Communist Frank Marshall Davis.
He admitted he attended socialist conferences during his college years in his first book, "Dreams From My Father", page 122:"Political discussions, the kind that at Occidental had once seemed so intense and purposeful, came to take on the flavor of the socialist conferences that I sometimes attended at Cooper Union or the African cultural fairs that took place in Harlem or Brooklyn during the summers-a few of the many diversions that New York had to offer, like going to a foreign film or ice-skating at the Rockefeller Center."
Obama also wrote that he selected his friends carefully, the more Marxist and radical the better, page 100:
"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets."
And, don't forget Obama's pastor, mentor and father figure of 20 years, G-D AmeriKKKa Jeremiah Wright, who brought the black liberation socialist theology to the alter.
This is the dividing line: A better stronger form of Capitalism, or more radical steps towards a European-style Welfare State; or worse outright Socialism.
You decide '08
