Do the Facts Support John McCain?
The election is fast approaching, yet an astounding number of people aren’t aware of some critically important facts.
1) Taxes for the People
If you make less than $112,000 a year as an individual (not household income, individual income) you will pay a lot less in income taxes under Obama’s proposed tax plan than under McCain’s. You make up part of the 80% of Americans in this category. If you make between $112,000-$227,000 a year as an individual you will still pay less taxes under Obama’s plan then you do right now. If you make between $227,000-$603,000 a year as an individual you will pay $12 (twelve dollars) more per year than you do right now.
2) Health Insurance (and more hidden McCain Taxes)
If you get your health insurance through your employer John McCain wants to treat your benefit as taxable income. That will push many Americans into a higher income bracket meaning you could pay thousands per year more in taxes.
3) Corporations Paying Their Fair Share?
If you think corporations don’t pay enough taxes you aren’t alone. According to the non-partisan GAOabout 2/3 of US Corporations paid no taxes at some point between 1998-2005. Despite this John McCain wants to cut the corporate tax rate by a whopping 10% in addition to increased first year write-offs which will ultimately cost us about 1.3 trillion dollars.
4) Oil Companies Reaping Huge Profits While You Pay Through The Nose.
If you think oil companies aren’t paying their fair share, you aren’t alone. Exxon Mobil just recorded the highest profit for any corporation in history (again). Despite this fact John McCain wants to slash their taxes by 10% and not take back the 14 billion dollars in tax payer subsidies that the Republicans in Congress fought to give oil companies.
5) Reckless Republican Spending
If you think Republicans are not fiscally responsible you aren’t alone. Over 70% of our National Debt was created by just 3 Republican Presidents. Republican Ronald Reagan borrowed more money than all presidents before him, from George Washington to Jimmy Carter, combined. Now George Bush may borrow even more more than Reagan. Democratic president Bill Clinton is the only president in the last 30 years to not only not create any debt, but to finish with a budget surplus.
6) The Economy
If you think borrowing trillions of dollars from foreign countries to put on a Giant National Credit Card is a bad idea, you’re not alone. We pay hundreds of billions of dollars in interest only payments on our debt each year, meaning our tax dollars are flushed down the toilet for things that no longer benefit us, assuming they ever did. Higher debt means our money is worth less which makes gas, food and just about everything else more expensive. A conservative estimate is that the US dollar has lost over 27% of it’s value since the year 2000.
7) Middle Class Wage Growth Better Under Democrats
If you think middle class families do better financially with a Democrat as president, you aren’t alone. According to research out of Princeton, real middle class wage growth is double when a Democrat is president compared to when a Republican is president.
8 ) Republicans Distract from the Issues that Matter
If you think focusing on which (current and former) candidates wear a flag pin is a waste of time that distracts us from real issues, you’re not alone. After all, why should it bother you that Hillary Clinton and John McCain don’t wear a flag pin?
9) McCain’s Questionable Allies
Some people say you can judge someone based on the company they keep. That’s interesting, because John McCain went out of his way to get the endorsement of Reverend Hagee. Most people have never heard of Hagee, possibly because according to a non-partisan study, while the media has in fact spent more talking about Obama (than McCain) most of that time has been spent saying negative things about him.How else could you explain that fact that so few people know that McCain’s Reverend Hagee referred to the Catholic Church as “the great whore” or that he believes and is on tape having said that “Hitler Was Fulfilling God’s Will For Israel”? And that’s in addition to the inflammatory comments he’s made regarding many other groups including women. Also, McCain aids, advisers and fundraisers have made about $1 BILLION DOLLARS from corporate sponsors. I guess that explains why McCain’s policies mostly benefit the richest and most powerful among us?
10) Family Values
Finally, many people believe you can judge a man by how he treats his family, and adultery is incredibly serious to people (and of course it’s the topic of The 7th Commandment). Some people are aware that John McCain cheated on his first wife Carol with his current wife Cindy (who was 18 years younger and quite wealthy), but they aren’t aware that John’s wife Carol was in a horrible, disfiguring car accident shortly before the affair began.
In light of all of this information you have to ask yourself:
If the facts don’t support John McCain, why should you?
Taxes are a very complicated issue but the one thing about corporate taxes that is fairly obvious is that corporations do not pay taxes, the consumer pays them in terms of higher prices. Corporations must make a profit or eventually they cease to exist, so each increase in their tax must be followed by an increase in prices. While it will never happen, a national sales tax in place of all income taxes and hidden taxes is the fairest and simplest and least expensive tax. A sales tax allows us all to know precisely how much tax we are paying and if we want more government we will be able to see the cost reflected on the bottom of every receit for anything we purchase. Such a tax to be effective would need to cover everything we purchase save for a few staples. Sadly, we will likely end up with a value added tax IN ADDITION to all the other taxes, a VAT being a form of sales tax.
Another misconception is an increase in tax on the uber wealthy is pretty much like a corporate tax in that the sorts of people than pull down a half billion a year can usually vote themselves a bonus or pay increase that quickly makes its way into higher comsumer prices.
The solution to the budget problems doesn;t lie in taxes anyway, it resides in fiscal responsibility and elimination of the national debt and balancing the budget; neither of which will ever happen in our liftime, if ever.
What I don’t understand is how these greedy rich people only want to see numbers that have no value. Obama wants to heavily tax people making over $2.9 milli. They would be expected to pay $700k in taxes and would net $2.2 milli. These kinds of taxes would eventually stabilize the economy and bring back the value of the Dollar. My point is I would rather have $2.2 milli that was worth that, instead of $2.7 milli that would only be worth about half because of the weak dollar.