Random Ramblings

Well, we’re at the end of the political season, and as of 8:00 Pacific time, for all intents and purposes, we have a new president. And it’s thanks, in no small part, to my generation that the new president got elected.

My generation just made what will probably go down in the history books as the dumbest mistake we’ve ever made as a country for the sake of idealism.

We’re sick of war, sure. We don’t like that the economy’s in trouble, fine. We don’t like high gas prices, okay. We want renewable energy, whatever. But seriously, how is Obama going to help?

The catch phrase of this election has been “change”. If I were a drinking man, and had decided to make a drinking game out of the news coverage, I would’ve been shlockered since last November from how many times I’ve heard the word change. But you know what? for all that Obama talks about change, I’ve found very few of his followers who know what that “change” is, aside from “someone other than Bush”.

Seriously? And they call Republicans uneducated hicks? At least I can tell you what my candidate stands for without blasting his opponent for his party ties.

I have to agree with McCain’s comment in the final presidential debate: “Mr. Obama, if you’d wanted to run against President Bush, you’re four years too late.” McCain isn’t president Bush, despite all of Obama’s best efforts to portray him that way. The argument that McCain votes with president Bush 98% of the time became a catch phrase used by the democrats to attack republicans in every other battleground, making them sound like a broken record (When I heard Merkley use it on Smith, I thought “Can we not come up with something that doesn’t sound plagarized from Obama’s playbook?”). It’s become guilt by association instead of anyone actually paying attention to issues, REAL issues.

Additionally, Obama talks about how he’s going to “get more jobs in America”, but at the same time talks about only cutting taxes for the middle class.

Economics lesson, kids. If you make it more expensive for a corporation to do business, the business will generally move to where it can be done for cheaper. We’ve already got corporations moving overseas for the cheap labor, how exactly does Obama think raising corporate income taxes is going to help stem the proverbial tide of our jobs being sent overseas? It IS cheaper over there, after all. Pretty soon, we’ll have to call our orders at the McDonalds drive through in to some guy in India who’s getting half as much as the lazy teenager that McDonalds couldn’t afford to keep on with the tax hike.

And furthermore, the “Bush gives tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent of taxpayers” argument is a crock. Can I be totally frank? Yes, they got a tax cut. Yes, they got more back than we did, simply because they paid more in to begin with. The wealthy tend to be a little more mobile with their funds, though, they can afford to hide their money in offshore tax shelters from the IRS so they can get out of paying their taxes if they want to make the effort.

I found the most helpful illustration on Scott Adam’s Dilbert Blog:

Sometimes politicians, journalists and others exclaim; “It’s just a tax cut for the rich!” and it is just accepted to be fact, without questioning it But what does that really mean?

Just in case you are not completely clear on this issue, the following might help. Let’s put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.”Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. What about the other six men, those paying the tab? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. “I only got a dollar out of the $20,”declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,” but he got $10!” “Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!” “That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!” “Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

The sad mistake is, most people think just because someone’s working for a corporation at an executive level, that they’re not as hard working as the middle-class guy who’s working at the low pay grade job. Can I tell you something, though? No one just walks into a corporation and is handed the reigns. Most of these guys had to work hard to get where they were, and while a few have made poor decisions (See: Enron, Arthur-Andersen, MCI Worldcom), the men who make it to the top in these corporations have worked just as hard or harder than the average guy working the lower level. As Vince Lombardi once said, “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but a lack of will.”

Obama wants universal health care, but he wants to tax the wealthy and corporations to do it. I watched Obama trying to justify taxing more to the people earning over 250,000 to even out the break he was giving to the middle class to a man’s face, and his argument was less than convincing. Can I just say, the government’s not going to do any better with the health care than the private corporations are? I’m completely content with my health care system as it is, I’d rather the government didn’t take it over, because honestly, I don’t think they’re competent to make that kind of decision for me.

And that, dear reader, is precisely what’s gotten us into this mess: We want the government to do it for us.

The fact that Obama’s gotten elected is a nod towards socialism. We want everything to be fair for everyone, we want to be able to not have to think about things. That’s why Obama’s so popular amongst our generation: He doesn’t make us think. He’s essentially said “Don’t worry about how we’ll pay for it, I can sort that out, just vote for me and I’ll give you hope.” However, in an ironic twist, by making things more “fair” for the middle class, we’re actually making the whole system unbelievably unfair for everyone else. We’re making the people who are motivated to actually work pay for those who aren’t (in other words, welfare). I do not bust my tail end at work 40 hours a week to support some lazy nit-wit who’s sitting at home collecting unemployment checks while watching Judge Judy. Do you know, dear reader, what socioeconomic system gives everyone “equality” and doesn’t make them think? Communism. Why work hard when you’ll get the same pay as everyone else? Sadly, that’s what we’re making a long, slow slide towards with what we as Americans are voting for these days. Letting the government do our thinking for us and letting them hand what they deem we “deserve” to us on a silver platter, like universal health care and a turkey in every pot.

And to close this out, before anyone starts calling me a racist or a change-phobe, let me assure you, dear reader, I am not a racist. If McCain and Obama had swapped ideologies, I would’ve voted for Obama. If a white man was spewing this and I spoke out against it, I wouldn’t be considered a racist, so the race card really does not come in here. And I’m all for change, but I’d like to know what kind of change I’m getting myself into before I blindly vote for it.

And when my mother said, “Yes, we’ve voted for change, but will we like the change we’re getting?” my only reply was, “That’ll depend on how much change he leaves in our pockets.”

Signing off for the 2008 political ranting season…

~Andrew

Tags: News, Politics // 3 Comments »