Obama Presidency Discussion Thread

[Sphinx]

It is a deeply unfair idea. While his idea is not nearly as extreme as communism and Marxism, they do share a very basic foundation: that wealth must be shared so all can benefit.

with a Progressive tax system, high earners are already subsidising low earners and regardless of how anyone wishes to paint it, the US is already spreading the wealth around.

 

[FoolKiller]

with a Progressive tax system, high earners are already subsidising low earners and regardless of how anyone wishes to paint it, the US is already spreading the wealth around.

So the way to fix the problem is to increase its effect?

It is a bad system now and he will make it even worse.

 

[Sphinx]

So the way to fix the problem is to increase its effect?

It is a bad system now and he will make it even worse.

I'm not arguing that point. My point is that over the last few weeks members here have been complaining about low earners benefiting off the backs of high earners, when in reality they already are.

 

[FoolKiller]

I'm not arguing that point. My point is that over the last few weeks members here have been complaining about low earners benefiting off the backs of high earners, when in reality they already are.

Well, the problem with Obama's idea that stands out is that he will cut taxes on lower income earners while paying for that by increasing it on the wealthier. Typically it has just been uneven cuts or increases, never one going one way while the other does the opposite.

 

[Sphinx]

And just so you know:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

So, how does a progressive tax agree with that?

I've just scrolled back a number of posts and this quote struck me as being somewhat odd:

Surely, the quote from your constitution has no relevance in regard to progressive tax . The way I read it is that it is referring to all duties, imposts and excises being uniform from state to state (United States), not from individual to individual?

 

[FoolKiller]

I've just scrolled back a number of posts and this quote struck me as being somewhat odd:

Surely, the quote from your constitution has no relevance in regard to progressive tax . The way I read it is that it is referring to all duties, imposts and excises being uniform from state to state (United States), not from individual to individual?

It does. They had to add an amendment (16th) to allow a progressive tax to begin. In other words, for The New Deal to happen they had to change the Constitution. It has only gotten worse since.

If it were up to me the first act of business would be to repeal the 16th Amendment.

 

[Danoff]

I've just scrolled back a number of posts and this quote struck me as being somewhat odd:

Surely, the quote from your constitution has no relevance in regard to progressive tax . The way I read it is that it is referring to all duties, imposts and excises being uniform from state to state (United States), not from individual to individual?

There's a great deal of that kind of language throughout the constitution. Whether it's equal protection, all men being created equal, or provisions preventing the government from making policy around individuals. The constitution was clearly founded on the principle that law should be applied uniformly.

As it stands, US law is anything but uniform. We've interpreted that to mean that laws must be enforced on everyone - so if you can write a law that only affects one person, but doesn't name that person specifically, you've done your constitutional duty.

The best example I have of this is laws used to target Walmart to prevent stores from opening in certain towns. The rules will often forbid something like "any store with more than x employees and x locations nationwide who's name starts with "Wal" and ends with "mart". (minor exaggeration)

Technically that could apply to any store, and so as long as it's enforced on everyone people claim that they've done their constitutional duty. But that misses the point of the constitutional provisions requiring equality of law. The idea was to NOT single out certain entities, people, or groups and treat them differently.

 

[magburner]

Can I ask where your stereotype that America is a racist country came from?

Hang on a second! I never said that America was a racist country! I can see how you might of thought that I had implied that (because Barrack Obama is black), but that was not what I was getting at.

I was merely commenting on the perceived favouring of the privileged. If that means America is a racist country, then you said it not me! 👍

 

[YSSMAN]

They had to add an amendment (16th) to allow a progressive tax to begin.

Funny thing happened along the way, a Republican (Theodore Roosevelt) was the one who championed the cause, and it was ratified after his Presidency (under Taft) in 1913. This went unchallenged by otherwise pro-business Presidents Harding-Coolidge-Hoover. But lets not kid ourselves, the New Deal had to deal with far more than just taxes...

 

[Solid Fro]

Messiah! Your Youth await their orders.

This has no place in our education system. 👎

 

[Vasco]

I'll ask again though, wouldn't the only way to have an equal tax be if everyone paid exactly the same amount in tax? Having the same PERCENTAGE means you're still "stealing" from the beloved rich who all deserve their money much more than anyone else.

Also:

I watch Fox News all the time because it is the only one who does indeed provide fair and balanced news coverage and Left and Right debate for political shows.

And there goes what little credibility you had left

 

[TheCracker]

I watch Fox News all the time because it is the only one who does indeed provide fair and balanced news coverage and Left and Right debate for political shows.

That's a good one that is 👍

 

[Duke]

Actually, he's a lot more correct than you care to admit. Watching Fox is the one of the only ways to get anything that is not liberally biased in the US. It may be conservatively biased, true, but at least it is a counterpoint to the monolithicly leftist media.

On the subject of Obama's presidency:

Rahm Emanuel for Chief of Staff? So much for working across the aisle. I guess all that 'moderate' bit was just for show. Or maybe now that they've successfully gotten him elected, his handlers are already dropping the pretense.

 

[TheCracker]

Fox News not liberally biased, you don't say - it's like watching the Reichsparteitag with fancy colour graphics

 

[FoolKiller]

Hang on a second! I never said that America was a racist country! I can see how you might of thought that I had implied that (because Barrack Obama is black), but that was not what I was getting at.

I was merely commenting on the perceived favouring of the privileged. If that means America is a racist country, then you said it not me! 👍

I see, I assumed you were referring to race as this started from your a Black man is in the White House and we should all be proud comment.

That and this perceived favoring of the privileged in politics is, from my viewpoint, wrong. My father-in-law grew up in a poor coal mining town and has been on the staff of our state governor. My cousin, from a poor farming community, was chief of staff for Senator Wendell Ford, and his wife was the PR person for John Ashcroft. Through these family connections I can guarantee you that while many times a wealthy person uses the same personality traits that allowed them to succeed in business to succeed in politics, a fairly large number of people come from nowhere as well.

If you had really be concerned about privileged politicians being overcome I would have thought you would have thought Palin being a VP would be much better as she started in politics from just being a concerned mother. Obama has had many more connections to help him move up than Palin.

Funny thing happened along the way, a Republican (Theodore Roosevelt) was the one who championed the cause, and it was ratified after his Presidency (under Taft) in 1913. This went unchallenged by otherwise pro-business Presidents Harding-Coolidge-Hoover.

And a Republican president freed the slaves, but they still get stereotyped as being racist. And these oh so progressive Democrats had a large number of their party fighting against civil rights. Neither of these parties are the same as they once were, so I fail to see what you are saying.

Did I lay the 16th Amendment at the feet of Democrats and claim Republicans to be awesome or something? I think I have made it abundantly clear by now that I blame all these problems on both parties.

But lets not kid ourselves, the New Deal had to deal with far more than just taxes...

And it created a lot more bad policy too.

I'll ask again though, wouldn't the only way to have an equal tax be if everyone paid exactly the same amount in tax? Having the same PERCENTAGE means you're still "stealing" from the beloved rich who all deserve their money much more than anyone else.

Perhaps you don't understand the concept of a percentage and how it applies to burden? If everyone pays 10% then they are only burdened with losing 10% of their earned income. If everyone pays $3,000 dollars then some people will lose 10% of their income, others will lose 20%, while others will only lose less than 1%.

And who said that the rich deserve their own earned money more than the poor deserve their own earned money? No, what a person earns they deserve, equally among all economic classes.

And there goes what little credibility you had left

Crazy thing. When UCLA did a study they found that Fox News is not so bad in comparison to all US news outlets.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx
(I think this is the fourth or fifth time I have had to post this on GTP.)

Solid Fro is actually better off than someone who watches CBS.


Again, I will remind people to not confuse Bill O'Reilly's commentary show with news. In fact, it is even labeled as commentary by Fox News. Commentary on TV is as much news as the editorial section of a newspaper.

 

[YSSMAN]

Neither of these parties are the same as they once were, so I fail to see what you are saying.

I was making the point that Republicans did just as much to "screw things up" than anyone else, and nothing else.

Rahm Emanuel for Chief of Staff? So much for working across the aisle. I guess all that 'moderate' bit was just for show. Or maybe now that they've successfully gotten him elected, his handlers are already dropping the pretense.

I'd love to hear who your choice would have been for Obama, to fit the moderate streak. There are going to be both Liberal and Conservative choices in his cabinet, in his inner-circle, and Rahm is one of the first. I wouldn't read too much into it, he too is a Chicago-based politician who is a close friend of Obama's, and I'm really not surprised by the pick at all. This is something that had been discussed for quite some time, to be frank, I think I would have been more surprised if he would have chosen someone else. Its definitely a case of good cop, bad cop, as some have already put it, and it definitely shows that Obama is looking to get things done early on in his first term.

It has Republicans howling already, which I find funny, but thats just politics for you...

 

[Duke]

I'd love to hear who your choice would have been for Obama, to fit the moderate streak.

Not a card-carrying, incredibly partisan guy like Emanuel. I expected a Democrat... but not such a rabid one.

Its definitely a case of good cop, bad cop, as some have already put it, and it definitely shows that Obama is looking to get things done early on in his first term.

It has Republicans howling already, which I find funny, but thats just politics for you...

Yeah, the politics of pretending to be a moderate and then appointing partisans to your cabinet? Why do you find it funny that Republicans are mad that he talked a good game about getting past partisanship and moving ahead with CHANGE, and then made Rahm Emanuel - the Democrat's Democrat - one of his first appointees?

 

[YSSMAN]

I find it funny, more or less, because they knew it was coming. This has been discussed for at least the past two weeks, especially in the "what if he wins" games that was played out on TV, in newspapers, and magazines. I agree that he is a very partisan choice (patronage as well?), but as Chief of Staff, it is not as though he will be making policy decisions left and right. He was chosen, presumably, because of his experience in the House (strengthening ties between it and the White House?), and by extension, his friendship with Obama. Former Chiefs of Staff do include Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney under one of my favorite leaders, President Ford, and we obviously know where they stood on issues despite serving under an extremely moderate President.

We will have to see how it works, thats about as far as we can go with it. Given his apprehension to accepting the position earlier this week, it seems questionable how long he will stay in the Obama term depending on how things turn out. Bush 41 went through three chiefs of staff in one term, Bush 42 has only used two in his time in the White House, which is a credit to choosing great people for that office at the start (Andrew Card).

 

[Omnis]

Let the Pinko takeover begin: http://www.examiner.com/x-536-Civil...ff-choice-favors-compulsory-universal-service

Can't wait to get drafted for His Eminence. Yes We Can force you to do what we want.

 

[Solid Fro]

Obama's own Schutzstaffel?

All of this is outlined on Obama's Change.gov

 

[FoolKiller]

Obama's own Schutzstaffel?

All of this is outlined on Obama's Change.gov

When I first started reading that I was going to disagree with you because it says "When you choose to serve" but after reading deep into the main paragraph I realized that there was no choosing.

Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.

So, with 100 hours a year of community service for college students that will be a huge chunk of time that could be spent studying, or taken away from students trying to work their way through college without taking out federal student loans.

While it is doable, it will hurt students who struggle to keep good grades or are in very intense courses that require a lot of time.

 

[Omnis]

When I first started reading that I was going to disagree with you because it says "When you choose to serve" but after reading deep into the main paragraph I realized that there was no choosing.


So, with 100 hours a year of community service for college students that will be a huge chunk of time that could be spent studying, or taken away from students trying to work their way through college without taking out federal student loans.

While it is doable, it will hurt students who struggle to keep good grades or are in very intense courses that require a lot of time.

Yeah, Florida already tried to coerce me to "volunteer" for 40 hours in high school.

Coercing people to volunteer is NOT volunteering!

I can't imagine doing 100 hours per year in college. I hope something like this is only forced on people on federal financial aid.

 

[FoolKiller]

I hope something like this is only forced on people on federal financial aid.

I like where this is going. Make it a requirement for anyone on any kind of social program, like welfare, that are physically able to do it.

I mean, if we can't (read: won't) get rid of welfare and the like then maybe we can make people earn it.

At worst it would encourage those abusing the system to actually find a job. If you have to work you may as well get a proper paycheck, right?

 

[Solid Fro]

On a side note:



[/facepalm]

 

[Danoff]

Wow, he's chomping at the bit to screw up.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/07/obama.transition/index.html

"Obama said that passing a stimulus package will be his first move if the lame-duck Congress fails to do so before he takes office January 20."

More BS stimulus (ie: redistribution ie: welfare) packages. I don't like the precedent was created with the last round of "stimulus" checks. But I'm not surprised that Obama thinks this is a good solution.

Granted, he could do worse. But it's a far cry from any real progress or...

*gasp*

CHANGE

Edit: Were any studies done to see if the "stimulus" package that went out under Bush actually did anything to help (not that such a thing was constitutional)? I can hardly imagine so. This is the government afterall, only the appearance of progress is needed.

Yes we can!... do exactly what Bush did.

 

[Vasco]

Perhaps you don't understand the concept of a percentage and how it applies to burden? If everyone pays 10% then they are only burdened with losing 10% of their earned income. If everyone pays $3,000 dollars then some people will lose 10% of their income, others will lose 20%, while others will only lose less than 1%.

And who said that the rich deserve their own earned money more than the poor deserve their own earned money? No, what a person earns they deserve, equally among all economic classes.

But under your logic (the rich shouldn't have to pay any more than anyone else in taxes) then the exact same dollar amount should be paid, and not a percentage because a percentage means an unequal amount of tax is being paid by the richer and poorer. Having a different percentages therefore only changes the distribution of income, it doesn't change the system from being equal (which would supposedly happen with a flat rate percentage) to being unequal.

Regardless, even under a supposedly equal tax system, like you said before the richer have ways of moving that money around to avoid as much tax as possible, meaning in reality the system would be unequal anyway, with a significant skew towards the rich.

And just because some other forms of media in the US are biased the other way doesn't make Fox acceptable - do you have a more recent study on hand, a lot has changed in 3 years.

 

[Omnis]

But under your logic (the rich shouldn't have to pay any more than anyone else in taxes) then the exact same dollar amount should be paid, and not a percentage because a percentage means an unequal amount of tax is being paid by the richer and poorer. Having a different percentages therefore only changes the distribution of income, it doesn't change the system from being equal (which would supposedly happen with a flat rate percentage) to being unequal.

The goal is equity, not equality. Of course if the rate was zero, it wouldn't matter whether you used percentages or sums.

 

[ledhed]

LOL

lets give the guy a few months --let him actually do something ..

Then if he screws up crucify him ..

One of the biggest reasons I wasn't totally bummed out at the thought of an Obama presidency --was the huge pall of ultra partinship non -sense that was like a choking cloud of toxic midget puke , that hovered over the USA .

Red States vs Blue sates --hate -radical veiws from both sides of the spectrum.
The American Eagle has a left wing and a right wing .
The USA is a Moderate Conservative country --and this is reflected in the make-up ..and the pragmatic strategy the Dems used to choose canditates in the majority of states ( Bob Casey PA ex. ) that were often as much or MORE Conservative than the Republican they ran against.

A war weary fratured country --with a economy in tatters and the REPUBLICANS acting like insane tax and spend socialist ---has given us ..an Obama presidency .

lets Judge him by his actions .
The guys doomed --if I was him I would demand a re-count .
Look at what he has to try and fix ..he will NEED all the help he can get .

As an American --the people have Voted and he is NOW MY PRESIDENT .
I will be his loyal opposition .

I wish him the best ..because the alternative is to invite further disaster.

 

[RACECAR]

LOL

lets give the guy a few months --let him actually do something ..

Then if he screws up crucify him ..

One of the biggest reasons I wasn't totally bummed out at the thought of an Obama presidency --was the huge pall of ultra partinship non -sense that was like a choking cloud of toxic midget puke , that hovered over the USA .

Red States vs Blue sates --hate -radical veiws from both sides of the spectrum.
The American Eagle has a left wing and a right wing .
The USA is a Moderate Conservative country --and this is reflected in the make-up ..and the pragmatic strategy the Dems used to choose canditates in the majority of states ( Bob Casey PA ex. ) that were often as much or MORE Conservative than the Republican they ran against.

A war weary fratured country --with a economy in tatters and the REPUBLICANS acting like insane tax and spend socialist ---has given us ..an Obama presidency .

lets Judge him by his actions .
The guys doomed --if I was him I would demand a re-count .
Look at what he has to try and fix ..he will NEED all the help he can get .

As an American --the people have Voted and he is NOW MY PRESIDENT .
I will be his loyal opposition .

I wish him the best ..because the alternative is to invite further disaster.

I agree. non of us have a crystal ball nor can we see the future so all we can do and hope(if any of us have any) that he can do a better job with this country.

 

[Danoff]

I agree. non of us have a crystal ball nor can we see the future so all we can do and hope(if any of us have any) that he can do a better job with this country.

It doesn't take a crystal ball. All you have to do is listen to what he plans to do. The man needs to spend some time in economics class.