Financial Shakeup this weekend

[nplenzick]

You show me one candidate EVER who can be specific on anything. I only said they were a general outline on specific issues.

You'll enjoy John McCain's web site. For those who vote with their wallet, well you'll just love it. He's cutting taxes for just about everyone no mention how he's going to pay for the war in Iraq that he wants to continue or how he's going to pay for anything else for that matter. More of the same trickle down economics that just doesn't work. He's environmental policy is laughable at best........talk about lack of specifics.

So you show me one candidate ever, who 6 months before the election and 9 months before being sworn in as president who will show all of us a detailed analyst's on anything. 

[emayer]

Wellardmac wrote:

ccm911 wrote:

David, looks like we need to choose the lesser of three evils.

That pretty much sums it up. Three evils.

I was going to vote for Clinton because I figured that McCain would be more of the same of what we've had for the last 8 years. I regard Obama as sorbet - looks and tastes great, but no substance. Clinton was doing pretty well on substance and policy, but I'm really not liking her tendancy to embellish her stories.

As of today I am loathed to vote for any of them.

I'm now at the point where I might be in for some strategic voting.

I'm leaning in the direction that I might end up voting for McCain even though I don't like him or his policies. I figure that at best he's a one term president (probably intended as a stopgap until Jeb Bush cab be made to run) that will continue to ride out the current mess and continue the current trend of predictably bad decisions and policies. He will continue to mess up the country and then a good Democrat (or independent - Bloomburg?) alternative will come up from the ashes and take the presidency for the next 8 years. The wildcard here is who McCain choses as VP. He stands a pretty good chance of kicking the bucket, so his VP choice really matters. I'd have to know that his VP is not Adolf Huckabee, or someone like him.

The alternative is that the Cotton Candy King (Obama) will come along and screw things up even more and then we're stuck with more big spending Republicans for another 8 years.

If Obama gets in I would expect his lack of experience to translate into poor decisions and policy - he supports (and says) whatever is popular and that drives me nuts. He's pandering to the "have-nots", so you can guarentee that I would see tax increases that go to support programs that I would disagree with. His science credentials are almost as bad as McCain's, so you would not see any good science policies, nor any science based decisions (well, we've been used to that for the last 7.5 years!) while he's in office and that would take us further in a bad direction for our future. Note that he's not talking about how to improve education!

Clinton... what can I say? Smart woman. She's calculated in everything she does and says. I like her policies and the substance she has put behind them. She is the one candidate that has said what she will do and how she will pay for it - gotta like that. Sadly she's been making some rookie mistakes recently that undermine her credibility. The mistakes make you ask how you can trust someone who embelishes on unimportant things.... if you can't trust someone on the unimportant stuff, then how can you trust them on the important stuff.

...so, as I said, why bother getting out of bed? We REALLY need some better choices.

Let's assume that Obama gets the nomination. Do we REALLY believe that he could take the majority vote, or the country? I doubt it. To win he needs more than just democrats to vote for him and I don't see that happening.

+1

As for Obama, an eloquent orator but where's the beef?

[nplenzick]

I see plans  not specifics in Clintons proposals. Where's the money coming from to pay for it? It seems like her plans appeal to you then if your able to vote next Tuesday you should vote for her. I have no problem with that.

I beg to differ with the opinion that she has a better shot at beating McCain in November. Republicans are praying that she is the nominee as they'll have a field day with her. Hilary is a very polarizing individual. Most of the men I've talked to truly hate her, I really do mean hate. These same people would have no problem backing Barack. Will I back her if she is the nominee, you bet I will. But I truly believe Barack has a better shot then she does. I guess we'll all find out in the next month or so who'll  it will be.

[Wellardmac]

Okay, if you were to read the articles behind each link you would find each of the following measures that would be taken to generate the money to pay for her initiatives.

"A Commitment to Fiscal Discipline: The cost of Senator Clinton’s crime agenda is approximately $4 billion in new investments per year. This cost will be financed without increasing the deficit by allocating a portion of the savings from Senator Clinton’s Corporate Subsidy Commission. This commission will identify unnecessary and outdated corporate subsidies for elimination and present its recommendations in full to Congress for an up-or-down vote – without amendments. [American Dream Initiative, 2005.] This approach will ensure that special interests cannot interfere to protect their own subsidies."

"Aides said Clinton will propose several specific measures to pay for her plan, including an end to some of the Bush-era tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 per year."

"I have proposed a very specific agenda to end the giveaways to corporate special interests and to save the American people at least $55 billion a year.

That's money that can go right back into your pockets through middle class tax cuts, money we can use to create new high-paying jobs, to invest in our nation's futures (sic) again, you know, for rebuilding our roads to our schools to our manufacturing sector. "

"First, I'll close the tax loopholes for companies that outsource jobs. No company will be able to use your tax dollars to ship your job overseas. "

"She would finance this spending by eliminating the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program and freezing the estate tax at $7 million per couple (instead of allowing it to be repealed)."

"Eliminate deferral provision that allows U.S. companies to defer paying U.S. taxes on income earned by their foreign subsidiaries until that income is repatriated to the U.S.

Close tax loopholes to ensure that companies cannot continue receiving tax benefits for locating abroad. She will disallow companies from engaging in transfer-pricing arrangements where companies avoid taxes by shifting income or assets to low-tax jurisdictions. She will eliminate incentives in the tax code (like the ability to “cross-credit�?) that encourage U.S. companies to shift operations or at least profits to low-tax jurisdictions. And she will eliminate the unfair advantage that foreign insurers located in tax havens have against U.S. insurers competing for U.S. business."

These proposals are far more specific than I've seen from any other candidate and certainly way beyond anything Obama has put out. I'd love it if you could point me to equivalent statements by Obama. The measures listed above (assuming no other additions) amount to a significant amount of money that can be redirected to other uses, rather than going to entities that don't need the money.

I know that you like Obama - believe me I'm happy to see a Republican realizing that their party is killing this country - but I was trained to look at details and unfortunately I'm not getting them from Obama, I'm just getting a lot of feel-good fluff. It's unfortunate that the media in their usual style has not critiqued his words and called him to provide specifics. They've gone easy on the boy wonder.

Obama sounds great - I could even call him the politicians version of my favorite Baskin Robbins ice cream - looks and tastes great, but not really filling and certainly nothing left if you let it sit around and age.

Sure, Hillary is a polarizing figure - nothing more polarizing than a smart, wealthy, articulate, and experienced woman to annoy people. Hell, it's even worse when you consider that she has a husband that's just the same. Heaven forbid that we would want to have two very intelligent people in the White House.

The average person doesn't relate to intelligent people. They want to vote for people like them - unfortunately they need to realize that people like them are not capable of running the country - All due to our poor quality education system.

Obama has built a base, but unfortunately that base consists of sections of the Democratic party rather than the independents that he will need to get elected. His lack of experience and attention to detail will lead him to get shredded when the GOP starts calling people's attention to his deficiencies.

That's on top of the factor that two sad realities still exist in this country that will impede both candidates - racism and sexism. It's plain and simply true that some people do not believe that either of them are capable of being President because of their sex or their color. I find both of those things to be astonishing and I shake my head when I hear people say it, but those people are out there.

I think that McCain would give both of them a tough time and neither of them is a shoe-in for the Presidency in the final race. For me it always comes down to substance over words.

If someone cannot give me anything more than a warm and fuzzy feeling, then that's not going to cut it, because when it comes down to it you need a President that's going to make the tough and sometimes unpopular decisions. Obama likes to be popular and will say anything that he thinks will further that cause. I'm sorry, but that's not a good quality in a President.

[nplenzick]

Wellardmac wrote:

Okay, if you were to read the articles behind each link you would find each of the following measures that would be taken to generate the money to pay for her initiatives.

"A Commitment to Fiscal Discipline: The cost of Senator Clinton’s crime agenda is approximately $4 billion in new investments per year. This cost will be financed without increasing the deficit by allocating a portion of the savings from Senator Clinton’s Corporate Subsidy Commission. This commission will identify unnecessary and outdated corporate subsidies for elimination and present its recommendations in full to Congress for an up-or-down vote – without amendments. [American Dream Initiative, 2005.] This approach will ensure that special interests cannot interfere to protect their own subsidies."

I would love to see who is appointed to that commission.......pretty lame on specifics

"Aides said Clinton will propose several specific measures to pay for her plan, including an end to some of the Bush-era tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 per year."

So what are the specific measures?

"I have proposed a very specific agenda to end the giveaways to corporate special interests and to save the American people at least $55 billion a year.

So what is the specific agenda?

That's money that can go right back into your pockets through middle class tax cuts, money we can use to create new high-paying jobs, to invest in our nation's futures (sic) again, you know, for rebuilding our roads to our schools to our manufacturing sector. "

Where are the specifics in this? How's she going create new high paying jobs?

"First, I'll close the tax loopholes for companies that outsource jobs. No company will be able to use your tax dollars to ship your job overseas. "

How's this going to happen. Lack of specifics here

"She would finance this spending by eliminating the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program and freezing the estate tax at $7 million per couple (instead of allowing it to be repealed)."

I guess I can give you this one.

"Eliminate deferral provision that allows U.S. companies to defer paying U.S. taxes on income earned by their foreign subsidiaries until that income is repatriated to the U.S.

The specifics please

Close tax loopholes to ensure that companies cannot continue receiving tax benefits for locating abroad. She will disallow companies from engaging in transfer-pricing arrangements where companies avoid taxes by shifting income or assets to low-tax jurisdictions. She will eliminate incentives in the tax code (like the ability to “cross-credit�?) that encourage U.S. companies to shift operations or at least profits to low-tax jurisdictions. And she will eliminate the unfair advantage that foreign insurers located in tax havens have against U.S. insurers competing for U.S. business."

Still don't see any specifics here ether

These proposals are far more specific than I've seen from any other candidate and certainly way beyond anything Obama has put out. I'd love it if you could point me to equivalent statements by Obama. The measures listed above (assuming no other additions) amount to a significant amount of money that can be redirected to other uses, rather than going to entities that don't need the money.

I know that you like Obama - believe me I'm happy to see a Republican realizing that their party is killing this country - but I was trained to look at details and unfortunately I'm not getting them from Obama, I'm just getting a lot of feel-good fluff. It's unfortunate that the media in their usual style has not critiqued his words and called him to provide specifics. They've gone easy on the boy wonder.

Obama sounds great - I could even call him the politicians version of my favorite Baskin Robbins ice cream - looks and tastes great, but not really filling and certainly nothing left if you let it sit around and age.

Sure, Hillary is a polarizing figure - nothing more polarizing than a smart, wealthy, articulate, and experienced woman to annoy people. Hell, it's even worse when you consider that she has a husband that's just the same. Heaven forbid that we would want to have two very intelligent people in the White House.

The average person doesn't relate to intelligent people. They want to vote for people like them - unfortunately they need to realize that people like them are not capable of running the country - All due to our poor quality education system.

Obama has built a base, but unfortunately that base consists of sections of the Democratic party rather than the independents that he will need to get elected. His lack of experience and attention to detail will lead him to get shredded when the GOP starts calling people's attention to his deficiencies.

That's on top of the factor that two sad realities still exist in this country that will impede both candidates - racism and sexism. It's plain and simply true that some people do not believe that either of them are capable of being President because of their sex or their color. I find both of those things to be astonishing and I shake my head when I hear people say it, but those people are out there.

I think that McCain would give both of them a tough time and neither of them is a shoe-in for the Presidency in the final race. For me it always comes down to substance over words.

If someone cannot give me anything more than a warm and fuzzy feeling, then that's not going to cut it, because when it comes down to it you need a President that's going to make the tough and sometimes unpopular decisions. Obama likes to be popular and will say anything that he thinks will further that cause. I'm sorry, but that's not a good quality in a President.

You see I can pull the same thing from Barack or McCains web site. As I mentioned earlier not one of the three can really be specfic on anything. All they can do is give a general outline as what they hope they can accomplish. I can see Baracks negotiating skills being a big plus with other countries, he's able to see other then black or white and I'm not talking race here.............but then again you'd have to read the book The one candidate who's been in the spotlight more and the longest then any of the three has been Barack. I will agree that racism and sexism do play a role but if this economy is still in the dump in November people will vote for the tin man if they had to. Now back to the Moto GP

[Wellardmac]

nplenzick wrote:

You see I can pull the same thing from Barack or McCains web site. As I mentioned earlier not one of the three can really be specfic on anything. All they can do is give a general outline as what they hope they can accomplish. I can see Baracks negotiating skills being a big plus with other countries, he's able to see other then black or white and I'm not talking race here.............but then again you'd have to read the book The one candidate who's been in the spotlight more and the longest then any of the three has been Barack. I will agree that racism and sexism do play a role but if this economy is still in the dump in November people will vote for the tin man if they had to. Now back to the Moto GP

I'm sorry, but you're pulling a Barack here. I'm just not getting any specifics here and you're dodging the questions. Telling me to read the book or referring me to the website just doesn't cut it. I have looked on his website and not seen any specifics on the three questions that I have posed. He's clear and articulate in communicating his overarching vision, but suddenly gets more vague when asked exactly what he's going to do and how he's going to pay for it. Visionaries are great on leadership, terrible on execution.

I have provided specifics, but have gotten none in return. It's the job of any candidate to justify to the electorate why they should be elected and Obama (and you arguing on his behalf) has failed to do that. I'm not going to be convinced that he's a worthy candidate without seeing specifics of his plan. If he's not showing it, then he doesn't deserve my vote. Clinton has done a far better job of saying what she's going to do and how she's going to pay for it.

Additionally, I'm not sure how you can say that Obama has been in the spotlight longer than McCain or Clinton - he's a newbie that has been in the spotlight a fraction of the time than either of his competition. McCain has been a senator since 1982 and Clinton in the national spotlight since Bill started running for President in 1991. Obama was 21 years old and still in School when McCain entered the national spotlight. He was just finishing his law degree at Harvard when Hillary entered the Presidential campaign with Bill. Hillary has been in public service since Obama was 18 years old. Obama has not been around enough to build a track record and credibility that arises from saying what you do and doing what you say. He certainly hasn't received any real critical analysis of his words or deeds from the media.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_obama

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_clinton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain

Obama is great at grabbing attention, but on close inspection I'm left hungry for more details and he's not giving any... sounds just like any other politician to me!

Wouldn't it be wonderful if our media were asking the same questions that I am? ...that would actually make for a decent discussion and hold him accountable to his grandiose vision. Nothing builds credibility better than real details and data. What does he have to be afraid of? If he provided specifics he might convince even more people like me that he's worthy of receiving our votes.

Here's one for you to ponder... Obama claims to be wanting to reform campaign finance laws... he seems to forget that McCain has done far more on that subject than any other other public servant. I wonder how he's going to deal with that fact once the GOP starts to point it out to the electorate!

[nplenzick]

Don't you at least acknowledge that the Obama logo is at at least cool 

[Wellardmac]

nplenzick wrote:

Don't you at least acknowledge that the Obama logo is at at least cool

I will acknowledge that he has a cool logo.

In fact, I read this article earlier in the year and got a kick out of reading about the impact the color and font choice can say about a candidate - It's pretty funny.. and yes, Obama wins that contest.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/...ys_change/

- yeah, I know, 6 years out of Massachusetts and I still read Boston.com.

Given a choice I'd still vote for Ron Paul or Mitt Romney.

[emayer]

Wellardmac wrote:

The average person doesn't relate to intelligent people. They want to vote for people like them - unfortunately they need to realize that people like them are not capable of running the country - All due to our poor quality education system.

I wouldn't necessarily say that the average person doesn't relate to intelligent people. In this age of sound bytes and superficial journalism, the average person is basing their impressions on that which is spoon-fed by the media. This, in large part, explains Obama's current popularity. Intelligence does not directly translate to leadership capability. Jimmy Carter is an excellent example of someone rendered impotent as a leader because his intelligence bogged him down with the minutiae of every decision.

I agree with your support of Romney because he at least has a proven track record of leadership AND intelligence. In my view, the jury is still out on the current candidates in respect to having both attributes though I'm leaning toward McCain. I'm curious to see where people stand right now in this decision...

[ccm911]

I think it is safe to say that we all really want the same thing.  Clinton and Obama are both right on in what they are saying, and that is what is making this Democratic Primary so difficult.

Although, I heard an ad on KYW from the Clinton camp that really hit home.  She is heard saying that all of America should have the opportunity to get the same health care coverage that is offered to the politicians in Washington.  Good stuff.

On that note, isn't the average salary in America like 40K per year?  So then why have we elevated our "ruling class" so highly, paying them six-figure salaries, benefits, and all they can steal?  This needs to stop.

And on that subject, why all the hoopala every time someone wants to raise the minimum wage?  Is it that terrible to offer a living wage to the lower rung of the socioeconomic ladder?  I mean, how much sacrifice must these innocent folks provide so that some rich corporate scumbag can have his million plus bonus?

Unfortunately, Wayne is correct about the dumb folks voting.  Because of the apathy shown by the "masses of asses" we now have folks that have all but spent their lives getting paid by our tax dollars.  And then we are expected to get all misty-eyed thanking them for the great sacrifices they have made.  Spare me!