We have a presidential race with two imperfect candidates. I have reservations about John McCain, and I’m disappointed that we didn't get someone better apt to articulate and inspire confidence in the kind of policies the U.S. really needs. So do I think McCain has it all right? Absolutely not. However, Obama is the furthest thing from change I can imagine. Electing him would undoubtedly give a mandate to the federal government to adopt policies incongruent with those that are needed to adequately protect freedom and provide opportunity in the 21st century.
The United States should be striving to achieve the best corporations and business environment in the world, the best universities and K-12 institutions, the best health care system, the best protection of private property, and the best defense of our borders (amongst other things). And we need to be bringing in top talent from around the world! We have the luxury of already attracting the world’s most intelligent and high-potential foreign nationals just based off of our country’s ideals and opportunities - yet we throw it away with hardcore visa restrictions. Why are we denying the smartest workers from India, China, the Middle East, the opportunity to come work and start a business in the US? Look at the founders of Google and tell me that we shouldn’t be courting the world’s top talent.
I just briefly laid out the bare bones of where we should get to as a country (plus a small rant on immigration policy). However, the majority of debate and contention is not over the end goals, but around the means. What are the means to the end? What are the policies that will create this kind of USA? What makes sense? I firmly believe that the long term solutions rest on the principles of free markets and trade, individual liberty, and limited government.
For example, tax policies that I think make sense::
(1) Get rid of all federal taxes on businesses.
a. Take away all federal tax barriers to doing business in the US, and we’ll see a lot more entrepreneurs, a lot more small businesses, a lot more successful corporations, and thus more jobs, more wealth, and more opportunity.
(2) Create a flat income tax for individuals, or a national consumption tax.
a. What would you voluntarily pay the federal government to do for you? Think about it.
b. Right now, 40% of Americans pay no federal taxes, and 1% of Americans pay over ¼ of the bill. That’s incredibly unfair.
c. Increasing tax rates on people as their income rises discourages them from doing more work, taking risks, and starting a business. Would you want to work harder, take risks, and improve your opportunities for income generation if you knew the federal government would just take a higher percentage of money from you just because “you can afford it”?
d. A flat income tax for individuals, or no income tax and just a national consumption tax, would get rid of the discouragement caused by federal tax burdens.
Now does John McCain support these policies? No, at least not directly; however, he does support policies that point in this direction. Obama, on the other hand, supports tax policies that would discourage entrepreneurship, discourage investment, discourage corporations staying in the US, and discourage individual risk taking. His party line is that it helps the middle class - but what’s the middle class to do with nobody to offer employment and even heavier barriers to generating wealth than exist now?
So why am I so fervently against an Obama presidency?
Because his ideology and policies are the furthest things from change we need. I gave my tax example, but one need look no further than a list of his biggest supporters (worker and teacher unions) – groups consistently opposed to change, even when it’s what’s best for everyone. So how does Obama actually represent change when he courts the biggest change killers in the country? It’s because his change mantra is a humongous joke.
Obama calls McCain “more of the same” – I would suggest he stop saying that, because he has no credibility on that front. Obama is just more of the same leftist ideology – he’s the first term of McGovern, the second term of Carter, the first term of Mondale, and the first term of Dukakis. Scary thing is, Obama’s probably more to the left of all these guys.
There is nothing new about him. There is nothing different about his policies. When it comes to change, there is nothing Obama has to offer this country.
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14 comments:
Where to begin?
1) Your "vision" is eerily AIESEC-esque in the fact that it's merely pretty rhetoric with little of substance behind it. And I find your reference to bringing "top talent" to the U.S. ironic, if not hypocritical, seeing how it's the Republican party that has been so dogmatic in closing up the borders, ratcheting up visa requirements and supporting the racial profiling of Arabs entering the country for "security" reasons.
2) McGovern, Dukakis, and Mondale were never elected, so how do you know what effect their policies had on the country...?
3) We all know that "change" is just a loaded word; every candidate promises it during elections because, well, that's the only way to get elected. But perhaps you can provide some specific examples of Obama "courting the biggest change killers in the country."
4) The tax debate irritates me for two reasons: (1) because it's primarily steeped in a conceptual, and not a practical, disagreement, and (2) because it reflects just how spoiled and unappreciative Americans are.
You view paying taxes as a "burden". I would beg to differ, and I think that's what Biden was getting at when he called it a patriotic duty, especially when we're buried in two wars and a vast majority of Americans are asked to make absolutely no sacrifices to help wage them. Just how hypocritical is it to drape yourself in the flag, pump your chest to the rhythm of the national anthem and slap a bumper sticker on the back of your car that says "Support the Troops" only to balk when you're asked to help pay for (among other things) the services soldiers will need after returning home?
Think about your daily routine. How different would your life be if you couldn't get around via a cheap $1-2 metro ride that is payed for by taxpayers? How less pleasant would your day be if you couldn't walk on clean and safe sidewalks, drive on organized roads, keep your sewage underground, drink safe tap water, or call reliable police or fire departments if/when something bad happens to you?
Taxes pay for things that Americans take for granted every single day, that allow them to live comfortably and get an education and start businesses and make money. So I think it's absurd that they shouldn't be so willing to give back to the system that allowed them to thrive. Contrary to American myth, there is no such thing as a "self made man."
So you want to live in a society of no taxation? Fine. Come to Jordan. Go to Uganda. See what it's like to live in a country with no sense of equal opportunity, where there's little hope for class mobility, where there's poor infrastructure because no one pays for it, and where your destiny is virtually sealed by birth (and I guarantee that a maid here works much harder than you or I ever will).
If you were born into the aristocratic class, you'd probably be all for it. But if not, you'd probably be dreaming of a society like America; dreaming to be "punished" for your "success" by being asked to help pay for the daily luxuries that are so invisible to people that they can be so obnoxiously ungrateful for them.
(P.S. a "consumption tax" would be impossible to administer and would discourage investment in public systems that function quite well; no federal tax on corporations would be insane; there's no way you could expect, say, unemployed people to pay taxes when they have no money of their own; and do you really think that people are discouraged from trying to make more money because of higher tax rates, even if they would still reap greater gross income? Really?)
I would love to hear you address Adam's argument. Many of those points were running through my mind as I read your article, though I have a few comments on his comments.
1) I know people who have refused higher salaries because it would take them into the next tax bracket and they would in fact make less money. So yes, there are people who are discouraged from working harder due to the current progressive tax structure.
2) I completely agree with your echoing Biden's "patriotic duty" line--I argue that with conservtive, tax-lowering friends all the time. Without them, out society would crumble. And your comment on the flag-bearing, troop-supporters still demanding lower taxes? Hear hear! Not to speak on his behalf, but I think that Andrew isn't advocating lowering all taxes but creating a less-progressive or even completely flat system. Also, there is a clear need to figure out out to properly allocate taxes, cut down on superfluous government spending, etc that would allow taxes to be used in a more efficient way.
3) As a still undecided voter (although I'm strongly leaning one way), these sorts of blogs and the responses to the posts are pretty enlightening to me.
"The United States should be striving to achieve...the best universities and K-12 institutions, the best health care system...
...I just briefly laid out the bare bones of where we should get to as a country...However, the majority of debate and contention is not over the end goals, but around the means."
From the last snippet of the quote above, you're basically saying that we all have the same vision for the US but with different ideas on how to get there. When you actually start critically thinking through and detailing a complete picture of education and health care systems under libertarian principles, the picture is frightening, especially for low-income communities in this country.
So I'll just say that no, we don't all agree on the end goal. In fact, we very strongly disagree about what "best education and health care systems" actually means, and therefore our means for getting to our visions would be clearly different, since our visions are different.
Have you ever thought extensively about what libertarian principles would do to health care and education for low-income communities in this country? If so, I'd love to read your extensive thought process about how these systems would look in your ideal world, and what the implications are for low-income communities.
sara-- investing in "low income communities" has just caused the arguably the biggest financial crisis in history. The U.S. government, primarily dems, encouraged banks to give away loans so poor people could have houses, C-level kids could make millions, and congressmen could get kickbacks(the biggest, over time, of which, went to Obama.)
Most of the poor in the U.S. are poor on their own accord. Too many people have risen from nothing for the rest to have an excuse. Let me preempt any argument about physically or mentally disable people who can't take care of themselves-- of course we would be derelict not to provide a comfortable and safe living situation for them. But 50% of the people in the U.S. don't make enough money to pay significant if any taxes. Some are just getting started and are on their way up, most are waiting for handouts and entitlements.
So please, spare us the "what about the poor" line. "Low income people" have chosen to be low-income, and they have chosen to be largely irrelevant. People who make the most of the opportunities our system accommodates should not be responsible for the ones who waste everything that crosses their path.
More to the point, health care is not a right, its a resource. Its astounding to me that when a pharmaceutical or bioengineering firm spends millions to develop cures to a given disease, that much of the public thereafter believes anyone who suffers from a given affliction is entitled to the cure, and that the government should enforce a transfer payment to cover the cost. In that case... stop developing cures! Otherwise, we're just spending money for the opportunity to spend more money!
I can't blame your readers, Andrew, for being so ill acquainted with the principles and virtues of economic liberty. They are young. Their hearts are in the right place. hero of the light's arguments in favor of taxation are flatter than week old soda, but he's obviously pretty smart anyway (but please, please read a few books on taxation and public finance). I just get so agitated with these same nonsensical arguments over and over again.
It's fine to say Obama doesn't represent the change you agree with, but to argue that he doesn't represent change because he's beholden to unions is bizarre.
This country has been ruled for the last eight years by an executive profoundly hostile to unionization, and working people in general. In late 2002 Bush even used the notorious Taft Hartley Act to attempt to crush a dockworkers' strike (being a libertarian, you are of course opposed to such ostentatious displays of federal power, right?). So to say that a pro-union president isn't a change verges on ridiculous.
Additionally, to say that union's have had a major effect in preventing "change" in recent history is quite simply preposterous. Indeed, the distinguishing feature of American labor relations for the past 30 odd years has been unions' failure to protect their workers from the depredations of capital (aside from a very few important exceptions, notably the UPS strike of 97 and the immigrant rights movement 0f 2006). Given that real wages have basically stagnated since the mid-70s, while the size of the economy has at least quadrupled, it would seem fair to say that unions have failed to press their demands. Union density has also declined throughout this period. Today, less than 12% of the workforce is unionized. As such, it really stretches credibility to argue that unions run the show in the way you seem to think.
For what it's worth, I don't think Obama's presidency will be marked by a major shift in attitude towards unionization. He's surrounded himself with an economic team of union busters and University of Chicago economists. That aside, the notion that unions retain some incredible position of strength in the American economy is little more than a delusional fantasy produced by an infantile right wing when it doesn't get what it wants.
It's quite rich for Sean to accuse Sara of being economically illiterate at the same time that he reiterates the factually baseless charge that the kind of community reinvestment Sara is arguing for is responsible for the mortgage crisis.
The standard villain in this right wing sob story is the Community Reinvestment Act, passed in 1977. Right off the bat free marketers are faced with an incongruity: if the act was passed in 77, how come the spiral of subprime lending didn't begin until the last decade, some thirty years later?
When we actually get down to the evidence, the backing for this claim evaporates even further. First of all, half of all subprime loans originated from institutions not covered by the CRA. Another 25-30% came from bank affiliates and subsidiaries, which are partly covered by the CRA but not fully. That only leaves about one in four loans originating from institutions fully covered by the CRA.
It gets better. Institutions covered by the CRA (traditional banks) originated subprime loans at fully half the rate as institutions not covered (mortgage companies like Countrywide). In other words, those institutions covered by government regulation made safer loans than those that weren't.
There couldn't be greater contrast between the loans originated by banks covered by the CRA, which have an extremely low default rate, and loans by mortgage companies which we are now seeing the wreckage of all around us. To get an idea of what sub-prime lending in minority communities actually looked like, I suggest you check out Kai Wright's in-depth examination of African Americans in Atlanta - http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080714/wright
To conclude, I'd suggest you do a little research into the facts yourself before repeating right wing talking points and calling someone else uninformed.
I didn't attribute the crisis to the CRA, or call Sara economically illiterate. But thanks for commenting.
So let's hear the causality then on how liberals caused the subprime crisis. If it wasn't the CRA, what was it?
"Most of the poor in the U.S. are poor on their own accord."
Wow. And you have the gall to call others ill-informed? I'm sorry Sean, but reading all the books in the world about taxation and public finance won't absolve you of that ignorance.
Funny how I've never met a poor libertarian. But I'm still looking.
And if, as you say, my argument about taxation is "flatter than week old soda", why not address it?
Perhaps if you re-read it, you'll see that my point--the conceptual basis of how taxes are perceived in this country--won't necessarily be enlightened by combing through selected books on fiscal policy to find quotes that you can regurgitate onto this page.
Sure, we can argue about, as Kelsey says, how to properly or "fairly" tax this country, but I'd be curious to find out what it is about Americans that make us view paying taxes as a burden, instead of a duty.
And Sean--"investing in low income communities" didn't cause the financial crisis. Banks gave away loans to people who couldn't afford them not out of altruistic concerns or wanting to "invest" in communities, but because they were greedy and saw an opportunity to make money at the expense of the stability of the system and the people that ended up losing everything (and yeah, government had a hand in this, but don't act like it was all on one side of the aisle).
And if you're going to bitch about the government spending hard-earned tax dollars for people who don't deserve it, what about the current bail out of the very people who were greedy and corrupt?
I think it's pretty absurd to try to connect the investment that Sara is talking about with what we've seen happen on Wall Street.
sean, poor people are not poor necessarily by their own accord. for the most part it is because of their lack of access to quality education. almost 90% of the inmates at sing sing prison in ossining, ny are from 5 neighbhorhoods in new york city. 5 NEIGHBORHOODS! these neighborhoods are the poorest of the poor and do not have the same opportunities to education as you or i so they make money the only way they have been taught how; drugs, theft and violence. this is NOT due to their own accord, this is due to the education system which our country has failed to provide enough money for. yea its true technically people can move up the class structure in the us, but in order to do that they need access to the information and resources that will bring them there, which can only be done through adequate funding of education systems.
thats why i commend sara for what shes doing. its more important now than ever.
Let me clarify one thing that Kelsey mis-stated. This is often misunderstood.
when you move into a higher tax bracket, you don't have your entire income taxed at that percentage. You only have the amount of income in that new bracket taxed at the higher level.
So, if there is no tax up to a $25,000 income and you make 26,000, then only 1,000 of your income is actually taxed.
Not the whole 26,000.
So, if you move up in the brackets, it is actually impossible to make less money.
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