Jim Terry
The American voter, a puzzlement
By Jim Terry
After forty years of active grass roots politics, I am still puzzled why people vote the way they vote. I have considered the current presidential election over the past two years, although it seems it has been underway for two decades, and still cannot understand why people vote the way they vote. I cannot understand why anyone would vote for Barack Obama for president of the United States.
Why would anyone in business, whether at the corporate level or in small business, vote for Barack Obama?
He has promised to raise taxes on businesses. Of course, we all know businesses do not pay taxes, people pay taxes. However, taxes imposed on businesses cause them to do one of two things: pass the increased cost of their goods or services to consumers, which often makes them less competitive; or cut costs in order to keep the profits up. And the most utilized method for cutting costs is to cut jobs.
Why would anyone who works vote for Barack Obama?
He has said for the past two years he favors repeal of the Bush tax cuts. Recently Obama said he will cut taxes on ninety-five per cent of American workers. Which doesn't make sense because only forty per cent of workers pay taxes.
Obama has further defined his promise to cut taxes and said that any household making less than $250,000 per year will not receive tax increases. Then, during the third and last debate between Obama and John McCain, Obama lowered that number to $200,000. But, most recently, Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, the United States senator who hangs around a local diner in his hometown which has been shut down for the past twenty years and says America needs the three letter word "J-O-B-S," lowered the threshold to those households making less than $150,000 annually.
Again, why would an American worker vote for Obama?
Why would anyone who claims the Christian faith vote for Obama?
He says he is a Christian. No reason to question that. But he doesn't support Christian values. He has been called the most pro-abortion member of the U.S. Senate. While in the Illinois state senate Obama voted against a bill to give medical care to babies who survived botched abortions and he voted for legislation for schools to provide sex education to children in kindergarten. When Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in California, asked him, "...at what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?" His answer, "Well, you know, I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade." I submit, most of what a president of the United States is called upon to do is above Obama's pay grade. As a lawyer, he should know the legal answer to that question, but he refused to give any answer.
Why would anyone who owns securities in a 401k plan , an IRA, or individual investments vote for Obama?
Approximately one hundred million Americans own stocks, many of them retirees who are living off these investments. Are they willing to vote for a man who will further devalue their life's savings beyond the levels they are experiencing in the current stock market? Obama has said he wants to raise the capital gains tax. In 2006, when stocks were doing well, many of us received statements at the end of the year indicating the capital gains in our accounts. We didn't receive the money; it was reinvested in the mutual fund or stock, but we were required to pay the tax which was and is today fifteen per cent. Obama told Maria Bartiromo in an interview on CNBC's "Closing Bell" on March 27, 2008, he would raise the capital gains tax probably to the level it was when Bill Clinton was president, twenty-eight per cent, almost double the current rate. With his promise to reduce taxes on ninety-five per cent of American taxpayers, Obama has invoked the McGovern principle of 1972 when democrat presidential nominee George McGovern promised to give each American a check for $1000 if elected. Voters didn't fall for that scam in 1972. Will Obama's high sounding promise tickle the ears of greedy Americans who think this is a something for nothing trade?
The 2008 election is a referendum on our free enterprise system and capitalism. Barack Obama has made it that by clearly defining his Marxist economic views when, by a slip of the tongue or perhaps deliberately, he told an Ohio plumber he would raise the taxes on the plumber in order to spread the wealth around. Spreading the wealth is the concept promulgated by Karl Marx in his infamous statement, "From those according to their ability to those according to their needs." With the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, we took our collective eye off the evils of communism. Ask a young person today to describe the difference between communism and capitalism. They don't know because they do not learn about those things in the public schools. It is this lack of knowledge of economic systems by many Americans, at least those who did not grow up during the depth of the cold war, which allows Obama's economic views to gain acceptance.
The Old Testament tells the story of two brothers, Esau and Jacob. Esau, the older brother and, therefore, the legal heir of his father's estate, his birthright, was a hunter and a man of the wilderness. One day he returned from a venture in the wild, hungry and faint. Jacob, who lived in the settlement and enjoyed the domestic life, was making a pot of stew when Esau returned. Esau begged his brother for some of the stew saying he was near the point of death. Jacob told Esau he would feed him if Esau would sell his birthright to Jacob. Esau agreed to sell his birthright, his inheritance, to his brother for a bowl of stew. The writer of Genesis says, "Thus Esau despised his birthright."
On November 4, 2008, will America's Esaus sell their birthright, their inheritance of freedom, liberty and opportunity, for a communal bowl of porridge?
© Jim Terry
After forty years of active grass roots politics, I am still puzzled why people vote the way they vote. I have considered the current presidential election over the past two years, although it seems it has been underway for two decades, and still cannot understand why people vote the way they vote. I cannot understand why anyone would vote for Barack Obama for president of the United States.
Why would anyone in business, whether at the corporate level or in small business, vote for Barack Obama?
He has promised to raise taxes on businesses. Of course, we all know businesses do not pay taxes, people pay taxes. However, taxes imposed on businesses cause them to do one of two things: pass the increased cost of their goods or services to consumers, which often makes them less competitive; or cut costs in order to keep the profits up. And the most utilized method for cutting costs is to cut jobs.
Why would anyone who works vote for Barack Obama?
He has said for the past two years he favors repeal of the Bush tax cuts. Recently Obama said he will cut taxes on ninety-five per cent of American workers. Which doesn't make sense because only forty per cent of workers pay taxes.
Obama has further defined his promise to cut taxes and said that any household making less than $250,000 per year will not receive tax increases. Then, during the third and last debate between Obama and John McCain, Obama lowered that number to $200,000. But, most recently, Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, the United States senator who hangs around a local diner in his hometown which has been shut down for the past twenty years and says America needs the three letter word "J-O-B-S," lowered the threshold to those households making less than $150,000 annually.
Again, why would an American worker vote for Obama?
Why would anyone who claims the Christian faith vote for Obama?
He says he is a Christian. No reason to question that. But he doesn't support Christian values. He has been called the most pro-abortion member of the U.S. Senate. While in the Illinois state senate Obama voted against a bill to give medical care to babies who survived botched abortions and he voted for legislation for schools to provide sex education to children in kindergarten. When Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in California, asked him, "...at what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?" His answer, "Well, you know, I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade." I submit, most of what a president of the United States is called upon to do is above Obama's pay grade. As a lawyer, he should know the legal answer to that question, but he refused to give any answer.
Why would anyone who owns securities in a 401k plan , an IRA, or individual investments vote for Obama?
Approximately one hundred million Americans own stocks, many of them retirees who are living off these investments. Are they willing to vote for a man who will further devalue their life's savings beyond the levels they are experiencing in the current stock market? Obama has said he wants to raise the capital gains tax. In 2006, when stocks were doing well, many of us received statements at the end of the year indicating the capital gains in our accounts. We didn't receive the money; it was reinvested in the mutual fund or stock, but we were required to pay the tax which was and is today fifteen per cent. Obama told Maria Bartiromo in an interview on CNBC's "Closing Bell" on March 27, 2008, he would raise the capital gains tax probably to the level it was when Bill Clinton was president, twenty-eight per cent, almost double the current rate. With his promise to reduce taxes on ninety-five per cent of American taxpayers, Obama has invoked the McGovern principle of 1972 when democrat presidential nominee George McGovern promised to give each American a check for $1000 if elected. Voters didn't fall for that scam in 1972. Will Obama's high sounding promise tickle the ears of greedy Americans who think this is a something for nothing trade?
The 2008 election is a referendum on our free enterprise system and capitalism. Barack Obama has made it that by clearly defining his Marxist economic views when, by a slip of the tongue or perhaps deliberately, he told an Ohio plumber he would raise the taxes on the plumber in order to spread the wealth around. Spreading the wealth is the concept promulgated by Karl Marx in his infamous statement, "From those according to their ability to those according to their needs." With the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, we took our collective eye off the evils of communism. Ask a young person today to describe the difference between communism and capitalism. They don't know because they do not learn about those things in the public schools. It is this lack of knowledge of economic systems by many Americans, at least those who did not grow up during the depth of the cold war, which allows Obama's economic views to gain acceptance.
The Old Testament tells the story of two brothers, Esau and Jacob. Esau, the older brother and, therefore, the legal heir of his father's estate, his birthright, was a hunter and a man of the wilderness. One day he returned from a venture in the wild, hungry and faint. Jacob, who lived in the settlement and enjoyed the domestic life, was making a pot of stew when Esau returned. Esau begged his brother for some of the stew saying he was near the point of death. Jacob told Esau he would feed him if Esau would sell his birthright to Jacob. Esau agreed to sell his birthright, his inheritance, to his brother for a bowl of stew. The writer of Genesis says, "Thus Esau despised his birthright."
On November 4, 2008, will America's Esaus sell their birthright, their inheritance of freedom, liberty and opportunity, for a communal bowl of porridge?
© Jim Terry
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