The Dude's Ramblin's

The Speech

I made sure to be home for Obama's speech last night.  Wow.  He really knocked it right out of the park.  First of all, let me say, the aerial shots they had from above the stadium... amazing.  The place looked huged and packed with people.  It WAS huge and packed with people.  Then, the actual speech.  What can I say?  He pretty much took it right to the heart of McCain.  He was on the attack the whole time.  Not nasty, but on the attack.  He explained not only why McCain is wrong and misguided, but why everything his campain is based on - modern movement conservatism - is also wrong and misguided.  In tone, cadence, appearance, and most importantly, substance... this speech was just about perfect.  McCain's folks have got to be shell-shocked right about now - especially in light of his odd-ball pick of Palin as his v.p.

Is our children learning?

This was actually available for sale on the McCain campaign webstore....

Students for McCain

In the weeds of tax policy wonkery

As we all know, the Bush years have been a disaster for our country in just about every area.  One of the many things which are striking, is how he has terribly mis-managed the economy and government finances.  The government provides many services for us, some of them are clear - like say military... others are less obvious - like food inspectors, for instance.  In any case, all of these services cost money.  Bush has done a great job of cutting the government's income through tax reductions, and increasing costs through more government programs (and wars).  Of course he turned a surplus in government revenue into the biggest deficit we have ever seen. 

Now the question for us now is, do we return to fiscal sanity - or continue down the path to ruin?  It is pretty clear by now the McCain wants to keep going down the Bush road to fantasy-land, where we can keep cutting taxes, and somehow continue to pay for more than we take in.  Every dollar that we put on the deficit is financed by someone else.  Guess who is financing all of that debt?  The Chinese and the Russians.  Putting aside the financial chance of a meltdown - from a security standpoint, do we really want to have the leaders of China and Russia controlling our purse strings?  For the most part, that train has already left the station, thanks to Bush... but I think it is high time to reverse course.

So that brings me to the tax policies of the two candidates in the 08 election.  The LA Times had an article today which directly compares what McCain and Obama say they will do with tax policy.  This gives us a good indicator as to whether either is somewhere in the reality-based community, or out there in the ether of supply-side fantasies.

Tax Plans

So looking at that chart, we see that under McCain, everyone gets a tax cut, at least nominally.  Most people will have their taxes cut something like a few hundred dollars... unless you are really really rich, and then you get a new Jaguar.  The question naturally follows is how this is supposed to work when we are already several trillion in debt?  Ah, who cares about "fuzzy math" when I'm gonna get me a new DVD player!  Let's not even mention that over the last eight years, almost all of the economic growth went to the top one percent of the income scale... and everyone else actually lost real income.  It sure seems to me like those guys need to get EVEN MORE cash, subsidized by the rest of us...

Under McCain, the rich would see their tax burden ease. Under Obama, their rates would rise dramatically.

For much of the campaign, the two candidates have talked sparingly and obliquely about how they would deal with affluent taxpayers. But a recent volley of acid-edged campaign ads stirred up the tax issue, and a question posed last weekend by Orange County pastor Rick Warren zeroed in on how both men defined "rich."

Obama said the dividing line was an income of $250,000 a year, while McCain responded somewhat flippantly that it was $5 million. McCain aides said later that the senator was joking, but his remark quickly became a campaign flashpoint.

"I guess if you're making $3 million a year, you're middle class," Obama sniped, prompting a McCain aide to fire back: "It's not the job of the government to define who is rich."

close look at their proposals shows that the differences fall neatly along the traditional policy gulf that has long divided Republicans and Democrats: liberating the wealthy with tax cuts to stimulate the nation's prosperity versus raising their rates to redistribute the tax burden and pay for crucial government programs.

"The real fault lines are over how to treat people in the highest tax brackets. It gets to the heart of their economic philosophies," said Leonard E. Burman, a senior fellow with the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan Washington-based tax reform group that has questioned the details of both tax plans.

McCain's plan would cater to wealthy taxpayers and corporations by extending and expanding President Bush's tax cuts, slashing corporate taxes and weakening the estate tax, but it would also aid taxpayers across the board by making the full Bush cuts permanent.

A deficit hawk and formerly a critic of the massive tax cuts launched in 2001 by the Bush administration, McCain now embraces the tax policies of supply-side economists who contend that lifting the tax yoke on the rich would encourage investment and stimulate the economy. "Wealth creates wealth," McCain said during a primary debate in Michigan last year.

Under his proposals, McCain would make all the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts permanent. That would keep the two highest tax brackets at their current rates of 33% and 35% -- rather than reverting to 36% and 39.6%, where they were during the Clinton administration.

McCain also has proposed a sharp reduction in corporate taxes. He would pare the two highest corporate tax brackets, 34% and 35%, down to 25%. The top bracket would be immediately eliminated, and the 34% bracket would be phased down to 25% between 2009 and 2014.

He would also maintain the 15% tax rates on dividends and capital gains for the highest-tier taxpayers. And starting in 2010, McCain would substantially reduce the estate tax. He would increase the exemption on inherited funds from $3.5 million to $5 million and sharply lower taxes on remaining wealth from 45% to 15% -- moves that would enable affluent families to hold on to more of their wealth.

Obviously, you're not a golfer...

Dudes, just a little warning here... the Lebowskifest is coming to our quiet beach community next month.  So if you are not already booked up that weekend at Jackie Treehorn's beach party, you should get yourself tickets to the Lebowskifest. 

Lebowskifest San Francisco

Excellent Obama Ad

Approval Ratings: The Public v. McCain

What could possibly go wrong?

I'm not sure what it is about scooter rallies which makes people think that everything will be fine if they do an Evil Knevil jump across the Snake River on their scooter...  Oh yeah, the beer...  right...

Launch sequence... initiated!