Most people in poverty are the working poor. They are already working. The way out in the long term is education. Democratic plans to enhance education tax credits have been derailed by the GOP for years. The choice was between helping the middle to lower class get college educations or to give endless tax breaks to the already rich. For the Republicans, this was a no-brainer.
The US is one of few industialized nations without universal health care. Yet renob would have you believe that to be in favor of it is to not understand the issue. Apparently the vast majority of the western world isn’t as enlightened as renob.
No, he’s never said that. All I’m saying is that Edwards’ plan to tax the “rich” and corporations will reduce employment opportunities for all Americans. Those in poverty will especially be hurt by reduced employment opportunities.
Since when? Education tax credits seem to have broad bi-partisan support from what I can tell.
Of course, the Democrats are standing in the way of the only real education reform that has shown any sign of working – school choice. God forbid poor parents should have the means to allow their children to escape failing schools!
That’s a false choice. The GOP supports both.
No, quite a few people realize this. John Edwards isn’t one of them, I guess.
If you truly believe that taxing the rich and corporations is a good way to get them to create jobs, I don’t think there is much common ground for us to discuss this issue.
It’s not a flaw in the candidate, but it’s a flaw in the campaign organization. Remember, the candidate is only one part of the campaign. The organization has to be like a machine, especially because, like you said, the press will jump on any mistakes the campaign makes.
So that makes it even more important that the campaign tries to control the press…that it speaks to the press with one voice. If you have staffers “talking out of school”, so to speak, and writing in personal blogs with opinions and stances not first vetted by the campaign, then that’s bad.
I’m not saying that members of a campaign can’t have their own opinions or that they can’t disagree with each other. Obviously, they can, and obviously they should express those opinions within the campaign itself. But when it comes to talking publically, its their job to be “good soldiers” and support the party line, even if they don’t agree with it.
I didn’t say it would create jobs, I asked how it would eliminate jobs. Are factories no longer going to need widget calibrators because the CEO has to pay a few more dollars in taxes?
How about a cite for good ole “Tax 'n Spend” Edwards here. A few caveats though: Restoring taxes to where they were pre-bush and going after corporate welfare and tax shelters don’t count as “raising taxes”.
Same here. I don’t think these blogger “controversies” have registered at all with voters. Only a tiny percentage of hyper-attuned folks (like us, of course) are even vaguely aware of this stuff.
Agreed. In the previous Edwards thread, I noted (in response to a Mr. Moto post, natch) that Edwards’ support in Iowa had been basically untouched by the controversy.
My point here isn’t about how his handling of this issue will affect his support. My point is that unless he does a better job of seeing what’s coming at him, and planning for it, he’s not going to exactly impress me as a potential Chief Executive. Lack of competence has its consequences, and we’ve already experienced six years of that.
Sure you do. You support sending money to public, private, and even religious schools in an education model so stunningly successful it is the envy of the world. And Democrats can rightly claim credit for making it far more accessible.
However, this stunning success is only seen at the college and trade school level. At the primary and intermediate level, the Democrats still cling to a public school model that isn’t working quite as well.
Well, sure, but do you really want the Democratic equivalent of George Bush to be the candidate in 2008?
Yes, incompetant people get elected, but see, that’s something we should try to AVOID, not shrug our shoulders at. “No more incompetant than George Bush” isn’t exactly a winning slogan.
Perhaps this should be its own thread, but in brief, the public schools have to take all comers, whether they want to learn or not, whether they have disabilities or not. If we allow people to take their children out of public schools and their share of the public money into private schools, then you’re going to weaken public schools. Private schools get to cherry pick and not take the problem students or those with expensive disabilities to accomodate. If you don’t take all comers, you shouldn’t get public funds.
How is hiring a successful blogger a demonstration of incompetence? Because she’s advocated for positions that aren’t your own in the past? Thats like saying you wouldn’t hire a marketing company because they did work for a brewery. I thought hiring the best, regardless of their personal views, was to be lauded. Hiring folks in lock-step with you, ala the Bush administration, is what should be looked down upon.
Hiring people with that much baggage would be a problem for any candidate.
Let’s not forget, this country is still overwhelming Christian. And Marcotte wasn’t someone who was just an atheist, or intellectually critical of religion. She was profane and disparaging toward believers and their beliefs.
That’s the sort of thing no candidate can get too close to. It’s way too hot.
A bit better than cut taxes and spend like crazy.
The school thing is a canard. I agree education is a beneficial step toward a job but the college jobs are being exported too. Eventually all wages will be smeared into a world base. If someone will program in India for 10 k a year and someone in Korea for 4 k. ,the jobs will move to Korea. Already India is bemoaning the jobs they once held being bypassed to China and Korea. Breaks my little heart.
What do her religious views have to do with John Edwards or her ability to blog for him? Should everyone a campaign hires be vetted for their adherence to societal norms?
Wealthy people just don’t sit on their money. They invest it, which creates jobs. You take away their money, they invest less. Fewer jobs are created. It’s fairly simple.
Go to his website. He proposes raising taxes on the wealthy and increasing taxes on oil company profits (which I assume is the windfall profits tax). There may be more, but that’s what I found in about two minutes there.
Why not? “Restoring” high tax rates is raising taxes. Right now tax rates are at one level. If you raise that level, even if it had been that high in the past, that’s raising taxes. By your logic, no tax increase should count as an “increase” because our nation once had marginal tax rates around 90%.
Company tax breaks are the same as individual tax breaks. It’s a tax shelter when the government allows us to write off our mortgage interest. If that was eliminated, though, it would be a tax increase. You can debate the necessity of a variety of tax breaks, but you can’t really deny that elminating them is an increase in taxes.
Of course, this NEA message completely ignores the reality of the school choice experiments in Milwaukee, Ohio, Florida and elsewhere. The kids who benefit from school choice are kids in failing public schools that have no other options. These public schools have been failing for decades and yet, until vouchers, parents had no other place to send kids. Liberals, for some reason, want to keep kids held hostage in these schools with the empty promise that they will be improved. The schools don’t improve, however, and the kids continue to receive a crappy education.