Well, maybe we think of ‘boiler plate Democrat’ in different ways. I’ll give you some examples from the speeches first page that I see as boiler plate Dem…if you would, since you have read through the whole speech, pick out points you see as boilerplate Republican and quote them.
To me, this stuff could have come out of the mouths of Kerry, Clinton (either one), Carter, etc. It’s the same scare tactic we’ve been seeing for decades…chicken little and the sky is falling.
I would love to see some quotes of Obama that you think are from the old school Republican economic conservative side of things. I’m still undecided about Obama myself and probably won’t decide if I’m voting Obama or 3rd party until I walk into the booth…so any piece of info you have would be most welcome.
That stuff’s from the beginning of the speech, X. It’s 5 pages long. I’ve given you a couple of highlights. For the third time, I have never heard tax cuts called boilerplate Democrat. And I’m old.
I don’t see the difference between that and what’s being discussed in the “McCain forked” thread. And I wouldn’t want to post the same stuff in multiple threads.
Anyway, instead of telling us that his positions are bold, stunning and economically sound, why don’t you tell why you think each position is bold, stunning or economically sound. I did read the whole 5 pages, and it sounds like run-of-the mill stuff.
Why is a windfall profits tax on oil companies economically sound? Why is it economically sound to give senior citizens a tax holiday? Why are rebates bold, stunning or economically sound? Why is demonizing corporations bold and stunning" I don’t see it, but maybe I missed it…
Cutting taxes to stimulate the economy is neither a Republican nor Democratic idea. It’s an excellent way to get people to consume more. The reason the 2002 cuts failed was that it gave more money to those people who weren’t going to use it to increase consumption. There was all this prattle about tax cuts being needed for investment when the problem was that we had too much capacity already.
Wasn’t there a rebate sometime after 9/11? I don’t think the idea is new with Obama, to be fair. I’d be interested in seeing numbers about how much of the last one went to paying down debt or bridging the new gap in energy costs rather than stimulating consumption. The spike in retail sales seemed to be too early to be an effect of the rebates, and I read programs by retailers to get the entire check by offering a 10% bonus for a gift card have been flops.
Admittedly the slice-of-life examples about the guy who cannot buy gas and so on seem rather formulaic not to mention kind of old (heard it before). But for some reason or other it seems part-and-parcel of political speechifying these days and worse is the repeated use of the same stories. But they all seem to do it so bust one for the same tired tactic bust all of them.
I would also add that, not only does he paint himself as a fiscal libertarian, but he pains McCain as a fiscal radical — burdening the middle class with high tax rates, onerous tax regulations, and corporate welfare.
Are they new, or are they just the tax rates status quo ante Shrub? Kerry promising them doesn’t mean that this was a bad idea.
I suspect the economy will help Obama counter the same old McCain/Bush/Republican mantra of the solution to all economic woes is further reducing taxes for the rich, paid for by imaginary spending cuts.
I’m an independent who has never voted for either a republican or democrat for president. I like Obama and think he is generally a more ethical and less political candidate than is typical. Having said that, this is hardly an “economic plan”. The initiatives are not bold and it is not economically sound. It is typical blame game type sound bites and nothing more.
Trillions of dollars in giveaways for big corporations and wealthy CEOs? That sounds like a big exaggeration to me.
I don’t have any idea what he meant to say here. I’m pretty damn sure there wasn’t a $5.6 trillion dollar surplus at any point in time.
Through no fault of there own? Even if you place the majority of the blame on predatory lenders, I can’t see how a person that takes out a loan and can’t honor the obligation is completely blameless.
Didn’t McCain actually say that he couldn’t vote for them because they did not come with accompanying spending reductions? Also, isn’t it a little intellectually dishonest of Obama when he is not opposed to keeping a large number of Bush’s tax cuts.
Would that be the same Exxon that just paid the largest tax bill in history? The same Exxon whose 2007 income tax bill was greater than the bottom 50% of individual tax payers combined?
Doesn’t Exxon already pay a tax on their profits? Oh yeah, that’s right, the largest tax bill in history. Also, how will increasing taxes on energy companies reduce energy costs.
Are they not already paying their fair share? They pay more into it than they get out of it. That sounds like more than their fair share. If you want to increase the social security cap, just say so without blaming everything on the evil rich.
So Obama wants to ban floating interest rate loans? That seems pretty out of left field. Why exactly are they bad? Credit card companies are just going to have to go out and buy interest rate derivatives to keep the same balance that currently exists. Also, don’t floating rates help when rates are falling. I think it would suck to have been locked in on my rate 3 years ago and not had the benefit of the recent rate cuts.
Where is the support for this statement? He proposes tons of tax cuts and spending increases. He makes some vague statements about evil CEOs, big corporations, and Exxon paying more. How did that translate into paying for all of his proposals?
I wasn’t talking about whether they were good or bad-- just that this easily falls into standard Democratic party policy. Raise taxes on the rich, and reduce taxes on the middle class. Whether his numbers are identical to Kerry’s or not isn’t the issue-- the general idea is the same. Oh, and raise taxes on corporations. Again, I’m not arguing goodness or badness, just same 'ol-ness.
BTW, he states in the speech that he’s going to talk to his economic experts after his 2 week (or whatever) tour he’s embarking on, so I’m not sure why he’s announcing all these goodies before he talks to the experts.
He plans (IIRC) to repeal a bunch of the Bush tax cuts on people making over $250k/year…which will (theoretically) bring in something like $80 billion a year in revenue (and yeah…it’s theoretical as I have my doubts as to how much it would ACTUALLY bring in). Other than that I’m not sure how he figures the balance sheet will, well, balance…I doubt he has a clear idea on that either.
Your snippets however pretty much showed what I feared…this IS standard boiler plate Dem. I’ll still read it tonight but I think I know what to expect now.
I can’t really judge his speech as I can’t think of an example in history where his ideas have been tried before. Some of them are obviously good, like the tax code and earmark reform, but it’s not like that hasn’t been promised before. I don’t really believe he will accomplish everything in his speech once takes office.
Even if this is democratic boilerplate language, does anyone have an opinion as to why a specific policy might not work?
So regarding McCain’s supposed $1.2 billion tax cut for Exxon, what exactly is Obama even talking about. McCain has a fairly generic website that doesn’t really go into too many details. Here is the only thing I can find that would result in a big tax break for Exxon.
Now, it certainly can be debated whether this would be good for the economy or not. However, if this * across the board * reduction in corporate tax rates is being spun as a $1.2 billion tax break for Exxon, then Obama is engaging in nothing but sound-bite, blame game politics.
