A Tale of Two Fine Roosevelts

William F. Buckley's son, Christopher Buckley, who is a conservative Republican like his Dad, is supporting Barack Obama for President.

Christopher Buckley was forced to resign from the right wing National Review over this endorsement. Chris has written a conservative column for years at the National Review, the journal his father founded. Chris has been a poster boy for the Republican party ever since his father, in a 1985 speech to Ronald Reagan, said that his son Christopher lived in a world of freedom thanks to the fact that the USA had not been afraid to use nuclear bombs in Japan and so end WWII.

Twenty three years later, many prominent Republicans, including Christopher Buckley, Kathleen Parker and Colin Powell have come out in support of Barack Obama. Their primary reason for doing so is that they feel that Obama is the better candidate. But just as importantly, they are concerned by the growing tendency of the GOP to incite the masses based on false charges of terrorism, Muslim roots, etc. These lies feed a dark form of social unrest that is very destructive for America. (Look what it did in Nazi Germany.) They also all pointed to the inadequate choice of Sarah Palin as John's VP. These are prominent right wing Republicans speaking, not liberal Democrats.

And while I am not prominent, I too am a Republican who is voting for Obama.

Christopher Buckley's article about why he decided to support Obama:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-14/sorry-dad-i-was-fired

The Economist magazine polled 683 professional economists and reported their findings. Of the respondents, 46% were Democrats, 10% Republicans and 44% Independents. The vast majority of them (over 80%) believed that Obama's economic plans will get us out of our current financial crisis. A similar majority believe that McCain's plans will make the economy worse.

While you can say that all the Dems and all the Repubs may have essentially toed the party line in this survey, it does not account for the fact that essentially all of the Independent economists said that Obama's financial plans are better than McCains.

These are the experts. They know what they are talking about. And if they are a reflection of how Independents across America are thinking, then Obama is going to win.

That article is in an issue a couple weeks back, still available on-line at:

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12342127&CFID=24946653&CFTOKEN=58463805

The Oct 11-17th issue of the Economist is titled "Saving the System: the Panic, the Rescues, and a Special Report on the World Economy." Worth reading. It will help you understand what is really going on. http://www.economist.com/printedition/index.cfm?d=20081011


Two more articles of interest:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/31/business/31view.php

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/10/27/081027taco_talk_coll

Who "Joe the plumber" may be is not the issue, though it's easy to see why the Dems want it to be. That's because the real issue is what Obama's comments to him revealed about Obama. In the exchange with "Joe the plumber" we find out that Obama really is as radical as his early political acquaintances, Davis, Ayers, Wright, etc., and that he is into the failed economic policy of wealth redistribution. Obama's tax and spending plans alone would be bad enough, but add Reid and Pelosi to the mix, with the three of them controlling both houses of Congress and the executive branch without any effective restraint, and you have something that should causes concern even among moderate Democrats.
See Wall Street Journal: A Liberal Supermajority:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122420205889842989.html

And whether McCain won or lost the third debate is also not relevant. He succeeded in the first half hour to plant the seeds of a Reagan style wipeout. Reputable historians and economists overwhelmingly agree that the taxation imposed by Hoover and FDR, and the "stimulus" spending and public works programs of FDR, actually deepened and prolonged the Great Depression. It was the production demands of WWII that got the economy going again. And when the war was over, the economy promptly went into recession.

See e.g. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/03/opinion/main4499465.shtml
And
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx

Point is, Obama's programs are tax, and it does not really matter who he taxes, those taxes are going to be passed through the economy. He has to tax, because it is they only way he can pay for his massive social engineering experiments. Any first year economics student knows that taxation is a tool used to contract an economy experiencing inflation, because it reduces demand by reducing the amount of money individuals and businesses have to spend. It is contractionary, which is exactly what you do not want to do when the problem is that the economy is contracting already into recession. Like Hoover and FDR, Obama's plans will only make it worse for longer.

Look and listen for yourself. Hear Obama in his own words discusses his links to both ACORN and the mortgage meltdown, and praises bundling and securitizing mortgages by banks as a means to float loans to the poor. Never mind the link commentators point of view, just listen to what Obama says in his own words. A picture is worth a thousand words. Maybe more in the case of the last half of the second link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vJcVgJhNaU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr1M1T2Y314&feature=related

See also:
http://boards.msn.com/MSNBCboards/thread.aspx?threadid=808692&boardsparam=Page%3d2

This is a link to C-SPAN video clips of the Congressional hearings at roughly the time McCains attempt at S.190. to fix Fannie and Freddie. See for yourself who said what.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

The link below contains a purported list of the top 25 in Congress who got contributions from the folks at Fannie and Freddie. Obama is listed third, after Dodd and Kerry, even though Obama is just a junior Senator. Obama is followed next by Clinton. Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi are on the list as well.

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=16&artnum=1&issue=20080918

And the link below describes how some Democrats in Congress tried to use the original version of the bailout bill to divert money eventually recovered to groups like ACORN, a group Obama has a long association with. See:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122247015469280723.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

To everybody reading this: lets inspire everyone to vote, share one of your million reason to do it in this site: http://www.amillionreasonstovote.com

Finally the McCain campaign has released a few selected pages of Cindy McCain's tax returns for 2006 and 2007.  Cindy files separately from John.  In 2006, Cindy made over $6,000,000 and paid $1,700,000 in taxes.  In 2007, she made $4,200,000 and paid $1,100,000 in taxes.

Cindy's effective tax rate for 2007 was only 26%, FAR lower than the top bracket of 36%.  If Cindy had paid the 36% she really owed, she would have paid $1,512,000 in tax -- $412,000 more than what she really paid.

Her paying such a low rate is not because of charitable contributions.  The McCain campaign states that John and Cindy combined gave $340,000 to charity in the past two years.  Even if it was all from her, and all in 2007, that would not have dropped her rate so significantly.

What you are seeing here is the Bush tax cuts in action.  The really wealthy top 1% of income earners are not paying their fair share.  Personally, I think that Cindy, who has made  over 10.2 million in the past two years, can afford to be taxed at the 36% rate.

Did you know that the outfit she wore to the RNC cost $330,000?

No wonder John wants to extend (and increase) the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

Incidentally, John McCain made $258,800 last year, bringing their combined income to about $4,460,000 for 2007.

Here's an article in The New Yorker that sums it all up: taxation, socialism and Joe the Plumber all taken in context, instead of out of context (the way many bloggers on this website tend to interpret things).

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/10/27/081027taco_talk_coll

I received an e-mail from what must have been a conservative group that compared Sara Palin???s qualifications to that of Teddy Roosevelt; two year governor, city official and so forth. It wasn???t quite equal; New York City was the largest city in the US at the time, not a hamlet in the wilderness. New York State was the largest state, population and economically. But here is the biggest difference between the two:

Teddy Roosevelt spoke six languages and wrote 32 books.
Sarah Palin hasn???t read 32 magazines and has trouble speaking 1 language.

Nowforthetruth, the republican tax policy is:

"Don't tax the rich and spend, spend, spend."