Quote:
Originally Posted by zimmy
Now why would anyone want to do that? Half the country doesn't give two craps what the America-hating foreign-born Muslim was actually getting at.
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Just as Spence, above the fray of us "funny" folk, instructed us to read the full transcript, but disdained from helping us understand Obama's true message with examples from the speech, you also dismiss us (from a better place than we occupy?) also without explaining what Obama was getting at.
I DO understant you were being sarcastic (nice). And, as I responded to Spence, with no return reply on his part, I DID read the whole transcript and found that other than the "sound bites" being discussed here, the rest of it was the usual platitudes, lies, distortions, contradictions, and promises one would expect from a politician running for office. So, in response to your "why would anyone want to do that?" I read it again, with the same conclusion.
Some examples:
His opposition's "theory is the economy grows from the top down . . . if the wealthy investors are doing well, then everybody does well." No, not just wealthy investors, most of us have some investments of some kind. If investments are doing well, it
is a sign that the ecomony is doing well. Some investments, including those by wealthy investors may not do well . The economy may do well anyway. Investments, as a whole, do well when that in which is invested does well. But the economy is symbiotic. It requires more than wealthy investors, but it does well with them and with the investment of others. "Trickle down" requires a down as well as an up from which it trickles, and that obviously implies the necessity of the down, not an elimination of it. If you want to make a class warfare argument, then you separate all the elements and point to the element of your choice (that which gives you the most votes), and "fight" for it.
He goes on "So if we spend trillions of dollars on more tax cuts mostly for the wealthy, that's somehow going to create jobs, even if we have to pay for it by gutting education and gutting job training programs and gutting transportation projects, and maybe seeing middle-class folks have a higher tax burden." More class warfare rhetoric--"gutting" various programs and projects some of which are not doing what their supposed to do, or not performing well, or are not really Federal Government responsibilities, and would be done better by some States and would actually empower the middle class in those States by giving it the power to accept or reject or improve those programs.
He goes on: "they believe if you tear down all the regulations that we've put in place . . . that somehow the economy is going to do much better. So those are their two theories. They've got tax cuts for the high end, and they've got rollback regulation. . .Now here is the problem. You may have guessed--we tried this. We tried this in the last decade and it did not work." More warfare rhetoric--"tear down all the regulations"--who wants to "tear" them ALL down. Actually tax cuts have historically worked to improve the economy not only in the past ten years but the last 30, and 50, and more. And many regulations were actually added, including even in the "past ten years." I don't point this out to endorse Bush, merely to point out the gibberish that we who read the transcript are supposed to discover to be the true message of Obama.
He says: "I believe that the way you grow the economy is from the middle out." More class warfare. Choose a section to divide, then promise to fight for it, not for everybody.
Then he changes his mind: "I believe that you grow the economy from the bottom up." Well, maybe he considers the middle class the bottom.
He says: "I believe when working people are doing well, the country does well." DUH! And none work harder than business owners.
He says: "I believe in fighting for the middle class because if they're prospering, all of us will prosper." Good old divide and conquer class warfare.
He goes on about taxes going up on 98% if Congress doesn't act and calls the extension of Bush taxes a cut when it is merely a status quo. But he doesn't want the status quo for the top 2%, so for them he wants a tax hike. So, net, his opposition wants to maintain the status quo, no tax hikes, but, net, he wants a tax hike. More class warfare.
Then he goes on about the Repubs trying for the 33d time to repeal the HCB which he says the SCOTUS declared constitutional. But it did so as a tax. So he is massively raising taxes on the middle class that he fights for. And he goes on and on about what he's done for us which, including the maintence of tax cuts for 98%, being what people need to succeed--government action, tax those who do well so that they don't do too well and don't tax the rest so they presumably will do well--and it all depends on government not the individual.
So not taxing what he considers the engine of economy, the middle class, is an admission that taxing our economic engine is anti-growth. It's just that he views the train of cars as the engine, and the engine as an obstruction to the train rather than what pulls it.