posted October 5, 2008
The first Presidential and Vice Presidential debates are behind us. We have clear choices between the 20th Century politics of Bush/McCain and real change for the 21st Century with Obama/Biden. Obama/Biden offer statesmanship, policies that evidence leadership, and records of clear judgment. McCain and Palin offer more of the same Bush policies that have left us with economic instability and failed foreign policies abroad.
Obama/Biden have the characteristics and judgment needed to solve the massive domestic and foreign problems inherited from eight years of a failed Bush/Cheney administration. These are the same policies that McCain endorsed 90 percent of the time. Obama and Biden look forward with hope to the future and recognize the need for long-term solutions to serious problems at this critical time in our history.
Some of the apparent differences between the tickets are the following:
Domestic Policy
1) Obama recognizes that the middle class needs tax breaks, and his plan would result in 90% of Americans having lower taxes. The only increase in taxes would be to the wealthy - those making $250,000 a year or more. McCain wants to give tax breaks to corporations like Exxon-Mobil and to continue Bush tax cuts that leave out the middle class. McCain would add $300 billion in tax breaks for big business.
2) Obama plans to provide affordable health care for every American, including the uninsured and underinsured. He knows that hard-working people have gone bankrupt and lost their homes due to health care expenses. Many have died while waiting or received poor care, including our returning Veterans. McCain’s plan would tax health care benefits of employees, a new tax for the working poor and middle class, further burdening them.
3) Obama wants to grow green jobs that will result in greater energy independence through renewable energy resources right here in our own country. McCain and Palin want to “drill baby, drill.” We have limited resources for drilling. They are not renewable, and we would not see gasoline from additional oil drilling for a decade. They don’t recognize that the true cause of global warming is man made. As Joe Biden said, “How can you find a solution if you don’t understand the real cause of the problem?”
4) Obama wants to protect the great American dream, home ownership, and protect our retirement plans. McCain is still living in the past and believes in trickle-down economics.
5) Obama wants every child in this country to have educational opportunities and to raise our country’s standing educationally in the world. He knows we are 33rd in the world in Math and Science, and he wants to offer public service jobs in return for funding a college education. He wants to strengthen pre-K education. McCain is part of the administration that cut grants and aid to education, even gutting the 21st Century GI bill for returning vets. McCain is part of the former policies that leave millions of children behind and disadvantaged in school.
Foreign Policy
1) The candidates are worlds apart in understanding how we should protect ourselves from terrorists and those who attacked us September 11, 2001. Here we stand seven years later, spending $10 billion a month in Iraq, going deeper in debt, while the Iraqis have an $80 billion surplus. Obama wants to hunt down and kill Bin Laden and the terrorists who attacked us. He understands the terrorists are not in Iraq and that Iraq is a costly diversion. Terrorists continue to operate and grow stronger in northern Pakistan and Afghanistan. Obama and Biden emphasize the importance of putting monetary resources in Afghanistan where our real enemies are still plotting against us. Obama and Biden know that we spend more in 3 weeks in Iraq than we have spent in 7 years in Afghanistan. Obama wants to draw down troops from Iraq and make the Iraqis responsible for their own government. He believes the war in Iraq was a mistake and that we need to focus on getting our real enemy – Al Qaeda. McCain is against a timeline for withdrawal and wants to stay in Iraq indefinitely until we “win,” keeping troops and expenses at high levels while Al Qaeda grows stronger. The war in Iraq has drained our monetary resources and has left us short on troops and needed resources for the real war on terror.
2) The difference between the candidates in statesmanlike conduct and diplomatic skills is evident in their records and demeanor. While Obama looked McCain in the eye and called him by name, McCain never made eye contact. He had a condescending approach, personally attacking Sen. Obama. He was angry and stiff in his responses. Sen. Obama showed the skills of a diplomat, was confident enough to name the points with which he agreed with McCain and ready to say “You were wrong, John” when there were strong disagreements. We don’t need negotiators on the national stage who come across angry, will not talk to our enemies, and have Bush’s approach to foreign policy. Sen. Biden had specific, detailed answers to questions on foreign policy in his debate while Palin played dodge ball and blatantly said she would not answer all the questions.
The bottom line for voters is that the policies of the last eight years have been disastrous. McCain and Palin cannot or will not tell us how they would be different from George Bush. Obama and Biden have specific plans to end those failed policies, restore confidence at home and abroad in our government, bring our soldiers home from Iraq, focus to fighting the real terrorists who attacked us, improve educational opportunities, make us a leader in education again, create jobs while cleaning up the environment, protect homeowners, create energy independence, and provide affordable health care for every citizen. McCain and Palin are from the 20th Century and agree with the Bush and Cheney policies. Their policies favor the rich and big corporations and leave out the working poor and middle class.
Pat Branham
3rd Congressional District Hillary Delegate to the Democratic National Convention
Chattanooga
Patrica.branham@comcast.net
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Ms. Branham, a Hillary Clinton delegate who has been critical of Obama in the past, brings the usual Democratic rhetoric to call for change as the DNC has ramped up their propaganda campaign. Let us look at the real issues and try to set the record straight in a limited amount of space.
Domestic Policy
Everyone seems to forget that with Obama taxing businesses, they pay out more money, which means they have less money for employees, benefits, and raises. Every business cannot run out and pick up a $1,000,000 grant like Barack secured for the hospital his wife worked at shortly before she was promoted.
Health Care
A tax credit to help individuals and families buy health insurance is at the heart of McCain's health care proposal. The credits will spark greater competition among insurance providers and put individuals and families back in charge of making their own health care choices. Under McCain's heath care plan, individuals would be eligible for a $2,500 credit and families a $5,000 credit to help pay for health insurance if they do not subscribe to, or do not have access to, employer-provided health care coverage. The government would send the money directly to insurers. McCain would pay for the program by eliminating the tax break employers get for offering insurance. Why do I want the government to further bury their nose into my health care choices? Have you witness how bad the Medicare system is? Have you ever wondered why people come from all over the world for health care in America? Because the other systems of socialized medicine are lousy.
Energy
McCain and Palin want to drill and the vast majority of America agrees. They do not want to be like the Democrats and talk out of both sides of their mouth. Telling the public they want to drill then working to pass restrictions so it does not happen. McCain co-authored the first proposed legislation in the Senate for mandatory greenhouse gas reductions, the McCain-Lieberman Environmental Stewardship Act, in 2003. McCain also believes in the use of Nuclear power, and clean coal. Biden and Obama cannot seem to decide on the use of clean coal, as evidenced by Biden's statement on "We're not supporting clean coal." McCain also proposed to abolish the 54 cent ethanol tax to help lower gas prices. McCain is also for the use of hybrids and the use of bio-fuels.
Home Ownership and the Economy
How is Obama going to protect the great American dream? Is he going to give everyone a free home, even those who bought a $200,000 home when they could only afford a $75,000 home? How does he plan to protect our retirement plans?
John McCain's approach to helping sub-prime or other financially strapped mortgage borrowers is built on sound principles. No taxpayer money should bailout real estate speculators or financial market participants who failed to perform due diligence in assessing credit risks. Any assistance for borrowers should be focused solely on homeowners and any government assistance to the banking system should be based solely on preventing systemic risk. Any policy of financial assistance should be accompanied by reforms that promote greater transparency and accountability to ensure we never face this problem again.
John McCain has proposed a new "HOME Plan" to provide robust, timely and targeted help to those hurt by the housing crisis. Under his HOME Plan, every deserving American family or homeowner will be afforded the opportunity to trade a burdensome mortgage for a manageable loan that reflects their home's market value. John McCain's HOME Plan will keep 200,000 to 400,000 families from losing their homes. But at the same time, McCain is calling for aggressive federal action to help keep 200,000 to 400,000 families from losing their homes.
Economists endorsing McCain's plan include economists from Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Michigan, Ohio State, Stanford, the list goes on and on. In the case of the financial crisis, even Bill Clinton admits that the blame falls to the Democrats for resisting the placement of oversights on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Education
While no real Obama plan was listed, John McCain believes American education must be worthy of the promise we make to our children and ourselves. McCain believes parents should be empowered with school choice to send their children to the school that can best educate them just as many members of Congress do with their own children. He finds it beyond hypocritical that many of those who would refuse to allow public school parents to choose their child's school would never agree to force their own children into a school that did not work or was unsafe. John McCain will place parents and children at the center of the education process, empowering parents by greatly expanding the ability of parents to choose among schools for their children. He believes all federal financial support must be predicated on providing parents the ability to move their children, and the dollars associated with them, from failing school.
Foreign Policy
Apparently, it has been long forgotten that proof was found before we ever entered Iraq of terrorist training bases used by not only Al Qaeda, but Hamas, Hezbollah, and others. It has also been forgotten that Saddam Hussein had killed a minimum of 200,000 men, women, and children. What must be decided is if we wish to take the war to the terrorists over there, or have them bring it over here. The reason the outside world hopes for Obama is because they know it means weaker foreign policy, weaker defense, and at the end of the day, a weaker America. People need not forget that Obama found it more important to make Hitler-esque speeches while overseas to massive crowds than to visit our troops in certain areas. People need to remember who did not vote for funding for our troops that included body-armor.
One wants to mention statesman-like conduct and diplomatic skills. Guess what? Hitler, Mussolini, Putin, and Stalin also displayed diplomatic skills as leaders of their countries. So did Jimmy Carter, without a doubt the worst president ever. Obama and Biden seem so smug and arrogant in everything they do that they repel many normal voters who will not be swayed by the promise of a handout or the chance to "make history." As for Ms. Palin, she finally became fed up with the liberal media machine and decided she wanted to talk not to a liberal moderator who has a financial interest in the election, but to the American people. You know Ms. Branham, the ones that really matter. The ones that allowed you to whisk away to Denver to hang out with the liberal elites. That is one of the problems with the Democratic Party. They have forgotten that there are people that matter besides those they bus to the polls and bribe with handouts or those who have their own cause and/or agenda. There are the real middle class people whose vote is not influenced by the unions, the NEA, or a promise in welfare. An example of this would be the video of the kids singing for Obama, which is eerily similar to Nazi Youth videos of the last century. Why would you ever use young kids as political gophers? Here is why. All Biden had in his debate were botox injections and memorized answers that we have heard time and time again including the fourteen lies he told during the debate.
If Obama is elected he will do this part to make us part of the European community that he adores so much he went overseas to campaign. The Democrats will tax everyone more (as they always do). They will weaken our national defense and negotiate with terrorists and those who harbor terrorists. They will cower to Russia and allow us to continue to be held hostage by the oil-rich countries who hate us because of our oil dependence. I was only a youth at the time, but is that not what Carter did? They will do their best to avoid oversight on things that really matter. I personally do not want to be part of that community. I do not want a welfare state and will not be influenced by the offer of handouts. I want the government to become smaller and stay out of my way as to not hinder future success for me or my family. Did I mention that McCain and Palin are against killing innocent babies but for killing terrorists? Seems the opposite of Obama and Biden, as witnessed by Obama skirting the issue, saying it was "above his pay grade" when cornered about abortion and his willingness to negotiate with countries that harbor terrorists.
Brandon Back
East Ridge
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Ms. Branham has made statements that have no basis in fact. The Democrats policies under Obama are nothing different than McGovern or Carter. Many will remember that we had a misery index to judge how bad it was under Carter. Obama is the same liberal Democrat who will raise taxes on all people throughout the economy (not lower them as the Democrats like to try to say).
Obama is just like all liberal Democrats who want to take over the health care system and there is nothing new in these policies. We only have to look at Canada or England to know how bad this type of system works. We also can look at how the government how laid waste to our Social Security and Medicare. Obama wants the government in every facet of our lives not to help but to take control. I just can never understand how anyone can believe the government can do a better job than free markets. This socialist point of view has been proven wrong throughout history and is provable to anyone who is willing to look.
It is also silly to believe that "green" jobs will save the world or that they will save our economy. This is nothing more than make believe. We can create all the jobs we want by reducing taxes on corporations, drilling for more resources, and producing those resources in the U.S. The fact is the Democrats understand this but they believe in their religion of global warming (which has been proven false) and they are forcing their religion on all us.
I can laugh at the Democrats saying they want to help the education needs when they have ruined the schools through decades of forcing their liberal ideas onto our children. They do not believe that we have created a system that is exceptional and that is why they are do not teach Western History and how capitalism has made the world a better place. I know it isn't perfect but that is the greatest weakness in the liberal lies. They keep trying to tell us that the messiah Obama will save us and the world will be perfect under his socialist government. It is clear that this is a lie the Democrats live with because they are saving us.
There is nothing more clear though when a Democrat tells us they will make us safer and that Bush was a disaster. We were attacked after eight years of a Democrat who ignored the dangers of Al Qaeda and tried to fight them with talk and laws (just like Obama). We have not been attacked since 9/11 and we have taken the battle to the terrorists. I know Democrats think this is wrong and we are the evil of this world but they are wrong. America is truly what holds the world together with our military, our giving, and our willingness to help. Every national Democrat leader (including Obama) has made statements that our military are killers, rapists, or conquerors and that is why you can trust them to defend us. They will give up or they will talk until a lot of us are dead before they will act. Just look at how Clinton made it possible for China to get missile technology or N Korea to build nuclear bombs.
The bottom line is that the Democrats will raise your taxes, take over our lives though laws, and will talk to evil rather than fight it.
Bruce Caldwell
Signal Mountain
sarmatt25@comcast.net
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