Steyn: Why is Obama only ahead by a little?

[MikeDC]

Link:

This is an amazing race. The incumbent president has approval ratings somewhere between Robert Mugabe and the ebola virus. The economy is supposedly on the brink of global Armageddon. McCain has only $80 million to spend, while Obama's burning through $600 mil as fast as he can, and he doesn't really need to spend a dime given the wall-to-wall media adoration. And tonight Chris Matthews' doctors announced that his leg tingle has metastasized leaving his entire body like a vibrating cellphone whose ringtone is locked on "I'm In Love, I'm In Love, I'm In Love, I'm In Love, I'm In Love With A Wonderful Guy."

And yet an old cranky broke loser is within two or three points of the King of the World. Strange.

I'm amazed that anyone with even a smattering of economic knowledge would vote for Obama. I mean, this isn't rocket science here.

I mean, he's openly running on a platform (and voting record) of:

1. Protectionism.

2. Increasing taxes (on the wealthy, on capital gains, on corporations, and on estates).

3. A health care plan that furthers the somewhat byzantine and illogical wedding of health care insurance and employment.

4. What seems to be generic class warfare.

I mean, seriously. Even if you don't see the obviousness of point 4 and the subtlety of point 3 is lost on many folks, 1 and 2 are really, really bad things.

I mean, if you take pretty much any economist and ask them, in isolation of their political affiliation, what they think of protectionism, they'll say it stinks for the economy. And if you ask what they think about corporate taxes, they'll say they're passed right on to consumers. And capital gains taxes further reduce investment. And taxing the wealthy (and increasing marginal tax rates in general) pushes people to work less in the first place.

In short, you don't have to go past those two points. You've got a recipe for massively fucking up the economy right there.

 

[J.S]

So taxing the wealthy will cause them to become shiftless layabouts?

 

[CelticKing]

+ 1 million on the post Mike.

Especially on this quote

You've got a recipe for massively fucking up the economy right there.

Obama will destroy the values of this country, the freedoms, and the whole economy that it exists today. If it was a white person running with the same ideas as his, he wouldn't have even made it out of the democratic primaries, and that is a fact.

Even though I consider Hillary a socialist as well, at least she's not this EXTREME as Mr Obama is.

 

[RipCity]

So taxing the wealthy will cause them to become shiftless layabouts?

No, it will cause these Wealthy Business owners to pass on their increased costs of operation straight to the consumer, thereby circumventing any tax increase on themselves.


MikeDC, great post.

 

[44Thrilla]

Obama is up 375-157 in electoral votes factoring in the latest battleground state polls. Is that 'a little'?

 

[RipCity]

At this point an electoral map means nothing. A swing in a couple of battleground states would put McCain up by a decent margin.

 

[44Thrilla]

At this point an electoral map means nothing.

If by "electoral map" you mean "popular vote" then I agree.

 

[Денг Гордон]

At this point an electoral map means nothing. A swing in a couple of battleground states would put McCain up by a decent margin.

McCain would have to shift the entire equilibrium of the race.

For all intents and purposes, Obama is sitting safe at 264 (MSNBC/CNN/Pollster/RCP all have it at the very least 286...but that's besides the point).

That leaves, according to pollster.com, battlegrounds as: Nevada, Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia.

All of those except Montana/North Dakota gives him 269, and 270 if you exclude Nevada.

McCain's BEST CASE map is 274-264 in favor of McCain. That is not putting McCain up by a decent margin.

 

[CelticKing]

So when McCain wins, you guys are going to say they stole it?

haha

 

[J.S]

No, it will cause these Wealthy Business owners to pass on their increased costs of operation straight to the consumer, thereby circumventing any tax increase on themselves.


MikeDC, great post.

maybe it will prevent Credit Default Swaps. maybe supply side economics is as insipient as whatever socialist witchcraft you're accusing the Dems of.

 

[J.S]

For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obama’s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead.

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12516666&source=features_box2

 

[J.S]

No, it will cause these Wealthy Business owners to pass on their increased costs of operation straight to the consumer, thereby circumventing any tax increase on themselves.


MikeDC, great post.

Just to be clear, you are aware that Obama's tax plan restores top marginal tax income rates to Clinton era 39.6 per cent. what will revert to without the Bush tax cuts. it appears that the line between Capitolism and Socialism is 4.6 per cent.

If that's the case I enjoyed my 8 years of Clinton's socialist wonderland.

 

[MikeDC]

So taxing the wealthy will cause them to become shiftless layabouts?

Hmm, no, but it will cause people to make a rational choice to to work less (because their return to working goes down and their return to spending time doing other stuff stays the same), to hire fewer workers (because it'll be more costly to do so, and because, when faced with higher taxes, people will have less to spend on businesses goods and less to invest in companies, thus reducing the need for businesses to hire more workers).

And by, despite all of the tax increases, still increasing the budget deficit, more peoples' savings will go into buying government debt and less will be directed to business investment.

So to summarize, we really aren't talking about some sort of indirect effect here. We're talking about big time tax increases that are going to have significant (negative) effects on the economy.

And following up on your final point, Obama is proposing significant tax increases beyond simply going back to the Clinton era tax rates. The taxes Obama proposes on corporations and capital gains and the increased social security and medicare taxes he proposes are all new and go well beyond those we had in the 90s.

So yeah, that would be seriously fucked up. And I totally forgot to mention his support for the (likely unconstitutional) proposition of eliminating the private vote for organizing unions, an idea that's wrong on so many levels I don't even know where to start.

You pointed out the Economist's endorsement, and I'll pick my own snip there:

Our main doubts about Mr Obama have to do with the damage a muddle-headed Democratic Congress might try to do to the economy. Despite the protectionist rhetoric that still sometimes seeps into his speeches, Mr Obama would not sponsor a China-bashing bill. But what happens if one appears out of Congress? Worryingly, he has a poor record of defying his party’s baronies, especially the unions

The Economist is wildly socially liberal, operates out of the UK and has a sort of skewed view of the US, and fundamentally, just has a different social perspective. They wrote about what a nice idea it would be, a powerful symbol to elect a Black guy. Basically, they're saying, "hey, this guy is a huge gamble economically, but it'd give everyone the warm fuzzies".

Well, that's nice, but they don't have to live with the economic consequences of that gamble.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people are thinking that way here too. Don't get me wrong, I think Obama is in many ways a very admirable guy, and in some ways it would be a great thing, in and of itself, to say "our country has shown it can move forward" or whatever.

But at the end of the day, this is also our country, our future, and our livelihoods we're talking about here. And taking the risk of electing someone who's openly running on a platform that's chock full of completely wrong-headed economic policies is not a chance any American should be willing to take.

 

[speeds]

 

[CelticKing]

^ LOL @ Jim Jones. hahahah

 

[Shooter]