My Election Thoughts and a Plea

Last night was expected for me, and I wasn't really too affected. Lots of people were upset, but I knew this was coming and wasn't at all surprised. This post is going to be divided into two parts... the first being why I disagree with Obama's policies, and will not include any election trash we have been seeing for the past few months. The first part is mostly going to be about taxes, b/c I can use numbers to back it up. The second part is going to be my thoughts going forward.

Here are the main issues I have with Barack Obama.

Individual Tax Policies. I'm not sure I agree with either candidate on this issues, as lowering taxes during a period like this is just not feasible. But, I disagree more with Obama. For the poor Obama wants to cut taxes, period. The Bush tax cuts will be renewed for everyone but the top 2 tax brackets. Obama's tax policy as stated will raise taxes on the rich and lower taxes on the poor. For the "rich", Obama is raising the top 2 tax brackets to 36%(from 33%) and 39.6%(from 35%). On top of that he wants everyone who makes over $250k to have to pay Social Security on all wages over $250k at a 4% rate. He also wants to phase out personal exemptions. Now, lets look at this website and see what that does. Here is a chart:




If you do not understand marginal tax rates, just go to the link and it explains it. Their are two issues I have with his plan. From the link:

Under Sen. Obama's plan, the already negative marginal tax rates for low-income taxpayers drop further, due to his proposals to expand the EITC and for a new "Making Work Pay" credit. The new credit would equal 6.2 percent of the first $8,100 of a worker's wages, and it would phase out for moderate-income taxpayers. Both of these provisions would sharply reduce marginal tax rates for taxpayers with the lowest earnings, reducing their combined income and payroll tax rates to minus 58.6 percent.

So, now the poorest are getting a new form of welfare from the government... on top of this, it puts the marginal tax rate OVER 50% for those who are married and paying between $30k and $50k.

Also, with Obama's new taxes on the rich, if you make over $250k, your effective marginal tax rate rises to over 47%. So 2 different segments of society are going to be getting completely screwed. That doesn't seem to "fair" to me.


Obama's plan hurts small businesses. Obama swears it won't, but others would disagree. Despite him claiming small businesses would be hurt, Obama is going to be RAISING taxes on 45-55% of small busineses. According to this link, 1.3 million small business tax returns would pay an estimated $30 billion more under Obama. It depends on how you define these small businesses as the article points out, but even then, it increases taxes by $16 billion on small businesses.


Obama wants to raise taxes on Corporations. This is probably my most hated idea of his. He wants to reduce loop holes, along with other things. McCain wants to lower the Corporate tax rate to 25%(from the current 35%). Now at first glance, many would think "don't you want to tax the corporations, not the individuals?"... but that is too simple. Going back to my economics classes, corporations have a set "profit point" where they aren't allowed to any less profit before they exit the industry. These corporations are going to raise the prices on you if their taxes are raised. Corporations pass on the tax burden they have to the people. If you lower corporate taxes, they have higher profit margins... since all these companies have similar economic models, they see they can "afford" to lower prices but still keep their ideal profit margins. So they compete with each other until they reach their minimum "profit point" and the price settles. I don't understand how some thing corporations are evil, but at the same time say they can increase their tax burden and they won't raise their prices. I thought they were evil?


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Ok, enough of that... I think I laid out my opinion pretty well, and it is done. Now on to where we go from here.

First, while I do not agree with Obama on almost any policy, yesterday was a great day for America. America proved that a black man truly can be equal to everyone else. Despite my disagreements, I will not villanize or dehumanize Obama like most of the left wing has done with Bush. I respect any president and feel like he deserves a certain level of respect. These guys still are people who have worked hard to get where they are and for that they should be commended... especially Obama for overcoming all the odds.

As a Republican, yesterday was horrible. The Republicans lost more seats in the House and Senate. They now don't hold a single seat in the New England states.

The next 4 years could go a number of different ways(and I sorta stole this from someone else):

1. The Democrats could continue to be partisan and fight bitterly with the Republicans. This would only polarize politics more than they currently are. If this happens, in 4 years the Democrats would, IMO, lose the control they have because they proved they couldn't get anything done either.
2. Obama could actually do what he campaigned for... and that is bipartisanship. This is all up to Barack. His actions and his words have been different on this subject, and hopefully his words come through. This would strengthen the Democrats and prove they could get things done, like they say. In 4 years they would be stronger and I could see the Democrats being in control for a long time.

These upcoming years are going to be hard. We face uncharted waters and need to unite as a country... or else we will push ourselves in a greater hole. We can make it through as a stronger America, but only if the partisanship stops.

The pressure is all on Barack Obama... everyone has very high expectations. Hopefully he can deal with the pressure and stick to his campaign message of working across the isle.

I don't know what is going to happen, and I hope it works out. But personally, no matter who was elected, I have little faith in the government. Government, it is time to prove me, and a vast number of Americans like me, wrong. Your up...