Obama is right to provide tax incentives for corporate responsibility

 

Reasons to agree:

1. We should reward good behavior and punish bad behavior


2. If you are going to have sin taxes, you should also have virtue tax credits.


3. If a behavior helps America as a whole, it isn't wasting money giving tax incentives; it might actually bring in more money.

Reasons to disagree:

1. The government shouldn't determine what is "good" business behavior and "bad business behavior.


2. Some businesses could win more jobs if they had 30% of their employees in India... for instance, if they keep losing jobs to South Korean firms, because employment costs are too high, maybe it would help them keep at least some of the work coming into the states, instead of going to companies that are 100% foreign. These should be business, not political decisions. 

Background: Obama’s “REAL USA” Corporations Plan (Responsible, Accountable, Loyal USA Corporations) will reward companies that create quality jobs in America with tax incentives. Companies will be required to:

1. locate in the United States 90% of its production and employment for the sales of goods and services that are consumed here;


2. invest at least 50% of its R&D budget here in the U.S;


3. make sure their workers have access to affordable health care by providing a standardized and portable health insurance plan and pay at least 70% of the cost;


4. make sure their workers have retirement security by contributing at least 5% of payroll to a portable, multi-employer pension fund and operating a profit-sharing plan for all full time employees; and


5. limit management compensation to 50 times the lowest-paid full-time worker.


6. Source: Campaign website, ObamaForIllinois.com Jun 25, 2004

Obama is right to stand against "the excess influence of agribusiness lobbying"

 

Reasons to agree with Obama:

1. Big farms located far away are bad.


2. People should be allowed to have goats, and chickens in the suberbs.


3. 
   People should grow food not grass. It is a waste of time to plant grass, put fertilizers, pesticides, and weed killer, down, and every week mow a lawn while burning gas in a 2 cylinder engine that spits out carbon dioxide, when you could spend 1/2 the time growing a better looking yard that actually gave you fruits, vegetable, and nuts for free. There should be more local farms, and less giant farms that all produce the same thing.
   
   

Reasons to disagree:

1. Words are cheap. You shouldn't get any credit until you take actions.
   

Obama is right to think that it is Ok to expose 6-year-olds to gay couples, but wrong to think the government should make this choice

Background:
Q: Last year, some parents of second graders in Lexington, Massachusetts, were outraged to learn their children’s teacher had read a story about same-sex marriage, about a prince who marries another prince. Would you be comfortable reading this story to your children as part of their school curriculum?

A: My 9-year-old and my 6-year-old are already aware that there are same-sex couples. And my wife and I have talked about it. One of the things I want to communicate to my children is not to be afraid of people who are different because there have been times in our history when I was considered different. And one of the things I think the next president has to do is to stop fanning people’s fears.

Q: Have you sat with your daughters to discuss same-sex marriage?

A: My wife has.

Source: 2007 Democratic primary debate at Dartmouth College Sep 6, 2007

Reasons to agree:

1. People get very upset with the government. They want it to do all these things and have all these powers, but then they get upset with the things it does that they don't like. The only way to solve this problem is to keep the government out of raising children and doing business. That should be up to parents and guardians. If you push to give the government power to promote your way of life, you or your children will suffer some consequences because you gave the government power to meddle, and someday, you won't like the decision it makes with the power you gave it.
2. When I say that the government forces people, I'm talking about parents in Massachusetts who are not given the option to exclude their six-year-olds from hearing about "A King and A king" gay children's stories.
   
3. Obama is not sending his kids to private school. He gets to choose what his children are exposed to. However, poor kids must be exposed to whatever social experiments those in power feel like playing at the time.

PS: This post is complicated. Obama is okay with making that decision himself. Still, his support of gay marriage in California would mean that parents would no longer get to be involved in these types of decisions because parents in Massachusetts were refused this right when they passed gay marriage. So, Obama is both right and wrong. If you disagree that that is an OK decision for parents or teachers to make, I would love to hear your arguments, however I think the decision is a good one for parents to make, but a bad one for teachers to make.

Obama is right about the Confederate flag

Reasons to agree with Obama:

1. "I think that the Confederate flag should be put in a museum. That’s where it belongs. But we’ve got an enormous debate that’s taking place in this country right now. And we’ve got to engage the people of South Carolina in that debate." Source: 2007 South Carolina Democratic primary debate, on MSNBC Apr 26, 2007.
   

However Mike Huckabee said; "if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell 'em what to do with the pole, that's what we'd do." That is real classy when a former preacher makes jokes about sodomising someone with a flag pole.

Huckabee always talks about how he is a “Christian leader” but he made jokes about shoving a flag pole up the collective butts of people who thought the confederate flag was somewhat racist.

Obama is right about race

 

Reasons to agree with Obama:

1. Obama is right about the disparity between sentencing crack and powder-based cocaine .


2. Obama is right to try to ban racial profiling.
   


3. Obama has said: “[Those who worked on civil rights in the past realized that] to achieve racial equality was not simply good for African-Americans, but it was good for America as a whole; that we could not be what we might be as a nation unless we healed the brutal wounds of slavery and Jim Crow."


4. 
   Obama has said; "Now, we have made enormous progress, but the progress we have made is not good enough. As many have already mentioned, we live in a society that remains separated in terms of life opportunities for African-Americans, for Latinos, and the rest of the nation." Obama is right. Its not always about race, but often about historical economic opportunities. For instance, many Irish came to American in deep poverty because they were fleeing the potato famine. African American's aren't always the victim of direct racisms, but are often the victims of racism perpetrated on their parents, which caused them to have a worse life, which caused them to live in a worse neighborhood which caused difficulty for their children. With that said, my dad was a teacher in a state that didn't pay teachers very well, who had 5 kids and a stay at home mom, and I did not have very many economic advantages. I worked hard, borrowed a lot of money for college, and am now a professional engineer. Sometimes I think people look at me, who have more privileges than I had, who think I lived a cushy life. So economic advantages can often outweigh racial disadvantages, which Obama understands.
   
   


5. Obama has said; "And it is absolutely critical for us to recognize that there are going to be responsibilities on the part of African-Americans and other groups to take personal responsibility to rise up out of the problems that we face. But there has also got to be a social responsibility, there has to be a sense of mutual responsibility, and there’s got to be political will in the White House to make that happen.” Source: 2007 Democratic Primary Debate at Howard University Jun 28, 2007
   


6. "A line in my speech at the 04 Democratic National Convention struck a chord. “There is not a black American and white American and Latino America and Asian American--there is the United States of America.” For them, it seems to capture a vision of America finally freed from the past of Jim Crow and slavery, Japanese internment camps and Mexican braceros, workplace tensions and cultural conflict--an America that fulfills Dr. King’s promise that we be judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character."


7. "I have no choice but to believe this vision. As the child of a black man and white woman, born in the melting pot of Hawaii, with a sister who is half-Indonesian, but who is usually mistaken for Mexican, and a brother-in-law and niece of Chinese descent, with some relatives who resemble Margaret Thatcher and others who could pass for Bernie Mac, I never had the option of restricting my loyalties on the basis of race or measuring my worth on the basis of tribe." Source: The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p.231 Oct 1, 2006


8. "So many of the disparities that exist between the African American community and the larger American community today can be traced directly to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow." ~ Source: Speech on Race, in Change We Can Believe In, p.222-3 Mar 18, 2008
   
   
   
   
   


9. Segregated schools were and are inferior schools. We still haven’t fixed them, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.
   


10. "Legalized discrimination-- where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions--meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth & income gap between blacks and whites, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities." ~ Source: Speech on Race, in Change We Can Believe In, p.222-3 Mar 18, 2008


11. "[In his State Senate race], one of Obama’s central themes was the powerful potential of multiculturalism in American society. Rather than continually castigating whites for an oppressive history of mistreating blacks, Obama suggested, blacks would do better if they infiltrated the mainstream power structure and worked from there to effect social change" ~ Source: From Promise to Power, by David Mendell, p.113 Aug 14, 2007


12. “Any solution to our unemployment catastrophe must arise from us working creatively within a multicultural, interdependent economy,” Obama said. “Any African Americans who are only talking about racism as a barrier to our success are seriously misled if they don’t also come to grips with the larger economic forces that are creating economic insecurity for all workers.” ~ Source: From Promise to Power, by David Mendell, p.113 Aug 14, 2007


13. "His steadfast beliefs made him less than a unifying force in Chicago’s black community. The idea of building bridges to people of all races was anathema to many old-school black leaders who still sounded a voice in Chicago’s African American community." ~ Source: From Promise to Power, by David Mendell, p.113 Aug 14, 2007


14. “I believe in vigorous enforcement of our non discrimination laws. But I also believe that a transformation of conscience and a genuine commitment to diversity on the part of the nation’s CEOs could bring about quicker results than a battalion of lawyers.” ~ Source: In His Own Words, edited by Lisa Rogak, p. 34 Mar 27, 2007


15. Obama is right about the Confederate flag

Reasons to disagree with Obama:

1. Obama passed on stupid urban legends that exaggerated racial problems.


2. Obama said; “I don’t think the Democratic Party takes the African-American voters for granted. I’m happy that the president spoke at the Urban League. He should have spoke at the NAACP. I want Republicans to compete for the African-American vote. They’re not getting the African-American vote not because African-Americans aren’t open-minded, but because Democrats have consistently championed those issues-civil rights, voting rights, concern for working families-that are of greatest concern to African-American voters.” ~ Source: Meet The Press, NBC News Jul 25, 2004. Obama might be right in his explanation about why African Americans are democrats, but he is wrong about what should make someone join a party, sort-of. It is true that "Democrats have consistently championed those issues-civil rights, voting rights, concern for working families-that are of greatest concern to African-American voters” but that is not the reason you should join a political party. You don't join a party because you think that party is "on your side". You join a party because you think that political party is going to be good for your party. Obama wouldn't see it this way, but a republican would look at the things that the democratic party promises like someone should look at drugs. There is a part of you that might want it, but it will destroy your self will, yourself esteem, your community. Your drug dealer isn't your friend just because he gives you stuff. Of course this is an oversimplification. There are certain things that people need: good schools, and good services, but us republicans really respect people like Colin Powel, Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice, who don't want everything the Democratic party tries to give them. I'm not saying that people make the wrong decision to become democrats, but Obama was wrong to boil the whole question down to what party will give your people the most.


3. Obama wrongly called a Boston cop stupid. 

Obama is wrong about Republicans

Obama said: "The Republicans may have a different attitude, because they haven’t been appearing before forums that are diverse. The policies that they have promoted have not been good at providing ladders for upward mobility and opportunity for all people. That is a fight that all of us will fight. But I don’t want us to get drawn into this notion that somehow this is going to be a race that splits along racial lines. Source: 2008 Congressional Black Caucus Democratic debate Jan 21, 2008.

Reasons to disagree with Obama:

1. Obama said that republican policies, "have not been good at providing ladders for upward mobility and opportunity for all people". However democrats have been in a majority in all the places most hard hit by poverty for the last 60 years. We have spent hundreds of trillions of dollars on poverty. Democrats have been in charge in New Orleans, for decades, but somehow republicans got blamed for their problems. Democrats have been in charge in all the places hit by poverty for a long time it is their policies that destroyed the family that destroyed initiative that created families that never got jobs, but lived off the welfare system. It is the democratic policies that have failed. It is republican policies that have not been given a chance in these democratic strong holds. 
   

2. Republicans are not in charge in Detroit. Republicans can not be blamed for these problems.
3. Republicans are not in charge in Chicago. Republicans can not be blamed for these problems.
4. Republicans are not in charge in New York. Republicans can not be blamed for these problems.
5. Republicans are not in charge in Las Angleles. Republicans can not be blamed for these problems.
6. Republicans are not in charge in New Orleans.  Republicans can not be blamed for these problems.

Obama was wrong on the Program Assessment Rating Tool Bill

Amendment intends to pay down the Federal debt and eliminate government waste by reducing spending on programs rated ineffective by the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART).

Reasons to disagree with Obama:

1. We have programs out there that have made absolutely no effort at all to measure their results. I believe these are the worst offenders. In the following years, I hope Congress will look at those programs to create accountability. Reference: Allard Amendment; Bill S.Amdt.491 on S.Con.Res.21 ; vote number 2007-090 on Mar 22, 2007
   
2. People like Obama always critisize business, but government needs to learn that it is the outcome that matters not how much money is thrown at a problem.

Obama is wrong on the Free Market

Background: Obama said; "It's useful to remind ourselves that our free market system is the result neither of natural law nor of Divine Providence. Rather, it emerged through a painful process of trial and error. And although the benefits of our free market system are mostly derived from the individual efforts of generations of men and women pursuing their own vision of happiness, in each and every period of great economic upheaval and transition we depended on government action to open up opportunity, encourage competition, and make the market work better." ~ Obamanomics, by John R. Talbott, p. 69 Jul 1, 2008

Reasons to disagree with Obama:

1. How does Obama know what divine providence is? Obama is not only a politician, but a prophit who can tell us what the mind of God is? 

2. Obama is way wrong to say that the free market does not follow natural law. The free market works, when it follows natural law. One natural law is the law of the harvest: that you reap what you sow.  Liberals often want to remove the law of the harvest. They don’t want people to be punished for making bad decisions. They want to create an unnatural ecosystem. Also nature thrives when there is a vibrant ecosystem. In the same way, the economic ecosystem does not work very well when there are monopolies.  Obama will suffer to the degree that he makes the market not follow natural law.

Obama is wrong on protecting the rural economy

Reasons to agree with Obama:

1. Government should not "protect" one aspect of our economy. This is called corporate welfare. Obama just wanted the votes of rural downstate votors.

Obama said; "Our rural communities are the backbone of Illinois. Yet, factories have closed, jobs have disappeared, and homes and farms have been foreclosed upon. Effective federal programs are necessary to protect the rural economy." Source: Campaign website, ObamaForIllinois.com, On The Issues May 2, 2004

Obama is right on Paygo

 Background: Obama said; “We can restore a law that ..called Paygo--that prohibits money from leaving the treasury without some way of compensating for the lost revenue.” The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p.187-189 Oct 1, 2006

Reasons to agree with Obama:

1. When Obama makes conservative arguments, we need to be very quick to agree with him, if we actually believe in principles, and want to make progress. Otherwise we are just apposing him because he is a Democrat.

Reasons to disagree with Obama:

1. Words mean nothings. Just because someone says we should use "Paygo" does not make them right. The budget that Obama signed proves that it was just a lie to get liberal republicans to vote for him.

Obama is wrong on the Ownership Society

Background: 

In a 2005 commencement address, Obama described the conservative philosophy of government as “to give everyone one big refund on their government, divvy it up by individual portions, in the form of tax breaks, hand it out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan, their own child care, their own education, and so on. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society. But in our past there has been another term for it, Social Darwinism, every man or woman for him or herself. It’s a tempting idea, because it doesn’t require much thought or ingenuity.“

Reasons to agree (that Obama is wrong)

1. Obama says the ownership society is the same as social darwinism. People take care of stuff they own. However, if the government gives you a house, you will not take good care of it. If the government gives you free healthcare, you will over-use it. Everyone miximizes their own reward. That is why the ownership society works. It works on rewarding good behavior. The anti-social darwinist want to reward bad behavior, and punish good behavior. This has never, and will never work.

Obama is right on tax havens

 Obama said; "right now we’ve got a whole host of corporate loopholes and tax havens. There’s a building in the Cayman Islands that houses supposedly 12,000 US-based corporations. That’s either the biggest building in the world or the biggest tax scam in the world, and we know which one it is. If we close some of those loopholes, we’ve put forward tax relief plans, that will not only restore fairness to our tax code, but it also puts money into the pockets of hard-working Americans who need it right now, who will spend it, and will actually improve our economic growth over time, particularly at a time when we’re seeing a credit crunch. But it requires leadership from the white house that restores that sense that we’re all in this together." ~ 2007 Des Moines Register Democratic Debate Dec 13, 2007

Reasons to agree with Obama:

1. Businesses that make money in America, because America built roads, won WWI, WWII, protected freedom, and defeated communism, owe the government their fair share of taxes.

Interest of those who agree with Obama

1. Stopping cheaters and corruption 
2. Liberal guilt (defending a minority because he is a minority).
   

Interest of those who disagree with Obama

1. Greed
2. Racism (criticizing a minority because he is a minority)

Obama often mischaracterizes the views of those he disagrees with

Reasons to agree:

1.        Obama said; "The fact that we’re spending $12 billion every month in Iraq means that we can’t engage in the kind of infrastructure improvements that are going to make us more competitive, we can’t deliver on the kinds of health care reforms that Clinton and I are looking for. McCain is willing to have these troops over there for 100 years. The notion that we would sustain that kind of effort and neglect not only making us more secure here at home, more competitive here at home, allow our economy to sink." -Source: 2008 Democratic debate at University of Texas in Austin Feb 21, 2008. Obama was saying that McCain was going to be spending $12 billion a month in Iraq. All McCain was saying is that we still have troops in Germany, and Japan. That it's not a problem having our troops in a place, its just a problem if people are dying, and money is being spent. Obama mischaracterized what McCain said.

2.       Obama constantly made fun of McCain for saying that the fundamentals of our economy were sound. For instance in the 1st presidential debate on September 26th, 2008, he said: "Ten days ago McCain said the fundamentals of the economy are sound." However Obama said the exact same thing when he was president. What they both meant was that we still have natural resources, educated people, and stuff. Obama tried to make it sound like McCain was out of touch, and didn't know there was a recession, but McCain acknowledged how bad things were in the sentence before the one Obama always quoted, yet Obama chose to always take him out of context. In this way Obama is a typical politician.

Obama is a hypocrite

Reasons to disagree with Obama:

1. Obama self rightously accused Clinton of "resort(ing) to the same typical politics that we’ve seen in Washington" (2008 Congressional Black Caucus Democratic debate Jan 21, 2008) and then accused her of mischaracterizing his beliefs. However Obama often mischaracterizes the views of those he disagrees with .

Interest of those who agree
Interest of those who disagree
Webpages that agree
Webpages that agree

Obama was sometimes stupid in the way he tried to blame Bush for everything:

Obama said: "We know it was George Bush’s Washington that let the banks and financial institutions run amok, and take our economy down this dangerous road." Source: Response to 2008 State of the Union address Jan 28, 2008. So now it is "Obama's Washington" and we can blame him for everything that Nancy Pelosie, or Harry Reed does.