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.