Here's the unfortunate truth: Republican tax breaks are usually targeted towards the wealthy. Unless you're coming out of a big-name college with a highly sought-after degree, Republican policies are not likely to benefit you much economically, at least in the near- and middle-term.
"Middle class tax cuts" are the mantra of the Democrats, but they also have to balance that against their tendency to spend a lot and lip service to "fiscal responsibility", plus the fact that any sort of tax hike is likely to be unpalatable no matter who is targeted. On the other hand, Democrats' policies on health care are probably more meaningful to us (I'm assuming the majority of users on this board are middle class or come from middle class households).
This boondoggle is so old as to be laughable.
Ask a Democrat, any Democrat who they think is wealthy. (Hint: It is never any Democrat with a bloated trust fund, huge asset or inheritance-based wealth or old money, or any of their millionaire voting buddies.)
Some define it as households making more than $200,000. Some define it as households making over $75,000.
Whenever you think of voting Blue, just remember that if you have aren't on public assistance and have a mortgage, spouse, car, job, and children, "the wealthy" is always YOU. I come from a lower-middle class family and both my parents owned their own businesses at one point (My father's went defunct because independent retail packaging and shipping has gone the way of the dinosaur as a business model). Bush's tax cuts helped out their small businesses.
Democrat health care policies are meaningless to "us" if "us" is defined as "reasonably healthy people under the age of 30." Healthy young people do not need huge comprehensive one-size-fits-all health plans paid for by government (e.g. the taxpayer), the most wasteful, innefficient provider possible. What Barack's universal health care plan will do is ensure that all of your money will be transferred to a government slush fund that never goes to where it is needed. See: Social Security, which is already insolvent. When I retire, they will be sending me a bill in the mail instead of a check.
For more examples of Barack's health care plan, simply look north of the US to Canada. The wait list for some procedures is long and many people get sick or die before they get treatment because their appointments get postponed. That's what happens when you ration health care: You get to say you care while people die left and right. Health Care in Canada is top-notch as long as you never get anything worse than a flu. The list of people who go to hospitals in the United States and pay out of pocket for procedures they can't afford to wait for on a Canadian wait list is legion. There are businesses whose entire model is to help sick people over the border and facilitate treatments. Businesses only exist when there is sufficient demand to necessitate them.
City Journal has a good article on it (though CJ is not known for brevity, be warned).
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html
Ted Kennedy just had a brain tumor. Although he would probably be treated immediately because he'd be a member of "the elite" in any socialist system, Ted Kennedy as a regular shmoe with a glioblastioma would be dead long before he got his problem addressed under a European or Canadian system. He might not even qualify for treatment because he's over 75 years old with a fatal and extremely aggressive cancer. Thankfully after his stroke he was immediately flown into Mass General and put into a hospital bed. They gave him an MRI and did various other tests to check for possible causes. When he was discussing treatments, he decided to take an aggressive approach and went down to North Carolina to be operated on by the world's best neurosurgeon (that was his reputation, anyway). Next he will have chemo and radiation therapy. He did all this in less than a week.
Ted Kennedy would have gone untreated and likely died a slow and painful death if Barack's preferred health care system was in place. Universal health care benefits the healthy and strong: people who can afford to wait 6-9 months for a procedure. It throws the sick and dying under a bus.
McCain isn't my first choice because of his amnesty-supporting stance and various other liberal boondoggles he's created over the years. That being said Barack is a hopelessly ignorant, naive, and untrustworthy candidate who would, at any other point in Democratic Party history, be considered a joke. He can't keep his story straight on Iran. His own website (and a clip from an early primary debate) says he directly will meet with Armageddonjad without preconditions, but now he says there will be no preconditions without preparations, whatever that means.
Just yesterday he Baracktracked on his remarks at AIPAC because he got a dissaproving letter from Palestine supporters. His entire rolodex is full of racists (Wright, Pfleger), fraudsters(Rezko), and terrorists (Ayers and Dohrn). Regarding his "spiritual advisor" he initially said "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community," then more recently he said "this is not the Jeremiah Wright I knew." He did the same thing after Rezko, his Chicago money bundler, got convicted on 16 counts of fraud. "This is not the Tony Rezko I knew," quoth Obama. Does Obama know anyone he associates with for 2 decades?
Seriously, I didn't vote for McCain as Republican nominee, but the thought of an Obama presidency in comparison is just too horrible to imagine. Obama assosiates with crooks and haters to advance his political career and then turns on them after 20 year relationships as soon as they become a political liability, he's got a dreamland domestic and foreign policy (assuming you can pin him down on one), and his entire political house is built on a sandbar of "New Politics," "Hope," and "Change" when all he's offering is 1930's appeasement and 1960's social policy. He's the perfect combination of Neville Chamberlain and Jimmy Carter.
I ask this as a serious question to everyone voting Blue this year: Aren't you tired of nominating joke candidates for the presidency yet? Even Bill Clinton only won with a pluralilty. I don't think a Democrat has won the presidential office with a majority since Jimmy Carter. To be fair, that's probably because the last Democrat elected by a majority of the population was
Jimmy Carter.
Honestly, I want to believe there is hope for the Democrats but they seem to have killed off their Scoop Jacksons, John F. Kennedys, and Harry Trumans and replaced them with Michael Dukakises, Jimmy Carters, and George McGoverns. Joe Lieberman was the last one left standing and they tried to kick him out of Connecticut with blogospehere-loved-nutball Ned Lamont.
