American Thinker: 

By William Tate 

I have learned how Barack Obama plans to cut taxes for 95% of the public, even though only 60% of people pay income taxes.  The explanation came from a young man calling from an Obama phone bank, one of millions of such calls being made these days.

Before we discussed the tax proposals, the college-age caller informed me that:
-Sarah Palin belongs to a church whose pastor believes in witchcraft, and that she is anti-Semitic.
-Obama will give me government-run health care and will pay for it, and all his other programs, by taxing the rich and corporations. When I pointed out that the wealthy already pay the majority of income taxes, and that corporations don’t really pay taxes, that they — for the most part — simply pass those taxes on to consumers, he sounded confused, as though they were concepts he had never heard before.
-Under Obama’s health plan I will be able to go to any doctor, including the most expensive specialists I can find, and the government will pay for it and all my other medical expenses, no matter how high the cost. Again, paid for by increased taxes only on the rich and corporations.
-After my questions about Obama’s connection to ACORN, and the numerous investigations into widespread ACORN voter fraud, that John McCain was trying to prevent students from voting. His evidence? He had heard that nugget on one Air America talk show. He sincerely believed it to be the moral equivalent to the numerous investigations into ACORN voter fraud.
-McCain’s economic policies would be devastating. When asked if he knew anything about McCain’s proposals, he admitted he did not.
-Obama will hire people to drive down “high” unemployment, although he was unaware of where unemployment current stands (6.1% in September) or that it is low by historical standards.
-Obama will increase employment by giving tax breaks for corporations to bring jobs back to America. When I said my understanding was that the tax break would be $3,000 per job  and asked how many people he thought would be willing to work for $3,000 a year, he said he would. He apparently had no concept of how little money that would be.
-The stock market will tank further if McCain is elected. When I pointed out that the stock market is a forward-looking mechanism, and that at least some of the market’s recent fall has been the result of pricing in an expected Obama victory, he simply continued to maintain the market would fall if McCain is elected.
Finally, I asked the troubling question about how Obama will ensure a tax break for 95% of people–despite the fact that about 40% don’t pay income taxes.  He struggled with that one for a while. Again, it seemed to be a foreign concept to him, like no one had ever raised the subject before.
He stumbled through a series of answers. Obama would “give” the unemployed jobs so that they could pay taxes and get a tax break. When I reminded him that would only account for 6%, he–in a tribute to the American education system–said that Obama was really talking about the 55% difference between 95 and 40. I reminded him that Obama had specified 95%, not 55%. He replied that “Obama didn’t really mean that.” I asked if he, the caller, was really supporting a candidate who lied about something so important?
He told me to wait while he talked to his supervisor. I could overhear bits of a conversation in which he referred to me, rather politely, as “a difficult one.” (At least he didn’t call me THAT one.)
When he returned to the phone, he informed me that Obama would reach the 95% figure by initiating taxes on the 40% who don’t pay income taxes now, so that he could later give them their promised tax break.
Out of the mouths of babes.
I don’t know which is scarier: that the young man knew so little about the policies of the candidate for whom he had volunteered to work, that the young man’s supervisor apparently knew little more, or that the talking heads say that young people like him could determine this election.
The Obama caller was polite and sincere … and utterly clueless.
I thanked him for his sincerity and for a civil discourse on the subject. He thanked me for the same. Then we hung up.
And then he made his next call.
William Tate is an award-winning journalist and author.

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Chicago - My Obama number is one. I know him through our association at the University of Chicago Law School and through mutual friends in the neighborhood. We have had one or two serious substantive discussions, and when I sent him e-mails from time to time in the early days of his Senate term, he always answered in a sensible and thoughtful fashion. And yet, for assessing the course of his likely presidency, I don’t know him at all.

It should come as no surprise that the traditionally liberal Hyde Park community is a veritable hotbed of support for Obama. So my manifest reluctance on his candidacy raises more than a single eyebrow: Loyalty for the home team counts.

The odd point is how his many learned and thoughtful supporters couch their endorsement. Almost without exception, they praise the man, not the program. Their claim is that Obama has proved himself to be a consummate politician who understands that the first principle of holding high office is to get reelected. His natural moderation in tone and demeanor, therefore, translate into getting advisers who know their substantive areas, and listening to them before making any rash moves. The dominant trope is that he will be a pragmatic president who will move in small increments toward the center, not in bold steps toward the left.

But is it all true? The short answer is that nobody knows. Virtually everyone who knows him recognizes that he plays his cards close to the vest, so that you can make your case to him without knowing whether it has registered. At this point, my fear is that the change in office will not lead to a change in his liberal voting record, as reinforced by a hyperactive Democratic platform. My great fear is that a landslide victory will give him solid majorities in both Houses of Congress, so that no stalling tactics by Republicans can slow down his legislative victory procession. At that point his innate pragmatism will line up with his strong left-of-center beliefs on issues that have thus far been muted during the campaign.

Put otherwise, Obama’s vague calls for change that “you can believe in” are, to my thinking, wholly retrograde in their implications. At heart, he is an unreconstructed New Dealer who can see, and articulate, both sides on every question–but only as a prelude to championing the old corporatist agenda with a vengeance.

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It’s no longer an issue about Obama’s tax plan and its effect on a foolish “Average Joe” afflicted with the American Dream disease.  Nope, the issue is the credibility of the one asking The One an uncomfortable question that demonstrated his fragility while temporarily un-cocooned.  After all, it was The One who descended upon Joe the Plumber’s neighborhood, unannounced.

I’d like to think there are tens of millions of Joe the Plumbers out there — men and women — dreaming about working their tails off, of working for themselves.  Obama’s life story illustrates the machinations of a man working his tail off to control the outcome of everyone’s American Dream — and place a target on the back of those that achieve their American Dream. 

Say, Joe the plumber does buy the plumbing business and is successful — $250,000+ per year successful.  Consequently, Joe must be compelled to exhibit his “neighborliness” and “patriotism” by “redistributing” a few thousand dollars more of his income to his next-door neighbors, Sam the slug and Sam’s wife and two children.   After all, Sam deserves a chance to get ahead. 

See, Sam inherited his parent’s modest house and works just enough to hit the sweet spot of the Earned Income Credit — currently a $4,716 “refund” check for 2007 — and then Sam spends the rest of the year drinking beer and watching Jerry Springer while sitting on his couch in his underwear.  Joe the plumber “owes” Sam the slug a few more thousand dollars.  Don’t believe me?  Just ask Obama.

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Rick Moran

It was a revealing comment by Obama made last weekend during a stop in Ohio. An American citizen confronted him about his plan to raise taxes and rather than the smooth talking, practiced response we’ve come to expect from Obama, what we got - finally - was the truth.

“Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?” the plumber asked, complaining that he was being taxed “more and more for fulfilling the American dream.” 

“It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success too,” Obama responded. “My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody … I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

A far cry from “tax the rich.” When Obama reveals what he is really after - redistribution and not punitive actions against one class of Americans - people sit up and take notice. Americans may have a certain “leveling” instinct in our history but when it comes to taxes, our fellow countrymen are not stupid. When politicians talk about “spreading the wealth” they know exactly what that means; higher taxes on those who work in order to achieve some kind of “parity.”

Whether his outing of Obama as a redistributionist will alter the race in some key states remains to be seen.

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From American Thinker:

Vasko Kohlmayer
It is refreshing to see Sarah Palin going after Obama’s radical, America-hating intimates. This is Obama’s most vulnerable point, because it betrays more clearly than anything else his true attitude toward his country.
It is truly mind-boggling that so far McCain has not pressed this point. It almost seems as if he were engaged in a form of self-imposed political correctness whereby he has strenuously avoided pointing out the most embarrassing and damaging aspects of his opponent’s background and candidacy.
I have put together a little video to remind us of the twenty-year relationship that Obama had with Jeremiah Wright. This friendship is an outrage and an offense to every America-loving citizen. Obama must answer for this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8USE7JfxX40

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