I apologize for not being around to blog during this crucial time; I've been busy, and haven't had much time to get anything written down. However, there is information that I feel people need to be pointed to - mainly (for a start) about Obama's dreadful economic policies.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=10a_1224860557
(As a moderately right wing Canadian, I like the first part of that video, and find it ironic that Obama speaks of "coordinating with other countries" by bringing in much more left wing fiscal and welfare policies, while many of those "other countries" are shifting to the right because they've found that overly left wing fiscal/welfare policies, on issues like health care, for one, can often be absolutely disastrous.)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122495462887469571.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122480790550265061.html
I hope to have a chance to talk about this in more detail, but here's a lowdown as I've understood the situation. Obama hopes to bring about "economic justice" by taxing wealthier people and businesses earning over $200,000 or $250,000 in order to finance massive increases in government spending (which, as one of those Wall Street Journals points out, he may still not be able to afford). That sounds nice - it sounded nice to me too, for about one second until I actually started thinking about it. Then, after 1.1 or so seconds had elapsed, it occurred to me that $250,000 is really not a very high threshold at all for a medium sized business. 'Joe the Plumber' was on to something when he tried to question Obama about whether raising taxes would hurt a plumbing business that might, theoretically, pass the magic threshold in terms of its income. That's not inconceivable. The contractor whom we often engage to work on our family's house was running a larger construction business and employing 45 guys up until a few years ago, when he started getting older and easing into semi-retirement. A construction business employing 45 people could easily cross that threshold - and we're talking about an ordinary, though successful, individual entrepreneur, not the Starbucks or McDonalds or Wal-Mart corporations, which are easy to villify.
Why should anyone care about whether Starbucks, Wal-Mart or even just your ordinary-but-successful individual entrepreneur have to pay somewhat higher taxes? They can afford it no sweat, right? Well, no. Not necessarily. One should care because small, medium, large and huge businesses create jobs for people. When Obama says that most small businesses do not cross his magic threshold and do not see more than $250, 000, he is telling the truth. However, in implying that raising taxes on businesses dealing with larger amounts of money will not affect many people, he is not telling the truth at all. Small businesses that are well under the threshold create significantly fewer jobs than medium or large businesses that make more than that. When a government hits businesses with taxes and makes it harder for them to do well - especially if 'doing well' is already becoming increasingly difficult due to bad economic times like these - those same businesses either raise prices for their services, or lay off workers, or some combination thereof. Laying off workers obviously affects more people than just the business owner. Moreover, increased prices affect just about everyone. Let's take a very concrete example. If Starbucks sees a substantial hike in its taxes, it will either get rid of some of those young people (many of whom are Obama supporters) working in Starbucks stores, or it will start edging up the prices of lattes, or both. As prices of its products start to rise, consumers will, by and large, start trying to get by with less. That's easy with Starbucks lattes - we can all live with only one a week instead of two. (That's not the case with, say, bread, or gasoline, or other truly important goods.) However, the subsequent reduction in consumer spending will hurt Starbucks and other businesses even more, possibly prompting even more lay offs or store closings.
Obama does not seem to have thought about things like this. Maybe he just doesn't know, as he does not seem to have ever run a corporation or a small business or a lemonade stand, either. However, voters would do well to remember that although the economy is in lousy shape now, it stands to get much, much worse under Obama.
