Election Day 2012

[Azdgari]

Obama says: goodbye tax cuts for those earning $250,000 plus, where as Romney argues to keep them. Any thoughts?

[Woeler]

Obama says: goodbye tax cuts for those earning $250,000 plus, where as Romney argues to keep them. Any thoughts?

The rich pay more, the poor pay less. Just how it should be. Romney is showing this typical me-me-me attitude of America while we need a we-we-we attitude.

We need a we-economy, not a me-economy

[TheLionPrince]

Obama says: goodbye tax cuts for those earning $250,000 plus, where as Romney argues to keep them. Any thoughts?

Keep the tax cuts. Small businesses still need them to stay in business. Even with the tax cuts (and tax loopholes), the rich still pay more in taxes than the middle class. So, why bother by raising even higher? Also, didn't Obama say "you don't raise taxes in a recession"?

Here's the video of that statement:

Well, with the healthcare mandate tax and the future tax hikes on the wealthy, President Obama has yet again "evolved".

[Azdgari]

...? The tax cuts on individuals earning $250,000+ do not affect small business, he's not referring to those tax cuts, which are part of Obama's ACA. Also, he's not really -raising- taxes. The taxes would be restored to where they would naturally sit had Bush not created the cuts. Even with the cuts gone, tax rates among the rich remain among the lowest in the post world war two era~

-Washington Post


I don't particularly agree with the healthcare mandate being vilified as a tax, either... it's not meant to be paid. In the same way a ticket says, "don't put yourself in danger by speeding", the mandate tax says "don't put yourself in danger by being uninsured." I'm sure we can agree about the irresponsibility of not acquiring health insurance, both personal (making yourself vulnerable to crippling financial destruction should you have a medical emergency) and societal (society covers for people who receive care without insurance, raising all of our premiums). ACA's mandate is designed to force people who have the financial means to acquire insurance. While there will be a tight, perhaps I'll even use the word brutal, squeeze on those that sit very close to the line of being unable to afford health insurance, I don't think that changes the necessity of it. One needs police, one needs fire department, one needs doctors. The timing of the mandate is unfortunate, that it comes in a time of such economic uncertainty. That doesn't change its necessity, or morality.



Following such high thinking, I keep thinking about the simple phrase, 'Got money for the war but don't got money to feed the poor'

Defense budget higher than the next 25 nations combined, 24 of whom are allies and we still can't figure out how to properly fund medicaid and medicare, or education, or stem our rising poverty rate? Yikes.

[Woeler]

The US government refuses the judge itself by the same morals with which it judges others. its technique is to position itself as the big well-intentioned good giant whose good deeds are confounded in strange countries by their scheming natives, whose market it is trying to free, whose society it is trying to modernise, whose women it is trying to liberate, whose souls it is trying to save.... the US government has conferred upon itself the right and freedom to murder and exterminate people ''for their own good''

The most important thing for me is that that needs to go.

as you see, the consequences are huge...
on September 11th 2001, for the first time, the US and its offshoots were subjected, on home soil, to the kind of atrocity that they have routinely carried out eslewhere. (e.g. bombing the al-shifa plants in Sudan killing thousands of innocents)

America please don't go justify your actions, you just can't. It just needs to stop. You can whine about 9/11 all day but in the end you started it.

[Azdgari]

• Two days ago, the U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), announced over $11 million in grants to eight organizations working in seven countries in Africa to extend the coverage of malaria prevention and control activities in communities most affected by malaria, particularly children under age five and pregnant women.
  
• Two weeks ago - the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded CARE more than $2.8 million to help fight the harmful practice of child marriage and to prevent violence against women in two countries in South Asia.
  
• A few years ago, in Tsunami and Earthquake relief (~1 billion in aid) - The United States, through USAID, has funded debris clean-up and other community rehabilitation projects in the relief phase benefiting more than 344,000 people through cash-for-work projects and temporary shelter for more than 165,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and India.
  USAID has also funded water and sanitation activities in the emergency phase benefiting more than 885,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and the Maldives.
  USAID provided 21,220 metric tons for the first four months of World Food Program (WFP) operations, contributing to WFP's beneficiary total of 1.4 million tsunami victims.
  
• Historically - more than a trillion dollars in aid to Africa and South America

There's more to American foreign policy than our military, Woeler. http://www.usaid.gov/ Saying the US exterminates people, which sort of compares it to Nazi Germany, is overbearing and disrespectful. We have fought wars, sometimes against the will of the American people (Iraq?), that have been unjust. However, history shows that worldwide, America is a force for good. For every civilian that died in Iraq, we saved thousands through African and South American aid. And that's the tip of the iceberg.

How would you specifically apply that today? Iraq was a war fought against the will of the American people, and it's over (love you Obama). Do you want an end to US operations in Pakistan and the dismantlement of Al Qaeda?

[Woeler]

actaully yes. you should stop pretending to give so much aid while you cant even take care of your own poor. And I absolutely dont take back what I said. what gives america the right to go to other countries and tell them what is right and wrong? nothing gives you that right! not in Iraq, not in Somalia, not in Vietnam. you go after al qaeda? be my guest. everybody knows that it is a useless and neverending war. for every idiot you kill, ten wil rise up.

get your own country to function first before you start telling others they dont.

you want to end al qaeda? you might as well carpetbomb the whole middle east, besides, you are already doing that.

giving aid does not cancel out all the lives that were lost. nothing cancels that out.

I'm all for Obama because that makes the biggest chance to end this preposterous neverending war.

[SlayerOfLight]

^ Even though I might not often agree with you, what you say now is definately true. I'ts about time the U.S should stop playing ''God'' and judging which country is wrong or which isn't. If that isn't enough, America's legal system sucks. Just read on the news a while back, that a man comitted suicide after being sentanced to 20 years in prison ONLY for setting his own house on fire, and being unable to repay alot of damage he did. 20 years? That's the same amount of years Anders Breivik will spend behind bars for mass-murder after killing like 70 freakin people.

[Azdgari]

actaully yes. you should stop pretending to give so much aid while you cant even take care of your own poor.

Umm... I'm in Jamaica right now, and compared to the average Jamaican, a homeless, impoverished American lives like a king. Soup kitchen. Unemployment benefits. Food pantries. Shelters. Medicaid. Billions of dollars in programs. Do you know what Jamaica has? Nothing. You don't have money? You'll die. And Jamaica's barely even third world. In the face of real poverty, you realize that the domestic problems the US have are tiny. Irrelevant in the scheme of the developing world. The only real problem, which you are correct to point out, is a disconnect between the actions of our government and the will of the people. That's something to fix, for sure.

I realize that we have fought unjust wars, but does that mean we should stop our tradition of giving aid--more than any other country in history? Saying that "nothing cancels out" is obstinate. You love statistics: US Aid saves 3 million lives per year. I'm not trying to absolve the US of unjust wars. I'm saying that to hold us to a double standard and ignore the good we do is below you.

I agree we should end operations in Afghanistan/Pakistan, by the way, as do most americans. You're preaching to the choir, my man. I also agree that Obama's our man to do just that. And if by "focus on yourself" you mean break down our defense budget for use in education and combatting poverty, sure, couldn't agree with you more.

[Woeler]

actaully yes. you should stop pretending to give so much aid while you cant even take care of your own poor.

Umm... I'm in Jamaica right now, and compared to the average Jamaican, a homeless, impoverished American lives like a king. Soup kitchen. Unemployment benefits. Food pantries. Shelters. Medicaid. Billions of dollars in programs. Do you know what Jamaica has? Nothing. You don't have money? You'll die. And Jamaica's barely even third world. In the face of real poverty, you realize that the domestic problems the US have are tiny. Irrelevant in the scheme of the developing world. The only real problem, which you are correct to point out, is a disconnect between the actions of our government and the will of the people. That's something to fix, for sure.

I realize that we have fought unjust wars, but does that mean we should stop our tradition of giving aid--more than any other country in history? Saying that "nothing cancels out" is obstinate. You love statistics: US Aid saves 3 million lives per year. I'm not trying to absolve the US of unjust wars. I'm saying that to hold us to a double standard and ignore the good we do is below you.

I agree we should end operations in Afghanistan/Pakistan, by the way, as do most americans. You're preaching to the choir, my man. I also agree that Obama's our man to do just that. And if by "focus on yourself" you mean break down our defense budget for use in education and combatting poverty, sure, couldn't agree with you more.

Might be, but where I live there are no homeless simply because the government gives them a home and gives them enough money to stay alive on the condition that those people go look for jobs (or work for the government, eg cleaning streets etc.)

You can't repay killing people with not letting others die. In fact, you cant repay killing people. And no we are not preaching to the choir. We are preaching to the non-idiot american choir.

I'm not saying the US didnt do good things. I'm saying they did bad things for reasons that don't even exist.