"Wow, you've got some entitlement issues ..."

Sorry about that.  Have you ever lost at least $500,000.00 that by all right should have been yours and known that there was more money hidden in secret files in cash all the while being $30,000.00 in debt in student loans?

superchunk said: Timmah! said: The Ghost of RubangB said: I'm voting for Barack Obama because that man is a tax and spend liberal. It's been a while since we had one of those. I like them. Somebody fight me. 1. Bill Clinton had a PROJECTED surplus. Fiscal Year Year Ending National Debt Deficit FY1993  09/30/1993  $4.411488 trillion FY1994  09/30/1994  $4.692749 trillion  $281.26 billion FY1995  09/29/1995  $4.973982 trillion  $281.23 billion FY1996  09/30/1996  $5.224810 trillion  $250.83 billion FY1997  09/30/1997  $5.413146 trillion  $188.34 billion FY1998  09/30/1998  $5.526193 trillion  $113.05 billion FY1999  09/30/1999  $5.656270 trillion  $130.08 billion FY2000  09/29/2000  $5.674178 trillion  $17.91 billion FY2001  09/28/2001  $5.807463 trillion  $133.29 billion According to the US Treasury, there was NEVER a real surplus under Clinton, and the national debt increased every year he was in office. It was a manufactured future surplus made by extrapolating a line graph and not taking into account all variables. I'm not saying Bush has a better record by any means, he clearly does not, I'm just saying that the 'Surplus' thing is a bunch of bull. This surplus did not take into account the huge economic downturn & tax revenue decrease resulting directly from the 9/11 attacks and the financial strain of the resulting wars in Afghanistan (Justified, I believe), and Iraq (debatable). 2. The problem with this is, these guys weren't truly 'Fiscally Conservative', because they didn't cut spending to reflect their tax cuts. My biggest problem with Bush has been that he cut taxes, but increased spending, this is just STUPID. A TRUE fiscal conservative would cut spending to balance the budget if he cut taxes, and would only cut taxes AFTER spending had been cut. Calling Bush a "Fiscal Conservative" is another major problem with the cartoon. I have HUGE problems with his lack of fiscal responsibility in his years in the white house.   Did you even look at your own table. Sure, it *technically* never made it to the black, however, it was headed directly that way. Bush reversed it and made and almost made a larger deficit than the two Republicans Presidents before him.

If you knew how government budgets & policies actually work, you'd know that the 2001 budget and policies (where you say things 'turned around' for the worse) were all Clinton, and it had already turned around before Bush's policies took effect. This showed that the extrapolation by Billy was out of touch with reality, because it assumed that the economy would continue exactly as it had been going. Because the economy is cyclical in nature, this is impossible. No president can cause a recession just months into his term, his budget hadn't gone into effect yet (his first fiscal year started Oct 1, 2001, my table ends at the end of Clinton's last fiscal year budget, 9/28/2001), new policies had not been implemented yet, etc. When a new president takes office, things are pretty much on cruise control from the last guy for a while.

I stand by what I said. This table clearly shows that the last fiscal year of Clinton's budget (FY ending 9/28/2001) did not in any way line up with the projected, mythical surplus. This would have happened whether a democrat or republican were in the white house, because, like I said, all the policies and budget in effect at the beginning of the downturn were carryover from Clinton. Check the facts, please.

EDIT: I agree 100% that Bush was NOT good for the budget! He was a tax cut & spend republican, and I disagree with almost every decision he made regarding spending. My point is only that this mythical surplus never really existed, and may not have no matter who took office.

McCain has been a fiscal conservative. He was one of the few Republicans to vote against the EGTRRA of 2001; however, he said he voted against it because he believed it disproportionately favored the wealthy, but he has been adamant that spending cuts should accompany tax cuts.

I have now decided that my final reason for not voting for Obama is....

Drumroll.....

Because "Obama Nation" sounds curiously like "Abomination". Coincidence?? I think not.

I'm not voting for Obama based on his record in the Senate:

- For abortion (I am against it)
- For Afirmative Action (I am against it)
- Against school vouchers and alternatives to government funded public schools (I am for vouchers, and anything that gets kids out of public schools)
- Against gun rights (I am pro-gun rights)
- For the expansion of government healthcare (I am against the government subsidizing healthcare)
- For increasing taxes as well as government spending at multiple levels, and against a flat tax (I am for lower taxes, smaller government, and a flat tax)


Also, his rating with various interest groups concerns me, and what I stand for:

100% Rating by NARAL/Planned Parenthood
F Grade by National Tax Payers Union, and 5% by Americans for Tax Reform
Supports Business-Industry PAC roughly 7% of the time
80% Grade from the ACLU
80% Grade from the Arab Americans Union
100% Grade from the Iranian-American PAC
90% Grade with Environment America
0% Grade with Family Research Council
13% Grade by Citizens Against Government Waste
F Rating by Gun Owners of America
F Rating by the NRA
0% Grade by English First
100% Grade by AFL-CIO
90% Grade by Secular Coalition for America
100% Grade by Population Connection

Most, if not all, of these organizations he has scored either too high, or too low in, to garner my support as president. Although I am not the biggest fan of McCain, I still believe he is the better choice, especially considering how poor this congress has been.

Isn't that basically what i said... except you actually gave proof?

Edit: 90% Grade by Secular Coalition for America

They do know he supports greatly expanded Bush's faith based funding right?

I thought you saw him as the lesser of two evils like... a couple days ago.  What changed your mind?

"- For increasing taxes as well as government spending at multiple levels, and against a flat tax (I am for lower taxes, smaller government, and a flat tax)"

Everyone says that Obama is going to raise taxes. However, the truth is he is planning on cutting taxes for everyone that makes under $50,000.00 a year. I'm all for raising taxes on the wealthy. And if Obama is going to do that, then more power to him.  Higher minimum wage + no taxes for the poorer citizens = a real shot at upward mobility for poorer people in society.  If you make less than $250,000.00 a year it is not in your best interests to vote for Mccain in November.

Finally, I want to add something about the troops because they seem to be all that the Republicans ever want to talk about and because the tone of Lindsey Graham's speech really irked me.  Sure, their sacrifices and the fact that they put their lives on the line everyday for this country needs to be honored.  However, at the same time it needs to be taken into consideration that they are largely a volunteer force.  They should know that there is the possibility that they could be killed before they ever decide to enlist and go over to fight in  a war that is potentially still not a just one and that is only being waged to further line the pockets of oil barons.  It has been almost seven years since 9-11, and if Osama Bin Laden was the real culprit behind it, then he still hasn't been brought to justice.

     Also, there are people in our society that put their lives on the line everyday just as much as the troops do and many of them have less choice in the matter if they want to put food on their tables than do the troops.  Just one example coal miners.  Myself, recently, I had to work two years of my life as a maintenance man at a fast food restaurant.  That might not sound like a big deal to you.  However, I have a body that was conditioned from an early age for a much more leisurely and scholastic life.  You may think that being a maintenance man requires you to only fix machines (something that I've never really had much experience with -- I have a degree in English literature and was always on the pre-college track earlier in life, so I never took shop courses and the like), but twice a week for over two years in an attempt to have money in my pocket, I had to stand below a twenty foot long metal chute trying to catch boxes of oil, cartons full of large metal cans of gravy, and fifty pound at least bag in the boxes of soda that were flying down that chute at me at close to fifty miles an hour all the while having to work in a perpetually wet basement where I could have contacted such diseases as staph and in an older building that may very well have had asbestos in its walls.  In the end it did damage to my body which still hasn't healed yet.

     So, even though, they seem to be the only people that Republicans ever want to discuss and that they have any fondness for other than oil tycoons, there are more people in our society that have to put their lives on the line at their jobs each and every day than just the troops and many of them work for far fewer wages than do the troops.

In the United States the "Wealthy" pay a disproportionately large ammount of the taxes, which means that you can raise taxes without rasining them for people under a certain income level.

"In the United States the "Wealthy" pay a disproportionately large ammount of the taxes, which means that you can raise taxes without rasining them for people under a certain income level."

Perhaps, but do they pay the same proportion of the income that they  do receive in taxes as do the poor?  eg.  If I'm making $15,000.00 a year as  my total salary, but I have to pay close to $3,000.00 a year in taxes which is 1/5 of my total income, then are the wealthy also paying 1/5 of their total income each year in taxes?  Do Bill Gates or some of these oil barons pay $5-6 billion each year in taxes?