RNC talking points
Here's a current list of the RNC talking points. Seriously.
2008 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
COMPARISON TALKING POINTS
ISSUE
JOHN McCain
BARAK OBAMA
Favors new drilling
offshore US
Yes
No
Will appoint judges
who interpret the law not make it
Yes
No
Served in the US
Armed Forces
Yes
No
Amount of time served
in the US Senate
22 YEARS
173 DAYS
Will institute a
socialized national health care plan
No
Yes
Supports abortion
throughout the pregnancy
No
Yes
Would pull troops out
of Iraq immediately
No
Yes
Supports gun ownership
rights
Yes
No
Supports
homosexual marriage
No
Yes
Proposed programs will
mean a huge tax increase
No
Yes
Voted against making
English the official language
No
Yes
Voted to give Social
Security benefits to illegal's
No
Yes
CAPITAL GAINS
TAX
MCCAIN
0% on home sales up to
$500,000 per home (couples). McCain does not propose any change in
existing home sales income tax.
OBAMA
28% on profit from ALL
home sales. (How does this affect you? If you sell
your home and make a profit, you will pay 28% of your gain on taxes. If
you are heading toward retirement and would like to down-size your home
or move into a retirement community, 28% of the money you make from your
home will go to taxes. This proposal will adversely affect the elderly
who are counting on the income from their homes as part of their
retirement income.)
DIVIDEND
TAX
MCCAIN
15% (no change)
OBAMA
39.6% - (How will
this affect you? If you have any money invested in stock market,
IRA, mutual funds, college funds, life insurance, retirement accounts,
or anything that pays or reinvests dividends, you will now be paying
nearly 40% of the money earned on taxes if Obama becomes president. The
experts predict that 'Higher tax rates on dividends and capital gains
would crash the stock market, yet do absolutely nothing to cut the
deficit.')
INCOME
TAX
MCCAIN
(no changes)
Single making 30K -
tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax
$18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax
$18,750
Married making 125K - tax $31,250
OBAMA
(reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts)
Single making 30K -
tax $8,400
Single making 50K - tax $14,000
Single making 75K - tax
$23,250
Married making 60K - tax $16,800
Married making 75K - tax
$21,000
Married making 125K - tax $38,750
Under Obama, your taxes
could almost double!
INHERITANCE
TAX
MCCAIN
- 0% (No change, Bush
repealed this tax)
OBAMA
Restore the
inheritance tax
Many
families have lost businesses, farms, ranches, and homes that have been
in their families for generations because they could not afford the
inheritance tax. Those willing their assets to loved ones will only lose
them to these taxes.
NEW TAXES
PROPOSED BY OBAMA
New government taxes
proposed on homes that are more than 2400 square feet. New
gasoline taxes (as if gas weren't high enough already) New taxes on
natural resources consumption (heating gas, water, electricity)
New taxes on retirement accounts, and last but not least....New
taxes to pay for socialized medicine so we can receive the same level of
medical care as other third-world countries!!!
You can
verify the above at the following web sites:
http://money.cnn.com/news/specials/election/2008/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/issues/issues.taxes.html
http://elections.foxnews.com/?s=proposed+taxes
http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourworld/politics/articles/mccain_obama_offer_different_visions_on_taxes.html
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/candidates/barack_obama/
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/candidates/john_mccain/
It's just amazing to me that Republicans can accept messages like this so passively. I have friends that are scientists that just accept a statement like McCain "Will appoint judges who interpret the law not make it" with no question of how someone would objectively determine this. The authors of this rehash (this is the second version I've seen) seem to have so little opinion of their readers that they ignore the fact that the links they provided discount their talking points, and that opinion seems deserved. If it wasn't, if Republicans reacted to disinformation the way people on, say crooksandliars.com do, an email like this would be torn apart in the first version; instead the 'truthy' talking points are simply are trundled out again and again, becoming more outrageous with each retelling.
The first version of this focussed more on the tax and economy side, but their readers lack of credulity seems to have spurred the authors past simple misdirection and cherry-picking to the heights of fantasy like saying the Obama "Supports abortion throughout the pregnancy" - does anyone seriously believe that Obama supports an eight-and-a-half-th-month abortion? That would be like having a Democratic talking point saying that McCain supports a ban on cancer treatments because tumors have a right to life too.
Maybe the problem is that I'm judging these all wrong. I am looking at these "Talking Points" as summaries and distillations of complex theories and facts; i.e., what I would list as talking points when talking about presidential candidates. If these are not statements that the reader is meant to think about, or be informed by, then I have much less to be critical of. For example, if they are meant solely to be memorized and associated with visceral emotional reactions, then in that respect, they are well-written. The format suggests clean and clinical analysis, and the pasting of links below gives the appearance that the data presented was determined from research.
Style over substance, that's functional motto of the Republican party. (No wonder they're so obsessed with haircuts and lapel pins! ;^)