Election Socialism

[tongodeon]

Some of matrushkaka's friends from back home have been urging her not to vote for Barack Obama because they say he's a socialist. I should start with some background and context. It used to be that you voted for a Republican to keep your taxes low, but that's not true this year. The message has sunk in that Obama's tax plan cuts more taxes for more

Comments

[chemicalpilate]

Word.

[jwgh]

The recent spate of people who seem to think that taxing rich people more than poor people is some kind of laughable crazy new idea drive me nuts. (Some of the people I went to high school with fall into this category, and they have been posting links to cartoons like this one on facebook.)

[erikred]

Well written, and well reasoned.

Thursday night's Daily Show, which you might enjoy, featured an increasingly incredulous Jon Stewart watching William Kristol call Alaska's entitlements the essence of capitalism (and night day and day night); it was surreality television at its finest.

[altamira16]

Do McCain's tax cuts count on George W. Bush tax cuts expiring? I haven't paid enough attention to McCain to know.

I do not care about tax cuts because it is unsustainable to cut taxes while having a war. Someone who wants to cut taxes while getting their war on makes me suspicious.

[tongodeon]

Do McCain's tax cuts count on George W. Bush tax cuts expiring?

That depends which McCain you were talking about. Back in the day he was all about letting them expire. Now that he's running as a Republican he's talking about making those tax cuts permanent and giving the rich *extra* tax cuts on top of that.

[adw3345]

Sometimes I wonder if socialism is really *that* bad at all

[erikred]

Amen. The details differ somewhat, but Japan has similar services on all four points.

My wife, Yoko, is continually amazed that we here in the US do not.