What do I personally have against rich folk? NOTHING! OMG I WISH I WAS RICH FOLK!!! But dig this: every politician at the national level is way better off than the average American. I work on the clock. I’m a factory worker. And in a couple of the past years I’ve reached a place most Americans never see: a paycheck with ZERO removed for social security. So yeah I’ve nothing against the wealthy. OMG I wish I was up there with them even though I am NOT suffering at the bottom of the financial ladder.

How did the people who lost the most, suffer the least?

Are you seriously asking this? So let’s see… when someone very wealthy loses income for whatever reason it might mean the loss of a property or two. Or three. It might mean the collapse of their stock portfolio. It might mean something very damned different than if someone at not wealthy loses income for whatever reason. For them - most of America being “them” - it might mean not having a vacation. It might also mean not having new clothes at the start of the school year. I have no children and don’t give a personal shit, just pointing out reality as I understand it to be. It might also mean losing the only home you have. It might also mean deciding that your children will have to suffer a bit in some way as you work through the next few years trying to get back on your feet.

Jeezus Farging Criminy Christ can people really honestly truly be so blind to the plight of the neighbors and fellow citizens as to not understand that those who are truly wealthy simply don’t suffer the same problems as those who are simply not wealthy suffer when the same relative percentage is removed from their income stream or added to their cost of living sheet?

I *LOVE* the rich. I would totally put out for a rich honey even if she was fugly just so I could taste the good life for a few minutes. But Oh My God we all share this planet now and together. Can we not respect each other’s basic needs even if our personal needs have gone beyond food and shelter? Are we so simple as to not realize that someone making more than a quarter million dollars a year can afford to spare a bit more than the guy trying to raise a brand new baby while making less than a tenth of that?

Whatever. No worries.

The republican party and all it’s bullshit policies are deep in the weeds and won’t crawl out for another 12 and possibly / probably 20 years.

How did the people who lost the most, suffer the least?

Dan-First of all, Phil Gramm is not just some former Republican Senator. He was an adviser to McCain and had to quit the campaign in shame. He is responsible for some of the deregulation that helped to create our current financial problems, so don’t put much stock in his solutions.

The link provided above is to a NYT topic on Jim Johnson. You may know who that is. He was in charge of running Barack Obama’s VP search..Until he stepped down because of his role in the demise of Fannie Mae. Fannie is probably the largest cause of the current financial crisis. Mr Johnson was the Chairman of Fannie and a board member for Goldman Sachs, as well as the head of the Compensation Committee for UnitedHealth Group which granted $1.4B in stock options.
So, obviously, John McCain and his associates caused all of the mess on Wall Street while Democrats such as BHO deserve no credit.

Taxes-
Income redistribution is one of the basic principles of Marxism and socialism. If you look up Marxism, the next step after socialism is communism…Obviously that has worked very well in the past. As much as I would like to have a portion of the money of the richest people in America, I would much rather have the freedom to do what I like with what I have.

Osama hates America, Rev Wright hates America, Obama attended his church for 20 years, therefore he must hate America!!That is if you follow this logic: George Bush is a bad president, John McCain was in Congress for the eight years of the Bush Adm, therefore he would be a bad President.

Seriously! It is hate-mongering to say anything what-so-ever about any of Obama’s associations/bad decisions, but it is truth-telling to say that John McCain and George Bush share the same brain.

From CNN Fact Check
The Facts
Congressional Quarterly examined Obama’s votes in the Senate. According to the analysis, Obama has voted with the Democratic Party 96 percent of the time during his tenure in the Senate.

CQ — a non-partisan and highly respected journal of congressional affairs — says McCain has voted in line with the Republican Party 86 percent of the time. McCain’s total number of votes is much larger, since he has been in the Senate since 1986, while Obama is in his first term.

CQ also looked at what it deemed to be “key” votes. That analysis found Obama voted with his party on 29 out of 30 votes, which came out to 97 percent of the time. For McCain, CQ said there have been 335 “key” votes over the years, and that he voted with his party on 266 of them — 79 percent of the time.

Obama votes with his party on 97% of ‘key’ votes while McCain votes with his party on 79% of these votes. This clearly shows that McCain is a Republican Bush clone and Obama is a centristic thinker that wants to do the best possible work for the country..

Let me quote the great Rev Wright in closing,"God damn America!”
If anyone has a Bush/McCain quote that compares to that, please do share.

McCain’s tax plan is based on the continuation of Bush’s tax cuts.

Obama’s tax plan is based on the destruction of Bush’s tax cuts.

The tax cuts expire in two years, and if Obama is elected, they will cease to exist. But we’re forgetting one key thing…if McCain is elected, they will cease to exist.

Here’s the deal. These tax cuts are going down…period. Why? Because even if McCain gets elected, the Democrats in Congress won’t renew the cuts. Period.

Pelosi in the House won’t allow it. New Senate Majority Leader Clinton won’t allow it either. So, they will disappear, and the Dems in Congress will create their own tax plan.

Or, at the very least, the tax plan will revert back to BEFORE the Bush Tax Cuts, which if I understand correctly, is similar to the tax structure under Clinton, which is similar to what Obama wants.

Therefore, the conversation is mainly irrelevant, because no matter how much McCain wants his tax cuts/tax policy, it will NEVER happen!

Sure, it’s fun to talk about it, and McCain is doing the “Republican” thing by saying he wants to give more tax cuts to everyone, but a bigger percentage to the rich. He’s simply talking the talk. He knows it’s not the President making tax policy…it’s Congress, and they aren’t going to be helping McCain one bit if he wins.

As for the name calling, I have no idea how you don’t see a difference between calling McCain McSame and Obama Osama.

He thinks that the government is the main cause of the economic problems in Michigan. The collapse of industry in places like Michigan can’t be attributed to a single cause. Competition with cheap overseas labor plays a role, too.

A few of you have suggested that the rich pay more than their share of taxes and this isn’t fair. So far no one has contradicted my claim that McCain’s policies would benefit the rich. If you guys want to use your vote to support the financial interests of rich people for the sake of fairness or in the hope that the benefits will trickle down to you, feel free.

Even Alan Greenspan says that McCain’s tax cuts go too far: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aKZG._gG2NVI&refer=politics

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122126282034130461.html

Now it is partially written by a former Republican senator, but it seems like a fair comparison.

Lastly, on the name game. Calling McCain McSame is trying to scare people into not looking at the 10% difference, which could mean a lot. And calling Obama Osama is trying to scare people making him sound like he is something he is not. Both are trying to scare.

Aside from the EITC, we paid no taxes until this last year, since we had been in grad school and got copious deductions from learning credits.

Bush’s public image has deteriorated more than I thought.