Focus on Politics

Fox News reports

Zeituni Onyango, the aunt so affectionately described in Obama’s best-selling memoir “Dreams fFrom My Father,” lives in a disabled-access flat on a rundown public housing estate in South Boston.

A second relative believed to be the long-lost “Uncle Omar” described in the book was beaten by armed robbers with a “sawed-off rifle” while working in a corner shop in the Dorchester area of the city. He was later evicted from his one-bedroom apartment for failing to pay $2,324.20 in bills, according to the Boston Housing Court.

Obama likes to claim that he is his brother’s keeper.

I guess he doesn’t consider his uncle or aunt “brothers.”

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.
“Since you are all such good customers”, he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20″. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his “fair share?”
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
“I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, “but he got $10!”
“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!”
“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”
“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics, University of Georgia

I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!

According to a comment on Fark

What’s winning is Obama’s inspiring sense of integrity…

Let’s see:

Obama promised Oprah he’d announce his run for presidency on her show. He didn’t.
Obama promised to take Public funding if McCain did. Obama didn’t. McCain did.
Obama accused McCain of using racism against him at some future point in the campaign on about 6 different occasions. McCain so far has never brought up Obama’s funny name or different appearance to other presidents.
Obama has lied about his relationships to numerous people in his life.
Obama lied during a debate when confronted with the fact he started his political career in Ayer’s livingroom.
Obama publically claimed people were liars when they called him out for voting against the Born Alive Act. Obama’s campaign later quietly admitted the people were truthful.

But Obama was honest about using illegal drugs.

It’s a clever trick Obama is playing on his loyal followers. He’s honest about the things nobody cares about so he can lie about the big things and they won’t believe he’s lying.

And it’s working. There are actually people out there that think Obama has integrity.

Obama Shrugged is a web-site set up dedicated to the story involving Obama’s lack of security when it comes to on-line donations.

It basically boils down to this: all you need to donate to Obama is a valid credit card number. You don’t need the name, the address or the security code from the back of the card to make a donation. You can even use gift cards. So if you’re from say Iran and want to donate to Obama you can simply purchase an American Visa or Mastercard gift card and then use that card to make the donation.

These are things that don’t work when trying to donate to McCain. To give McCain money on-line you’ll need to know the name, the address and the security code of the credit card you’re using to give him any money.

It’s becomming more clear how Obama has managed to get so much money. It’s amazing how much money you can get when you turn off all security protections and just take whatever is sent to you without asking any questions.

CNN reminds their viewers that Obama only has as much money as he does because he’s a hyprocrite and a liar.

CNN has also refused to air Obama’s propaganda video.

Fox News is running a story about Obama’s seeking out of Socialist friends.

But Obama himself acknowledges that he was drawn to socialists and even Marxists as a college student. He continued to associate with Marxists later in life, even choosing to launch his political career in the living room of a self-described Marxist, William Ayers, in 1995, when Obama was 34.

Obama’s affinity for Marxists began when he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.

“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully,” the Democratic presidential candidate wrote in his memoir, “Dreams From My Father.” “The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists.”

Obama’s interest in leftist politics continued after he transferred to Columbia University in New York. He lived on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, venturing to the East Village for what he called “the socialist conferences I sometimes attended at Cooper Union.”

The left is furiously trying to spin Obama’s multiple comments about redistributing wealth to be refering to a progressive tax system. There are multiple definitions of not paying taxes. When most people claim to not owe any taxes they either mean they’ve paid what they were supposed to and may get a refund or that they reduced their federal taxes down to 0. Federal taxes are not the only taxes that people actually pay. The other big one is Social Security. There’s no way to get that money back unless you are below a certain level of income. Then you can qualify for an EIC which is a tax credit designed to give people back the money they gave to the government outside the standard Federal taxes. This means that those people can get back the money they paid into Social Security as well.

The left is trying to spin credits like the EIC into something to do with the redistribution of wealth. When actually it’s very difficult if not impossible to get back more money than you paid into all the various taxes collected by the government.

The way the government redistributes wealth is through various programs like welfare which are funded by tax payers. It is essentially forced charity. Most people redistribute their wealth all by themselves by donating, investing or shopping.

Obama is not talking about just making the tax gap bigger between the middle and upper class. He’s talking about actual wealth redistribution. The means to get that wealth to redistribute through programs such as welfare is to increase the tax burden on all or a portion of tax payers.

Taxes themselves are not wealth redistribution. It’s what is done with those taxes. Most programs offered by the government can be used by anyone. Wealth redistribution comes in when the government takes money from some people but only allows other people access to it.

That’s the type of thing that Obama wants to do more of. They want to take money from the rich and enable programs that only the poor can take advantage of.

Obama’s supporters refuse to listen to what Obama is saying because they don’t care. The alternative is voting for McCain. They will eat up the lies and the spin all day long because the truth is irrelevent anyway.

One of the basic principles that America was founded on was the idea that you could work your way up to success no matter where you started. Now Obama wants to take the wealth of the top 5% of Americans and redistribute it to the bottom 95%. Sounds like a plan that should get 95% of the vote.

But it won’t. Most people don’t like handouts. They don’t appreciate taking money they didn’t earn. They don’t see the top 5% (the people they probably work for) as crooks who only got rich off of exploiting others. Most people see the top 5% as something they want to be a part of and are working to achieve that goal. Or they’re happy in the middle class and simply respect the success of others that they themselves don’t desire.

Obama is trying to exploit the resentment common among people willing to milk welfare for all it’s worth. They type of person that thinks others owe them something. That type of attitude may be common in poor areas that Obama worked in. But it’s not common among hard working people which make up the majority of Americans.

The idea of taking a handout is an insult for hard working people.

Obama is trying to excuse himself by saying he’s looking out for 95% of Americans in his plan to spread the wealth. And then one day it’ll be 90%. And then 80%. And suddenly you’re forced to give handouts because you make $50,000.

You’d be a fool to think it’s going to stop at $250,000 ($200,000 for singles). With Obama’s nearly $1 trillion in additional spending he’s going to have to dig deeper and deeper into the pockets of Americans so he can spread the wealth to those who pay little to nothing.

I’m confident that Americans are not ready for Socialism. I’m not so confident that people can get past their blind hatred for Bush and McCain to ensure that Obama doesn’t even have a chance to enact his socialist goals. They’d rather risk that the top 5% of earners in America be subject to the price of socialism than have four more years of a Republican in office.