Neither candidate was great. But Mcain was very much the lesser of two evils. I don't follow the reasoning that making over 250,00 dollars makes you a greedy heartless bastard (or is it $200,000, or $140,000, nobody knows anymore). I would very much like to make more than $250,000 dollars someday; heck, I would like to make way more than that. (I'm going to go out on a limb and postulate that if someone came up to any of us offering $200,000 most of us would be greedy and heartless) Does wanting to make that kind of salary make me a greedy heartless bastard, or does that make me a greedy heartless bastard only after I have achieved those goals? Besides, making more than 250,00 dollars doesn't necessarily make someone "wealthy." i.e. depending on expenses, someone making 150,000 may very well have more expendable capital than someone making 250,000 (for example, a small business owner making 250,000 may use his free money to reinvest in his own business, which might even mean employee bonuses). Why is it that an oil company CEO (who actually does something important) making $500,000 – or even 1 million – is a greedy heartless bastard while Oprah Winfrey (who makes about 139 million annually) is just a fantastic person. I honestly don't know any working person who aspires to work at a dead end job without the possibility of promotions and raises. Likewise, I don't see how seeking a job paying 50,000 is less greedy than seeking one with more. Everyone tries to maximize their potential assets. Then we have the notion that the rich and super rich have millions and billions of dollars hidden in jars in the backyard because they don't want other people getting to it. For example, imagine for moment what would happen to Microsoft if Bill Gates tried to liquidate all his substantial assets – hint: bad things. Obama will not help the situation at all. Spreading the wealth doesn't help. Why would I want to work my butt off if all I have to look forward to is being taxed more the harder I work; and having my hard earned money redistributed by those in the government who think they are better qualified to decide who can use my money than me. The honest truth is that most CEOs and rich people are not little devils; saying they are is just an intellectual copout from real examination of the problem.
Obama's America:
1) Tax those who make more than a certain arbitrary salary, regardless of someone's actual available capital and how they spend the money. After all the very fact that they have the money they do is evidence that they don't deserve it. Not to mention that 86% of all federal income taxes are paid by the top 25% of income earners. To use Jim Moran's words (Democrat), who wants to live in a country laboring under the "simplistic notion that people with wealth are entitled to keep it." That's what he actually said, he essentially trashed the right own and keep property.
2) Tax the coal industry because of "carbon emissions" to the point of bankruptcy. Makes sense, after we don't really need that 49% of all of American electrical power anyway.
3) Nationalize healthcare. Fantastic, then we can have free healthcare! It will suck, and if you need it you won't be able to get to it in time, but at least it will be free. Hmm, you get what you pay for I suppose.
4) The fairness doctrine. This way, Obama can force radio stations to air shows that cost more than they make (because no one listens to them) – yeah, that's fair. But I suppose we can look at it as another way to get at those greedy radio station owners (never mind the employees who are going to get laid off, after all, they probably wanted to own the station someday).
5) We can also look forward to judges appointed on the bases of their empathy toward certain social demographics. To translate, the end of the rule of law. Now days, we don't have to prove someone's guilt, we just have to hope the judge has empathy toward our social position rather than our guilt or innocence before the law.
6) Billions of US tax dollars can be sent to Africa to accomplish nothing.
7) Billions more can be spent on US public education....to accomplish nothing. This is the great irony of government. In the free market, one generally makes more money the better they are at what they do. In government, how much funding something gets goes up the more it fails.
This is of course only a spattering of the plethora of garbage Obama wants to accomplish; that's Obama's freedom. That's change all right; but I find no hope in it.