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Obama's prime-time ad skips over budget realities.

In the spirit of the fairness doctrine,
here is some much needed "equal time" for this forum:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081030/ap_on_el_ge/fact_check_obama_ad

Did anyone see this last night?
I found about it, by reading about it on-line, a few hours after it happened!
I would have watched it! had I known it was on..

he needed some advertising FOR his advertisment! ;)
I dont think anyone knew it was on..

im going to watch it right now..

Scot
 
I especially like the SPIN vs. FACTS portion of that page. Heck with the video. The comparisons in what he said and the way it would be is what I like!


A sampling of what voters heard in the ad, and what he didn't tell them:
THE SPIN: "That's why my health care plan includes improving information technology, requires coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions and lowers health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year."

THE FACTS: His plan does not lower premiums by $2,500, or any set amount. Obama hopes that by spending $50 billion over five years on electronic medical records and by improving access to proven disease management programs, among other steps, consumers will end up saving money. He uses an optimistic analysis to suggest cost reductions in national health care spending could amount to the equivalent of $2,500 for a family of four. Many economists are skeptical those savings can be achieved, but even if they are, it's not a certainty that every dollar would be passed on to consumers in the form of lower premiums.

SPENDING... ding, ding, ding, red flag. LOL Spending from where? He "hopes"? Hey, I can hope for a $mil to fall into my lap too. LOL

I forgot, he wants to redistribute the wealth. Redistribute it to medical professionals, software designers, and other large corporations apparently by the sounds of that.
 
I wasn't able to watch TV news for the last week without hearing it hyped (just not what TIME it was actually going to be on). In my area it was 7 PM.

I started watching it right off but it got boring, I can never watch any of those Presidential address/state of the union type things even if I do like or don't like the guy. I really enjoy debates, interviews and press conferences much better - so I got to playing with my MIDI synthesizer programming sounds. :)
 
SPENDING... ding, ding, ding, red flag. LOL Spending from where? He "hopes"? Hey, I can hope for a $mil to fall into my lap too. LOL

I forgot, he wants to redistribute the wealth. Redistribute it to medical professionals, software designers, and other large corporations apparently by the sounds of that.

Read the whole article the same source says McCain is going to increase the deficit too. It six of one half dozen of the other at this point. As long as the deficit goes up it is going to have the same effect on our economy, and it wont be positive trust me on that one.
 
Obama’s infomercial brought home the issues for which he has advocated throughout his campaign, namely tax cuts for the middle class, expanding health care insurance to more people, and encouraging the development of clean energy.

Obama’s health care insurance plan is far better than McCain’s plan. Obama’s plan retains those who now have insurance and offers affordable insurance to those who don’t have it (47 million people). To do that, Obama’s plan creates a huge pool of people who want to buy insurance and gives financial support to qualified people. His plan also requires all children to have insurance. Coverage would be equivalent to coverage for federal employees.

Unlike McCain’s health care insurance plan, Obama’s plan does not have disincentives for employers who are now providing health care insurance to their employees. Under McCain’s plan, some of those employers are expected to terminate the insurance.

Also unlike McCain’s plan, Obama’s plan does not allow insurers to disqualify anyone due to pre-existing conditions (such as diabetes or cancer). Under McCain’s plan, those who have pre-existing conditions either won’t be able to find insurance or they will have to pay so much for it that most of them won’t be able to afford it.

McCain’s plan relies on the free market, which we know from experience has failed -- at least in health care. Some may call Obama’s plan socialism. But in health care, we already have socialism – and it works. It’s called Medicare. I don’t know anyone who qualifies for Medicare who thinks it’s a bad idea.

At this point there are only two choices. It's not enough just to bash one or the other. Comparisons have to be made. Obama's plan has its flaws, but it's by far the better of the two.
 
Anyone who takes any campaign ad at face value for either side should be slapped.
 
Read the whole article the same source says McCain is going to increase the deficit too. It six of one half dozen of the other at this point.

That's because they're both politicians! LOL It's just a matter of picking the lesser evil. Right now, I favor the one who isn't looking to drastically change or modify the Second Amendment. A stark contrast to the other's past voting record.
 
Amen finch!
 
The information from my previous post is taken from the Obama health care plan and the McCain health care plan as described on their respective websites. If you discount that information as being unusable, please indicate the sources that you use to make decisons about the candidates.
 
  • #10
That's because they're both politicians! LOL It's just a matter of picking the lesser evil. Right now, I favor the one who isn't looking to drastically change or modify the Second Amendment. A stark contrast to the other's past voting record.

Wait a minute I thought we were talking about budgets here. Is Obama going to make money by taking away the second amendment? If not you brought up something completely irrelevant in an attempt to change the subject. Please explain to me how the second amendment changes the situation with how our presidential candidates will handle the budget?
 
  • #11
I'm not changing the subject. All of the issues go hand in hand because they have a direct influence on the morale of the nation. Make waves and people quit spending. It's like going to a restaurant and ordering water, but saying hold the wet. It doesn't work that way. You can't have liquid water without the wet. Can't separate one from the other.

It's not just about guns, it's the major change all at once, in any area. As long as that change is good, ok. But if it negatively affects the morale of segments of the population, spending will go down. And you need spending to keep an economy afloat.

Now here is something else that caught my eye, it looks great on the outside, and I'm sure he thinks it's good too...
"Supports federal programs to protect rural economy. (May 2004)"
http://www.ontheissues.org/Barack_Obama.htm#Budget_+_Economy

But it was either Dateline or 20/20 that did an investigation a while back into the impact of farm subsidies on rural areas. The rural districts actually did better without them than with them. I forget the data behind it, but it was well documented.

EDIT: I found it online...
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=6050559&page=1

"This year, Congress passed another $300 billion farm bill. President Bush vetoed this farm bill -- twice. Sen. John McCain opposed it, calling it "bloated legislation that will do more harm than good." But Sen. Barack Obama supported it."

......

"Actually, a government study found that the more farm aid a county got, the more likely it was to lose population.

Why would that be? Because subsides make it harder for smaller farmers to compete.

'Farm subsidies go to very, very wealthy farmers, not the ma and pa farm,' economist George Mason University's Walter Williams said. 'It's these huge agribusinesses that get the big subsidies."

It's another vote for big government and big corporation. Not a vote for thriving communities. And it doesn't redistribute the wealth as he's famous for saying. It makes the wealthy wealthier.

I do have family members who farm, and they get no subsidies. They aren't rich or even well off and do have to work at another job away from home. While they have to do that, the huge agribusinesses are getting subsidies. Though I don't personaly farm, I still hold the idea that anyone who eats should consider those who produces their food. Without them, you don't eat. I would rather my food comes from smaller farms than large factory farms. The approach is more hands on and food is more easily monitored.

"Bloated legislation" doesn't help those who need it and it's clearly a part of Obama's economic policy. So he can give the middle class all the tax cuts he claims he would, but giving $300 billion to large corporations hurts, not helps, middle class rural communities that are the bread basket and backbone of our nation.
 
  • #12
So what now you want to go back to budgets? are we discussing budgets and the economy or the second amendment? Also you are still making a six one half dozen the other argument. To try to say Obama is more for big business and McCain is going to have economic policies that help the middle class is laughable. You are aware he is a Republican right? He is proposing a 200 billion dollar tax cut including 4 billion to big oil companies, one of which just set the record for the most profit in a quarter for any US company ever, and you want to say Obama is for big business. As for bloated spending the unlimited (most likely 4 years +) commitment in Iraq that McCain is standing for is going to cost us as the current rate(10 billion/month) up to 480 billion dollars over his presidency.That seems like a pretty frivolous waste of money to me, unless of course you are in the defense industry in which case you will be in place to make a small fortune. Again as I stated before both of these candidates are going to deepen the national debt, one through spending one through cutting income.

What irrelevant topic would you like to bring up this time, abortion maybe? I mean since this topic which explicitly uses the word budget in the title clearly shouldnt stick to the topic which it claims to discuss.
 
  • #13
>What irrelevant topic would you like to bring up this time>

I'm sorry that you fail to see how policies regarding distributing $300 billion to large companies pushing small business under is irrelevant to the budget. If you don't wish to consider those communities, I guess you can grow and produce 100% of your own food. Might be worth doing anyway as fewer and larger producers make more food and will be able to ask any price they see fit.

Since you don't see how it will affect the general public, look at it this way; more smaller producers = more competition for lower prices. Fewer produces with huge companies = less competition, a cornered market, and higher food prices.


>I mean since this topic which explicitly uses the word budget in the title clearly shouldnt stick to the topic which it claims to discuss.>

I did state my view on the subject. The topic clearly says, "Obama's prime-time ad skips over budget realities." Which it did, and this is one part it left out. You didn't even address the issue of the $300 billion in spending (yes, part of the US budget) which didn't help those who need it, you just went on to bash McCain. Which is fine if he's who we were talking about, but the thread is about Obama's skip over budget realities.

Did you even read the entire article and see how useless that legislature was? People who own suburban homes on x-farm land are receiving the subsidies for not even farming anything. One lady interviewed said she never even questioned the check she receives every year, but it's nice. The big companies are also receiving subsidies. The only ones left out of receiving anything from the budget are the ones who actually need it.

This isn't just in the past in 2004 when the decision was made, it's still going on. This is perfectly relevant to the topic. $300 billion in useless spending from the budget was skipped over.
 
  • #14
I addressed the fact that McCain is connected to the defense industry, which if you look into is just as corrupt and bloated as the Farm burea is. I agree that the farming subsidies program is a joke and actually makes the process of farming more rediculous and encourages farmers to do things like plant tons of corn and then pays them the next year not to plant it instead of encouraging diversification of crop production. My point in what I have addressed here is that McCain creates the same kind of problems that Obama does just through a different method. Yes I didnt address that one bill you brought up but you didn't address the tax cuts McCain is going to enact to help the extremely large corporations. I was just presenting a counter point to your example of Obama spending money friverously with the way McCain is going to reduce the income of the country by cutting taxes for corporations which clearly is someone being for big business more than the farm bill which was mismanaged was. Plus to me what people say they plan to do is more important in my mind.

This all really makes me wish we had a viable third party here in the US.

And I will admit I got a little over sarcastic with the end of my last post and I apologize for that.
 
  • #15
>but you didn't address the tax cuts McCain is going to enact to help the extremely large corporations.>

Sometimes I leave things up to being implied. I'm bad at that. My attempt at that was where I said Obama can make all of the tax cuts he says he will, but... (as though McCain won't for the average guy). Maybe I would make a good politician! LOL

Perhaps Obama's spending on big corporations and McCains tax cuts for them is just two sides of the same coin.


>This all really makes me wish we had a viable third party here in the US. >

We both agree there!

>And I will admit I got a little over sarcastic with the end of my last post and I apologize for that.>

And I for the 2nd amendment, but I really do see things like that maybe (perhaps indirectly) affecting the morale of the country, affecting the economy, and ultimately the budget because a budget is only good as long as they funds are there. Maybe just my point of view.
 
  • #16
Anyone who takes any campaign ad at face value for either side should be slapped.
Good point. :-))

The Republican Party, historically known for being fiscally responsible (erroneously?), has lost all vestigial credibility in this area with their record over the past 8 years. Now, in the twilight of their rule, they've turned our capitalist economy into a save-the-large-corporations-at-any-cost socialistic haven. Scary stuff. :0o:

If the polls have any credibility, we're about to enter a diametrically-opposing, ideological morass with a Democratic chief executive and Democratic Party majority in both bodies of congress. Scary stuff. :0o:

Have we lost the opportunity to have a moderate, middle-ground government - one where the fringe-elements of the right & the left are unhappy but the big lump in the population bell-curve is reasonably satisfied (& employed)? :scratch:
 
  • #17
>a Democratic chief executive and Democratic Party majority in both bodies of congress. Scary stuff.>

Yes, that's the way laws of all sorts (including spending and budgeting guidelines) get passed willy nilly.
 
  • #18
Obama 60,000. Palin 3,500. McCain 1,000. Those are the crowd numbers at recent rallies held by the candidates. Obama and Palin both appeared yesterday in Columbus, Ohio, but in different locations. McCain held his rally this morning in Tampa, Florida. Even Fox “News” had a difficult time talking about the small McCain crowd.
 
  • #19
I didn't watch the prime-time ad. Hell, I don't even know what prime-time is. Still, Obama has a lot more money than McCain. Seems logical to spend it on whatever will help his campaign.
 
  • #20
Socialism2.jpg
 
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