Barack Obama is Wrong for America

With the presidential conventions fast approaching, it is difficult to imagine either Republicans or Democrats being very enthusiastic about their presidential nominees. While acknowledging that John McCain is anything but the ideal Republican candidate, the country faces a bigger problem with Barack Obama representing the Democratic Party.

First things first, Barack Obama is to be commended for out-campaigning Hillary Clinton. He understood what fuels politics and that fuel is money. He is reported to have outperformed Hillary in the fundraising department by harnessing the power of the internet. Somehow he managed to get the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Ted Kennedy, and Tom Hanks to come out publicly in favor of him. Tom Hanks has an interesting video infomercial for Obama on You-Tube. When Oprah decided to choose Barack Obama in favor of Hillary Clinton, her reasons included what she claimed would be a "change in the way Washington does business," by casting her lot in with her fellow home-stater.

But now we advance to what Barack Obama is really all about and why he is the wrong choice in 2008 for president of the United States. Some people forget that what really advanced Obama's stock in the Democratic Party was the speech he gave at the 2004 Democratic Convention. He came across as very smooth and polished to the extent that few people argue the fact that he has the tools of an accomplished orator. The problem is with his message. When you try to decipher what his message is, you get lost. He says he wants to "change the way Washington does business," and "to make Washington cool again."

Along comes Rush Limbaugh and his so-called Operation Chaos. The purpose of Operation Chaos was to keep the Democratic primaries going since Republicans had already chosen their nominee in John McCain. It has been well-documented that in past elections, Democrats would cross over and vote in Republican primaries when their nominee got chosen early, in order to pick the candidate they thought could best be defeated by the Democratic nominee. Ostensibly, many Republican voters voted for Hillary in many of the Democratic primaries, not so much because they thought she was the weaker candidate against McCain, but to keep Democratic party primaries going with the thought that the Democrats might have to spend precious time at their convention in Denver choosing their nominee. The point of all this, is that during the time Hillary remained in contention for the number of delegates needed to claim the nomination, Barack Obama was exposed as just another politician, and not a true "change agent."

Some of the reasons for rejecting Barack Obama as the next president of the United States have nothing to do with whether he was ever a Muslim or a Communist under the tutelage of Frank Marshall Davis while Obama was in Hawaii. It's interesting that the constant claim in e-mails and other anti-Obama forums that Obama was a Muslim continue to surface, even in the recent controversial cover of The New Yorker magazine, in which a caricature of him appears with him dressing like a Muslim. The claim of him being a Communist was apparently unsubstantiated enough to the point where Matt Drudge wouldn't run with it. Frankly, Obama seems to thrive on negative publicity. If anything should have been the kiss of death, it should have been the revelation of his twenty-year association with his now former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The media did an outstanding job of exposing Jeremiah Wright for who he is, and all Barack Obama had to do was announce he was severing ties with the Rev. Wright. The electorate's memories in such matters is short, so it is unlikely that people will even remember who Rev. Jeremiah Wright was in November. But in one "sermon" by the Rev. Wright, broadcast in sufficient context on TV, Rev. Wright delivered one of the most hate-filled messages saying such things as "the government lied about Pearl Harbor," and that the government lied about a whole host of things ad nauseum. What ever happened to preaching about Jesus Christ and him crucified?

No, the voters don't need to concern themselves with whether Barack Obama was a Muslim or anything else. His agenda speaks for itself. The man wants to raise taxes, plain and simple. This is no small surprise, coming from the Democrats. The problem is, that he claims he is only going to soak the rich and that the middle class will remain unaffected. How does this represent "change?" He wants to impose new taxes on the sale of your home of 28% of the selling price, whereas previously the first $500,000 was exempt. He wants to almost triple the tax on dividends to investors, and reinstate inheritance taxes. Obama is all about redistributing, or trying to redistribute money from the wealthy to the lower classes. The wealthy, it seems, almost always have ways of shifting assets or hiring creative accountants or tax attorneys to avoid many of these proposed tax increases from ever having much effect on them.

A classic example of this is our good friend and former Democratic candidate, John Edwards. Here is a guy who figured out how to shield millions of dollars from the Medicare tax by creating his own subchapter S corporation. With the top 5% of all income earners in the United States paying at least 50% of all the incomes taxes according to the IRS, does Obama really think his draconian tax hikes are going to deliver the good life to the middle and lower class that he's promising? There aren't enough rich people around to make this happen, and if an investor is forced to pay more than double the taxes on dividends, chances are that investor will reinvest his dividends or switch to another investment before the new taxes take effect in order to avoid that penalty. Same goes for someone thinking about selling their house. If the homeowner faces a 28% immediate income tax on the sale of his house, he might just decide to hang on to the house, or wait for repeal of the tax during a subsequent presidential administration. Obama plans to raise taxes on ALL classes of taxpayers, not just the rich. A single person earning $30,000 currently pays about $4,500. Under Obama's plan, that same $30,000 wage earner would pay $8,400! Surely, Obama doesn't consider someone earning $30,000 a year to be rich, does he? Like one source quipped, "If you vote for Obama, all you'll have left is change (meaning the change in your pocket!)."

About the only issue that really distanced Barack Obama from Hillary Clinton was his opposition to the Iraq war. This issue seems to be playing well with the Democratic party faithful. But even Howard Dean, an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 2004, was against the war. Apparently, the hard-core left wants us out of Iraq at any cost. But again, is this really offering the American voters any real "change?" The bottom line is that Obama isn't really about "change." He just wants to put a new face, his, on the same old tried-and-failed liberalism. To make sure we define our terms, liberalism simply refers to a constant anti-war policy, coupled with a class envy agenda, in this case, a "soak the rich and redistribute to the poor" agenda. Regardless of what political stripe you are, every time you raise taxes, the Treasury always takes in less money. When the tax rates are cut, the Treasury takes in more money. So Obama's agenda doesn't seem to be about change at all, but rather, it aims at getting even. Getting even with Republicans who stole the election in 2000, according to the Democrats. Getting even with Republicans by choosing the first black presidential nominee. Obama promised to be this great unifier but he only seems to campaign actively among white voters, assuming that he has the black vote already wrapped up. If he has an agenda that represents change, he simply hasn't made the case. The cliche is rather tired and worn, but Barack Obama is simply another tax-and-spend Democrat who wants to outdo Franklin Delano Roosevelt in terms of entitlements at the expense of the rich. The problem is that soaking the rich hasn't worked in the past and won't work now.