United States Presidential Election 2008 - Official Discussion Thread

Originally posted by xmarksthespot
As far as I'm aware the grand total amounts to somewhere along the lines of $600 billion. Which is of course a huge amount in itself. But still only accounts for a reduction in discretionary spending of around $100-120 billion dollars.

Which brings us back to that both tax policies will either require other large budget cuts or further increases in your national debt. And as far as I can tell it will likely be the latter.

I.e. as I said earlier, both plans seem crap, Obama's is just less crap.

As I said Reason argues there is a huge amount of hidden costs. And it of course doesn't include the general budget of the armed forces. Oh...and most of their concern, the Pentagon apparently doesn't keep a ****ing tab...which is just ridiculous if you think about it.

Yeah, but for some reason I doubt any President will actually decrease the General Armed Forces budget... regardless of whether the Iraq war ends in the near term.

Originally posted by xmarksthespot
Yeah, but for some reason I doubt any President will actually decrease the General Armed Forces budget... regardless of whether the Iraq war ends in the near term.

Originally posted by Robtard
You're also over simplifying it. Sure the increase (or part of) will be passed onto the consumer in some areas, but there is a limit into how high a gallon of milk is going to cost.

And that is the point were the dollar falls.

See, Shaky gets it. 👆

I'm not actually sure what Shaky meant by his sentence, so I'm not sure exactly what he gets. Although I'll preface this with the comment that I'm in no way an economist.

Robtard says milk prices can only go so high before reaching a limit.
Shaky says (I think) that at that point currency debasement begins?

Which, seems rather flawed since presumably currency debasement would have contributed to the inflation of "the price of milk" which I'm assuming we're using as a term to cover goods and services, if indeed it were to spiral out of control.

Also assuming that personal income tax policy is going to override basic market principles of supply and demand in affecting things like commodity prices.

Originally posted by Grand-Moff-Gav
"Take your riches, disperse them to the poor and then, come follow me."

Not mandatory. I'm sure Jesus would believe the same thing. Otherwise, where is the goodness in the act?

Originally posted by Bardock42
Actually, I am pretty sure that even libertarians would concede that Obama will probably be less of a strain on the economy than McCain.

Originally posted by BigRed
I view them as equally detrimental to the economy.

Originally posted by Bardock42
It's a bad choice, either way.

And am still not convinced to even remotely consider voting for them, much less actually doing it.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
And that is the point were the dollar falls.

It's already tied in, milk isn't going to cost $10.00 a gallon and your dollar is somehow going to be worth $0.78 in America, dollar is a dollar in the U.S.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Meh, 3 quarters then.

I'm actually not opposed about this. You may have said it with partial jest, but we'd still be spending well past the hundreds of billions of dollars mark with only a quarter of what we spend now. Wouldn't that STILL be more than any other nation, though?

(Edit- Damn the above statements came out rather clunky...oh well..)

Just think of the improvements to health-care and education we could do with all that money...

But we'd also lose a lot of government revenue from selling stuff to other countries.

"Just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can't constraint the exercise of that right" - Sen. Barack Obama (D - IL)

Waaaaaaaat?!

Gallup has dropped Obama's lead to 2%

http://www.gallup.com/home.aspx

The numbers come from a poll taken Wed-Fri. Some people had and hadn't seen the Palin/McCain speeches. A poll taken Fri - Sun will be out on Monday to see if there is any more bounce for McCain coming from the convention.

At this point though, he seems to have at least stolen back the bounce Obama got from his convention.

Realclearpolitics also has taken several polls, averaged them, and come up with a 2 point Obama lead at this point.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html

This is compiled of 2 intervies from Wed - Fri, 1 from Tue - Thur, 1 from Mon - Wed, and 1 from before the RNC even began.

Will be interesting to see where we are at the end of next week.

Originally posted by KidRock

[B]"Just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can't constraint the exercise of that right" - Sen. Barack Obama (D - IL)

Waaaaaaaat?! [/B]

But it's also a sack of lies.

Does it not bother anyone else hearing Obama come out and say a state or local government can constrain a right given to Americans in the Constitution?

Source?

538.com's Win Percentage (likelihood that Obama or McCain will win) currently at Obama: 71.3%, McCain: 28.7%

Originally posted by Robtard
It's already tied in, milk isn't going to cost $10.00 a gallon and your dollar is somehow going to be worth $0.78 in America, dollar is a dollar in the U.S.

in currency exchange? ah well the dollar equals a double wormburger from mcdonalds..lol

Originally posted by sithsaber408
Gallup has dropped Obama's lead to 2%

http://www.gallup.com/home.aspx

The numbers come from a poll taken Wed-Fri. Some people had and hadn't seen the Palin/McCain speeches. A poll taken Fri - Sun will be out on Monday to see if there is any more bounce for McCain coming from the convention.

At this point though, he seems to have at least stolen back the bounce Obama got from his convention.

Realclearpolitics also has taken several polls, averaged them, and come up with a 2 point Obama lead at this point.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html

This is compiled of 2 intervies from Wed - Fri, 1 from Tue - Thur, 1 from Mon - Wed, and 1 from before the RNC even began.

Will be interesting to see where we are at the end of next week.

I expect them to be about even throughout the rest of the race.

Though I think Obama will get some bounces from the debates, I think he'll do well.