Warning: Contains political views. I encourage thoughts and comments, just no attacking. I sincerely want to understand the other side!
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I totally agree the video is one sided, but it also seemed accurate. So I read the article, although it was kind of wordy for me, I think I still managed to get it. It's sort of saying a lot of what I'd already read about it, I could be missing something, but I didn't seem to see any good reason for him to not vote for protection.
On top of that, him supporting abortion rights period does it for me. I have a hard time seeing any other issue more important than this in any election, although taxes and health care take 2nd and 3rd place!
**Tangent...I still don't get the whole spread the wealth around bit, I've asked a number of people and I haven't found any reasons that seem fair for taxing the higher income brackets. Josh likes to call it legal stealing:). I'm definitely open to hear thoughts on that from anyone and I'll honestly try to be open-minded about it.
Tangent's over.
I know it's not anything new to say, but I feel like if Obama is for abortion or at least the rights of it, I really question his moral compass and knowing he has different judgement on lives than I do I'm guessing I'll disagree with him on other less significant judgements.
My other concern if Obama is elected is that he might have the chance to appoint a new judge and that might have potential to affect Roe v. Wade right?
Obama seems like a much more enjoyable dinner guest than McCain and I honestly think he and his wife seem like really nice, fun people. I don't really care for McCain and I think his whole meeting up with his wife story is just sleezy, which does make me wonder about his own moral compass a little, but his marriage and commitment since have made me think he's maybe made some changes. I just happen to agree more with his stances on things than Obama.
I totally agree with working on prevention/education with abortions. I've heard of so many regrets from them and I would assume a lot of them don't know the details of even what they do to the baby during an abortion but also the emotional trauma they might go through from it.
I sincerely appreciate the comments. I too tried to be fair while still having my opinion, but I probably didn't do as good of a job as Rach. Sometimes I botch it in my articulation when I'm really trying to understand the other side but just can't seem to!
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On a side note, I took the girls to the voting place today and there were 7 stations and only one other guy in there voting. I hope it gets busier as the day goes on! Don't get me wrong, I loved having no lines. Hazel was excited to get the "I Voted Today" sticker and mentioned voting a few times on the way out. I love it! Today in preschool I taught about flags and we made little flags in the spirit of patriotism. Happy Voting!
11 comments:
totally agree with you! I even think Obama would be a better dinner guest. I just can't agree on his social OR fiscal policies. I could go on FOREVER but I've got kids to feed so I'll leave it at that.
Cec
The abortion issue is such a tough one. Obama did have some interesting words about his stance on abortion at the conference at Saddleback - I'll have to e-mail it to you... it's kind of long.
To be fair on the other side, McCain is just as scary - maybe even more scary when it comes to women's reproductive rights. He has repeatedly said that human rights begin at conception. Sounds nice, but if he actually legislates that, all forms of hormonal birth control would then be considered methods of abortion. He also has no stipulations in his pro-life stance for health of the mother/rape/incest. Nothing. So, if something happens that means you have to choose between the mother's life or the baby's life, baby wins with John McCain. He also has repeatedly voted against birth control being covered by insurance. He's also for abstinence only education - which again, sounds fine and dandy, but seriously? Abstinence only education would only increase abortions!
Like I said, it isn't an easy issue. BUT.... there are lots and lots of other issues out there. Abortion doesn't top my list of issues... things like the economy/social security/health care top my list. Unfortunately, my views on what we should do are split between the two candidates!!
(sorry for the novel)
Hey Afton... First, I didn't watch the video. I just didn't want to be depressed but I get the general idea of what it was about. Really, I second Rachael's comments in the last post. Abortion is not the main issue for me. I want to also second Lyn's comment. She's brings up so many good points. Obviously, I'm for abstinence, but abstinence only education has been shown to NOT work. If we really want to have fewer abortions in this country we should teach proper birth control along with abstinence education AND provide free birth control. I think that would go a long way to limiting unwanted pregnancy. And then as Rach said... educate girls about what goes on in an abortion and about adoption. There are SO SO SO many families who want to adopt. It breaks my heart that it's so easy to get an abortion and yet so difficult for those who can't get pregnant to adopt.
wow, i had my comment all ready, and then read the previous three, and now i'm rethinking. i was going back and forth between the two for a while, but i must admit that pro-abortion because what if his daughter "makes a mistake" (from autumn's post a while back) really caused me to lean more towards mccain. (by the way, did you read the article on adoption/abortion in oct. ensign? a-mazing. seriously) arg. i wish i could just go bury my head until all of this is over!
great discussion. I already gave my opinion in the last post, so I won't reiterate, but I think you're discussing all this in a very even-handed way. Kudos to you for sponsoring an interesting and not mud-slinging forum here!
Here’s something to address your tanget: (Sorry about the novel, email me if you want clarification on my points, I was trying to make it as short as I could.)
Just to start: We all agree that the government needs money to function, and therefore needs to tax in some form.
As to your exact question: I guess that really depends on what you define “fair” as.
If fair is a flat tax, then everybody pays the same percentage of what they make, okay that seems fair. In the most fair case, you would have to have no loop holes, no exceptions for children, or small businesses or purchasing a home, or investing money for retirement, or going to school, or a myriad of other major things that drive our economy. There would be no advantages to donating money to charity.
Here is another senario that seems fair. Have the government figure out how much money they need to function, then divide it by the number of people in the country. That would be how much each person would owe. Multiply that number by the number in your family, that would be how much you owe. Everybody pays the exact same amount, fair, right? Lots and lots of poor people would end up in jail.
How about a property tax? Usually as your income goes up, so goes your property tax, right? Well what about the old lady that bought her house for $6,000 in 1959 and it is now worth $300,000? Should she be forced to move because she can’t pay the taxes? Or the small businesses in similar situations that has to shut their doors because they can’t pay their property taxes. Both of these scenarios have happened in Texas.
An argument I’ve heard against the current way of doing things is something like this: 5% of the highest paid individuals pay 60% of the taxes (I didn’t check numbers, I’m just illustrating something) So that’s not fair right, okay, well let’s make it fair, let’s have the top 5% pay 5% of the taxes, and the bottom 5% pay 5% of the taxes. What happens to the lower 5%? They get a go directly to jail card because the tax burden is too much. While the extreme rich get to buy a third home in the south of France (okay that was hyperbole, but this was getting way too serious and it makes my point).
So what should we do? Many of the scenarios would land a fair portion of us in jail, just because we are poor, or force us from a home that we could afford when we bought it, but the taxes have become overwhelming. I don’t think any of that is fair.
So, why is it set up the way it is? Let’s start with the flat tax (option #1 above). Many of the poor don’t make enough to get by, so, let’s make the taxes they pay 0% of their income so that they have as many resources as they can to get by. Then, we have to tax every body else higher. So what about the middle class? If the tax rate is too high, then they don’t have enough to get by either, so we lower the tax rate for them a little bit at the lower end of the middle class and have it go up towards the higher end. Ultimately, shifting the burden once more towards the people that have more resources. We are left with what we currently have, a progressive income tax.
The Alternative Minimum Tax was created to stymie abuse of the tax breaks. Many upper income people were working the tax breaks so well that they were paying a far less amount (amount not percentage) in income taxes than many of the poor and lower to mid middle class. So, an alternative minimum tax is the level at which you can’t go any lower. Granted the law should have included a link to inflation, but congress seems to pass a patch every year, making it so that only the high end of the middle class and the extremely wealthy are affected by it.
Then there are the regressive taxes (where high income people are taxed at a lower rate than people who make less): FICA and sales tax. FICA is figured at 15.7%, but only up to $92000, then the rate drops to 2% for everything about $92000. The sales tax. Lower income people end up paying a much higher rate of their income in sales tax. A higher percentage of their money is spent on goods and services. Many states don’t tax food (Texas being one of them) to try to aleviate some of the tax burden on the poor. (I don’t have time to verify these rates, I’m pulling them out of my memory, but I think they are pretty close to accurate). Correct me if they are completely off.
Capital Gains is another issue.
Many of the rich make a large chunk of their income in the Capital Gains category. Currently the capital gains rate is 15%, which is much, much lower than most of these people would pay if the income were received on a W-2.
As long as we are talking about fairness, is it really fair to be poor? Our incomes, just like everything else are driven by market forces, supply and demand. A history PhD has a hard time finding a job because we have more of them than we need, and when they do they don’t make much. But math PhDs has many job choices and much higher salaries than the history PhDs. Education is not the issue, more mathematicians are demanded, so their pay is better. There will always be cases like this in a capitalistic economy, that is just how it is. There are of course more examples I could give, like the teachers that qualify for WIC and medicaid, but I’m sure you get the idea.
Redistributing the wealth is all about people that don’t have enough getting what they need to survive and people who have way more than enough giving of their excess. It’s sucks that it is forced, but the market isn’t good at distributing wealth, it has to be helped and many people wouldn’t give otherwise forcing the care of the poor more onto the people who really care. Again, is that really fair? I think that it is in our best interest to take care of the poor. I think the government is a good way to do it. It helps people maintain anonymity. I can go apply for medicaid or WIC or get EIC or whatever and very few people have to know about it. It is embarrassing for many people to admit that they need help. Many poor people don’t feel that they can ask a religious organization to help them. The LDS Church for example will only give the kind of help these other programs provide to its members. The Church does do other humanitarian work, but there are guidelines to determining how church funds are used. Using the government also sets up places for people to go, half of the struggle is knowing where to get the resources you need.
I can’t begin to imagine using all of the money that my husband makes, just to live on. Even though we live in an area with a high cost of living, our living expenses are a little more than half of what he makes. Why shouldn’t I be taxed more and have it go to help people who don’t have enough?
When we were in graduate school, we were about 20% short every month. I was extremely grateful for those programs, my kids needed health care and there is no way that I could have afforded the premiums that Rice was asking ($1000+ a month plus 20%). We simply couldn’t get enough loans to cover it, and at the time we were planning to get a job that pays way less than the one we have. I’ll gladly pay taxes because the government provides a lot of services, roads, schools, etc. that we all need. I’m pretty sure that you personally know people that have benefited from these programs, besides me.
Personally, I don’t like the stair step approach that we have now, but I think the idea is okay. I would rather there were some mathematical function that increased your tax rate as your taxable income increased. It would be a difficult thing to work out, but I think it could work.
People will always take advantage of such programs, I don’t think that will ever change, and you can’t legislate all the abuse away because then you start cutting out people who really need help. I’d rather help those that really need help and accept the fact that there are dishonest people who take advantage.
Arlynda... wow! thank you for that explanation. I just learned a lot!
Something I forgot to mention about the flat tax is that it would cause the situation for low income persons to be even more dire than it is now as they would suddenly owe, I think the estimate is around 15% of their income in taxes. The 15% is the amount the government would have to flat tax to maintain current revenue values. Once again, I haven't checked the numbers in a while, they might be different now.
This is just something to consider as well with taxes - not taxing income and then taxing according to the item being purchased. I have started to think about this a little more - if we taxed certain items more than others: example food wouldn't be taxed but a yacht or second home would have a high tax rate, but cars and property and other items such as clothes being taxed at another rate - this way the rich who buy more of an item pays more in taxes and a person who doesn't have as much income who natural doesn't buy a lot of these items doesn't pay as much in taxes. I don't know the percentages with what i am thinking - but it is something i think might be a better method - because not only does it have the rich paying more in taxes but it also encourages living within our means.
Just another thought on taxes.
I wish I knew my scriptures well enough to quote this. When this has been playing over in my mind the last few days, I think of Dad telling me about a scripture that tells of the last days when men would become numb to the sanctity of life.
Lyn and Rachael, the pro choice/pro life argument is MUCH MUCH more than anything to do with overturning Roe V Wade. I don't think that will ever happen. Still, an official's position on it leads to other votes. Here's a link showing Obama's positions on anything to do with being pro choice.
http://www.ontheissues.org/Social/Barack_Obama_Abortion.htm
Obviously the election is over, I'm just pointing out that it doesn't stop at R V W.
I think we have many issues facing us, but I don't think that any is more sacred than life. I only skimmed the article-for now anyway. I have come to accept that I will disagree with people about many political issues, but I don't think there's adequate defense for this practice, legal bundling or not.
This link goes into many details about FOCA. There's a LOT to it, even forcing Catholic hospitals to perform this. (Super easy to read bulleted format.)
http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/16236
Sarra, I've watched the video since its been posted on youtube? Hm? One of my friends wrote me back when I shared it with her and said she couldn't watch it. Though the image shown on the page might make you think its graphic, that's the only fetal picture shown. The final minute is disturbing but the rest is neutral. Katrina or anyone else, I think if you can't stomach it (and I could see why), I still highly recommend you listen to it (pull up another screen). Its a nurse's account of what is allowed in hospitals and Obama's take on FOCA. I highly recommend the read/listen.
Wow, so many thoughts! Thanks for all of them and keeping it "clean." :) I don't even know where to begin, mostly, I want to look into some more research on the abstinence ed and the tax plans Arlynda talked about--holy cow girl, you know your stuff! I just wrote new posts for my thoughts.
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