During a rally in traditionally red-state Missouri this past Monday (October 20th, 2008) John McCain summed up the primary difference between Barack Obama and himself:

“After months of campaign-trail eloquence, we finally learned what Senator Obama’s economic goal is,” McCain said. “He wants to ‘spread the wealth around.’ He believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that grow our economy and create jobs and opportunities for all Americans. Senator Obama is more interested in controlling who gets your piece of the pie than he is in growing the pie.”

Anyone who is not a blind ideologue and has completed the required reading and homework needed to pass Informed Voter 101, knows that most of Barack Obama's promises fall short on both specifics and transparency.  The foundational details that are available are obscured and require one to gather numbers from diverse sources such as: The Department of Labor, Internal Revenue, Department of Health, General Accounting Office, Social Security Administration and many other sources of official numbers.

A graduate of Informed Voter 101 would also know that wealth is not a fixed, static commodity, but a fluid dynamic commodity that requires generation to maintain and grow.  It is not like butter that can be thinly spread over toast to suite the tastes of the spreader.  Taxation of productivity hampers the generation of wealth.  Obama's redistributionist will not generate wealth but will slow or halt it completely.

While doing your homework:

1. You will discover that most "small business owners" file as individuals and not corporations.

2. You will discover that 67% of all small business profits come from the households that earn more than $250,000. (That is 26 million small businesses)

3. You will discover that Obama has another 6.2% payroll tax on top of the income tax by eliminating the cap on Social Security benefits.  (really 12.4% tax since employer and employee each have a 6.2% tax on payroll).

4. The "Patriot Employer Act" would give a 1 percent tax credit to companies that follow Obama's desired business plan, but also tax "international subsidiaries of "non-patriot" U.S. Companies at Americas 35 percent corporate tax rate.

5. You will discover that there is no "profit percentage" declaration in Obama's "Windfall Profits Tax".  So it is a windfall if a bureaucrat declares it one.  The government will declare what is an "acceptable" profit.  Will that be fairly and evenly spread across industries and companies? What better way to stop growth than to discourage it through a penalty tax for being too successful?

6. If you read Obama's health care plan on his own website you will find, despite his denials in debates, a "penalty" for:

    “Employers that [sic] do not offer meaningful coverage or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees will be required to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of the national plan,”

What objective measuring stick is defined by "meaningful" and "quality"?


There are just six little things that no liberal has yet to even try to explain as being fair.  The closest we get is Obama surrogates claiming that the "rich" have to pay their "fair share".  Here is how top earners pay their "fair share" today under Bush's tax plan:

The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a total of 34.3 percent of all federal income taxes.
The top 5 percent of taxpayers paid a total of 54.4 percent of all federal income taxes.
The top 10 percent of taxpayers paid a total of 65.8 percent of all federal income taxes.
The top 25 percent of taxpayers paid a total of 83.9 percent of all federal income taxes.

The bottom 75 percent of taxpayers pay a grand total of 16.1 percent of all federal income taxes.
(figures are from The Heartland Institute)

So the top 1% pays more than double what the bottom 75% are asked to pay already. 

So ask yourself, is that fair?

Now ask yourself is it time for John McCain to get out the flip chart and just explain this to Americans?  I believe in my heart that there are few who understand this gross disparity today, and most people who believe that "the rich are not paying their fair share" would be ashamed to know just how disproportionately the "rich" contribute to society.