Time for more discussion of Obama's platform. Going down the list from his website, we get to the next issue, titled "faith". Actually, his website is pretty sparse on this issue. Good for him.
Moving on, it's time for "families".
Support Working Families
Provide a "Making Work Pay Tax Cut" for America's Working Families
I'm always for Tax cuts! Score:
...
Wait a minute, I'm reading the thing, and it's a tax credit, not a tax cut. So, not only are we engaging in socialist income redistribution, we're lying about it. Shame. Score: -3
Provide a living wage
The government is free to provide a living wage to all its employees. It is not, however, allowed to impress its will on private contract negotiations. Yeah, I know, you can't raise a family on 5.25, blah blah, cry cry, kids are starving. You know what? If you're making minimum wage, keep it in your pants. The great majority of minimum wage earners are students and/or teenagers anyway. Plus, he's throwing an increase to the earned income tax credit. Score: -2
Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit
Holy crap, it's got its own section now. Why not, oh, I don't know, eliminate the EITC benefit? If you want to provide welfare, CALL IT WHAT IT IS. Score: -2
Expand Paid Sick Days
Not the government's business. If you want more sick days, you should negotiate for them. Score: -1
Expand the Family and Medical Leave Act
I have a friend who owns a successful business. You've seen his products on TV. Right now, he employs just under 50 people, so that he can dodge things like FLMA. He has a plan for if and when Barack's plan goes into action, and it involves breaking the company into 2 units, each of which will fall under the new 25 employee cap. I don't want to sound cruel - I really think that your employer should be flexible, and work with you to help you take care of your family. I'm not in favor of putting a gun to their head and forcing them to do so. Score: -1
Encourage States to Adopt Paid Leave
For state employees? Great. Of course, you know that's not what he's talking about. Score: -1
Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities
Why is it the job of some old man in Washington to figure out what my kids should be doing at 3:15 PM? Here's a crazy idea for you: reduce the tax burden on American families, and make 'a parent is home' the afterschool program. Either way, none of his business. Score: -1
Expand the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit
Score: -1
Protect against Caregiver Discrimination
So, not only is your employer on the hook if YOU get sick, they're also on the hook if anyone in your family gets sick? Sounds fair! Score: -1
Expand Flexible Work Arrangements
So, the federal government is going to have a program to encourage and help business implement more flexible work hours. Perhaps they'd like to have a program to help me lick my stamps before I sent in the rent checks on my office? Maybe a program to make sure that the coffee we brew for my employees is always rich, but not too rich for sally in accounting, because you know how her stomach gets. Score: -2
Strengthen our Schools
Expand Early Childhood Education
Hey, this program isn't working. The numbers clearly show that the more time a student spends in government education, the further behind they get. The solution? Let's make them spend more time in government education. Score: -1
Improve Public Schools
Service scholarships to recruit and prepare teachers who will work in undeserving districts... can't that be a local or, heaven forfend, a state matter? Why make it a federal issue? He'll provide improvements in education, mentoring, and planning time... o... k? Seems like something best handled at as local a level possible. Listen, I'm getting bored of typing it and you're getting bored of reading it. Score: -3
Reform and Fund No Child Left Behind
Listen, I do agree that NCLB was dumb, and I can give you a lot of specific reasons, if you want. The fact of the matter is that pouring more money on it isn't going to help. It was a good idea: force schools to be ranked, to compete and to improve. You know what the cheapest way to do that is: The Free Market. You bring me a school administrator who is smarter than The Market, and I will gladly swear my fealty to him. Score: -1
Make College More Affordable
Listen, I've been looking to buy a PS3, can I get a program to make a PS3 more affordable? I've got an idea for you: improve the quality of High School education to the point where you don't NEED a college degree for every other career out there, and let the market do its thing. More tax credits. Am I going to get a tax credit for my wife's student loans, which she's still paying? Seems unfair if I don't. I mean, why should I have to pay for the entire amount of her education AND subsidize someone else's? Score: -2
Help American Families Stay Healthy
Provide Universal Health Care and Lower Health Costs
Awesome. Obama's health care policy has its own page, and it will have its own post.
Protect Homeownership
Create a Universal Mortgage Credit
The problem is that 2/3 of Americans don't itemize their taxes. I, for example, don't itemize, because the standard deduction is more than I could come up with. This will probably change when we get a mortgage. Also, it's another credit. Why not just a cut? Why do they insist on making it a credit? Oh, I remember, because we're living in a glorious people's republic. Score: -2
Combat Mortgage Fraud and Subprime Loans
The mortgage industry IS pretty shady, and in need of reform. If the housing bubble hadn't been created, inflated, and then preserved by monetary policy... naaaah, now I'm just dreaming. Shady people were going to flock to mortgage before easy federal money started flowing into their pockets. Score: 0
Create Fund to Help Homeowners Avoid Foreclosures
Listen, listen, I need those foreclosures. Why not a fund to help me buy a foreclosed property? Why protect those people who are, by definition, in breach of contract, and not those people who stand to swoop in and get a nice new living space? I mean, it's called "breach of contract" for a reason. The net result of this would be taking MY money to give to people who have VIOLATED a contract into which they voluntarily entered, so that they can stay in property that I would be otherwise purchasing. Granted, I'm only going to buy one foreclosed house, but the more prices come down, the more I smile. Spending my own money to fight my interests is... well, criminal. Or it should be. Score: -2
Mandate Accurate Loan Disclosure
The only thing more complicated than income taxes is mortgage forms. Score: 3
Close Bankruptcy Loophole for Mortgage Companies
Well, I DO hate loopholes. While you're at it, stop bailing out banks and funds that are involved in this mess. It's just welfare for the rich, and I hate it. Let the market kill off the weaker animals, so that the herd can prosper. Score: 1
Strengthen Families at Home
Strengthen Fatherhood and Families
I like his rhetoric here, and it's a little light on implementation, so I want to give it a pass. We DO need more fathers to be involved in their kids lives, but he will almost certainly cross my GINS line on this one, so... Score: -1
Support Parents with Young Children
If you can't afford to have a kid, shut your legs! It's not rocket surgery! If you're not sure what causes pregnancy, talk to Mother, he's got it down to a science. How's that for support?! Score: -1
Strengthen Retirement Security
Create Automatic Workplace Pensions
So, he's going to force employers to open IRAs for all of their employees. Awesome, awesome to the max. He does realize that those employers will have to either lower wages or raise prices, right? Private contracts, blah blah blah... there's nothing to like here. The role of the president in this sort of thing should end with, perhaps, a letter to our nation's employers, suggesting that it might be a good idea to set something like this up, but they don't really have to. Score: -2
Expand Retirement Savings Incentives for Working Families
Oh boy, it's another Tax Credit! And I don't qualify for it! Happy day! Score: Keep your god damned hands off my money! How's that for a score?!
"If you can't afford to have a kid, shut your legs!"
Sincerely, that's Very Good Advice. But it's not an effective mindset for policy-making.
Poverty without welfare causes child abandonment.
That may sound like the better option to you, but most of us are in no rush to relive the 19th century.
Posted by: Steef at March 13, 2008 05:39 PMThe problem here isn't so much that I want to cause child abandonment as that we have fundamental disconnects.
For example, I think that taking someone's money against their will is wrong, even if you're the government.
More to the point, I think that the disposition of someone's reproductive material is none of the government's business, but once you start putting in welfare programs (and tax credits) that vary depending on that very thing, it becomes the government's business.
I think it's society's business, and we've been round and round on Government Is Not Society before, and you know that we're never going to agree on that one.
In fact, I think that you and I could save a lot of time by ending 70% of our political discussions with a simple "Oh hey, a GINS issue". That would free up a lot of time to talk about when we're going to include Saudi-Israelia as our 52nd state.
Posted by: Naginata at March 13, 2008 08:59 PMUh, thanks for the shoutout, I think.
Feel free to take away my child tax credits. Just don't take away my deductions (for children, charitable gifts, and mortgage interest) and no one will get hurt. :)
Posted by: Jacob/Mother at March 15, 2008 06:27 PMOh, and I agree 100% with the statement "If you can't afford to have a kid, shut your legs!"
If we lived in a monarchy and I was king, I would forbid any man who couldn't prove he was able to support a family to marry. And of course, fornication and adultery would be capital offenses. But I'm not, and the tragic results are self-evident. Sort of.
Posted by: Jacob/Mother at March 15, 2008 06:32 PM