Like I said, if Obama does what he says, I'm NOT overly freaked out and think I even said that (though not in that way). I simply don't trust him (nor do I in particular trust McCain) to do it. I think I said I keep getting a Bill Clinton middle class tax cut feeling from Obama - sounds great, appeals to people, but never happened, nor do I believe Clinton was ever serious about one.

Drawdown of troops to increase in Afghanistan? This I have no problem with as the Iraqis are doing an increasingly better job taking charge of their own security. No problem whatsoever as long as it is done gradually. Makes sense.

Corporate taxes. There is no such thing as a corporate tax. Corporate taxes are passed along to the consumer as a price increase. Unless you start capping profit margins, there is no net positive effect to the consumer. If corporate taxes cause price increases to an extent that it costs the middle class more than their tax breaks - a very real possibility - then what happens is the economy worsens, it gets herder for the middle class, and the politicians get to portray the corporations as the bad guys and pointing to their middle class tax cuts. Obama knows this and I feel this is where he is being very disingenuous and simply pandering. This does bother me.

Renewable energies are wonderful and McCain would invest no less. I just think that Obama is being disingenuous here as well. For all the cries of drilling doesn't dive us a drop of oil for 10 years, how long will it take to get nuclear power plants online with all the environmental restrictions? There are reasons we haven't built any. I'm all for them. Best form of energy there is. How long will it take to develop these alternative forms? Reliance on those is a long, long time away. Even then, the primary source of of energy needs, being transportation, isn't going to be using clean electricity for a long time. I'd feel better if Obama acknowledged that. Obama once said gas prices only bothered him because of how quickly they went up. That bothers me. His policies don't, I just think they are very incomplete and that McCain has a better handle on the immediate needs as well as the long term sneeds.

McCain talks that way to pretty much everyone. Certainly not racial. I think it boils down to arrogance.

I'd have to agree that it's just general arrogance, which hardly makes it more palatable. He is that way with everyone who isn't fawning over him- note the many, many examples of interview meltdowns and personal interactions with people over his career. He does need to practice smiling in the mirror; every time I see him flash that taut sort of grimace he thinks passes as a smile I get concerned about his fiber intake.

Anyone who voted for John Kerrey or thinks Joe Biden is a great pick and is offended by the arrogance of McCain and how he talks down to people...well, it's probably an issue of prefering the candidate and their policies more than an issue of arrogance. I find Obama to be incredibly arrogant as well, and have voiced that, but McCains bothers me less because he's my candidate of choice.

That just makes me sad.

Leo, we've been over this. You can deny it all you want, but it's one of the most basic principles of supply and demand economics and is mathematical truth. Taxes levied against the supply side are NOT proportionately compensated for in consumer prices. The more elastic the price of the good, the smaller impact a supply-side tax has on a consumer. It is a function of the slope of the demand curve.

Well, I'm not against Biden per se. I think his experience, especially his foreign policy experience, will make him a fine Vice President. However, if it were up to me to pick Obama's running mate, I would have chosen Richardson, Kucinich, or even Clinton - but that's just because that's who I liked in the primaries. Others have picked up on Biden's apparent arrogance, and his gaffes over the last couple of weeks add fodder to the nasty ad campaigns that are sure to continue over the next month. But if it's Biden, I'm OK with him. Just as I hope that the people choosing to vote Republican are OK with Palin.

I completely disagree, GD. For every source you can cite, I can cite just as many lauded economics professors and experts who say the opposite of what you have said. You're right - we've been over this, and we've each cited our sources, and you have one school of thought, and I have another school of thought.

If you'd like I can go into other reasons why high corporate taxes are a bad idea, but I doubt it would make a difference.

Have you ever owned a business, Leo?

Whatever. The fact remains that Obama made the most salient point in that discussion. On paper we have one of the highest corporate tax rates. But because we let them write anything and everything off, they don't actually pay anywhere close to that rate and the effective rate is actually one of the lowest. That's effed up no matter how you look at it.