The last debate
10/16/2008

October 16, 2008

The last debate 

Omigod!  Did you see Obama in last night’s debate?  I usually can’t watch; can hardly stand to listen.  I get so agitated I have to pace.  But Obama himself was utterly unflappable, comprehensively cool.  How I wish I could be like that!  I froth and blather like McCain, who yammered again and again that Obama would raise taxes, invoking an invisible Joe the Plumber to voice “Everyman’s” fears.  Obama just smiled, took his time, repeated his positions, clarified McCain’s misstatements, looked into the camera, allowed us to see into his calm, stated his piece.  McCain blustered and gesticulated like a desperate robot about to short-circuit. 

For the record, independent analysts have confirmed that under Mr. Obama’s tax plan, 95 percent of Americans would pay less in taxes.  See FactCheck.org:  “We spoke with Len Berman, director of the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, which has produced one of the most authoritative analyses of the two candidates’ tax plans. When we asked him if Obama’s claim that he would “cut taxes for 95 percent of all working families” was true, Berman told FactCheck.org that it was “consistent with our estimates.” Overall, the TPC found that Obama’s plan would produce a tax cut for 81.3 percent of all households, and a cut for 95.5 percent of all households with children.” 

Or, the Washington Post:  “According to a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are both proposing tax plans that would result in cuts for most American families. Obama's plan gives the biggest cuts to those who make the least, while McCain would give the largest cuts to the very wealthy.” 

And what about small businesses?  “According to figures compiled by the Small Business Administration there are fewer than six million small businesses that actually have payrolls. The rest are so-called nonemployer firms that report income from hobbies or freelance work done by their registered owners, earning as little as $1,000 a year.  “Of these, according to a calculation by the independent, non-partisan Tax Policy Center, fewer than 700,000 taxpayers would have to pay higher taxes under Mr. Obama’s plan. But even some of these are not small-business owners in the traditional sense; they include lawyers, accountants and investors in real estate, all of them with incomes that put them in the top tax brackets.“So are there “millions more like Joe the Plumber,” as Mr. McCain contended?  Probably not.  Mr. Obama may well have been correct when he stated that “98 percent of small businesses make less than $250,000.”   -- The New York Times

Of course, the facts are always more complicated than even these clarifications.  And it’s not as if tax policy is necessarily the most important issue in a country facing economic crisis, staggering debt, a soaring deficit, global warming, oil dependence, two expensive wars, crumbling infrastructure, failing school systems, and the results of eight years of shocking neglect on the one hand and corporate rapaciousness on the other.  But Obama took all issues and accusations calmly in stride, presented his case, maintained his demeanor, and emerged PRESIDENTIAL. 

Obama won.  Hands down, he won!  I could sit down and write this blog to celebrate.