McCain - optimist; Obama - pessimist

This is the first election that I can remember, when there was a candidate who actually 'ADMITS' he wants to raise taxes going into the election. That's saying something. In the past, if any candidate said that they would be toast.

We see this again reiterated in the second debate. Obama admits to a huge tax increase, McCain wants to maintain taxes just as they are, and add in an additional tax cut on business in order to stay competitive with the rest of the industrialized world.

Small business, which has no capital gains tax, but mostly an income tax, will be hit hardest by Obama's new taxes.

Rich people will simply shelter their income and capital gains. This will do the same thing a tax increase (progressive) always does, stunt the economy.

McCain's taxes are just right, no drastic cuts, just a little here and there.

So here is the question I liked best from the debate. Proposed by a citizen, and re-worded by Brokaw.

In here we see that Obama again talks about 'Revenue' (leftist/liberal speak for taxes), and McCain talks about fundamentally fixing the problem by addressing the problem, not raising taxes to cover it, which is an impossibility.

The bottom line: McCain is an optimist, Obama is a pessimist, listen or read and this comes through again and again.

Brokaw: There are lots of issues that we are going to be dealing with here
tonight. And we have a question from Langdon (ph) in Ballston Spa, New York, and
that's about huge unfunded obligations for Social Security, Medicare, and other
entitlement programs that will soon eat up all of the revenue that's in place
and then go into a deficit position.

Since the rules are pretty loose
here, I'm going to add my own to this one. Instead of having a discussion, let
me ask you as a coda to that. Would you give Congress a date certain to reform
Social Security and Medicare within two years after you take office? Because in
a bipartisan way, everyone agrees, that's a big ticking time bomb that will eat
us up maybe even more than the mortgage crisis.

Obama: Well, Tom, we're
going to have to take on entitlements and I think we've got to do it quickly.
We're going to have a lot of work to do, so I can't guarantee that we're going
to do it in the next two years, but I'd like to do in the my first term as
president.

But I think it's important to understand, we're not going to
solve Social Security and Medicare unless we understand the rest of our tax
policies. And you know, Sen. McCain, I think the "Straight Talk Express" lost a
wheel on that one.

So let's be clear about my tax plan and Sen.
McCain's, because we're not going to be able to deal with entitlements unless we
understand the revenues coming in. I want to provide a tax cut for 95 percent of
Americans, 95 percent.

If you make less than a quarter of a million
dollars a year, you will not see a single dime of your taxes go up. If you make
$200,000 a year or less, your taxes will go down.

Now, Sen. McCain talks
about small businesses. Only a few percent of small businesses make more than
$250,000 a year. So the vast majority of small businesses would get a tax cut
under my plan.

And we provide a 50 percent tax credit so that they can
buy health insurance for their workers, because there are an awful lot of small
businesses that I meet across America that want to do right by their workers but
they just can't afford it. Some small business owners, a lot of them, can't even
afford health insurance for themselves.

Now, in contrast, Sen. McCain
wants to give a $300 billion tax cut, $200 billion of it to the largest
corporations and a hundred thousand of it -- a hundred billion of it going to
people like CEOs on Wall Street.

He wants to give average Fortune 500
CEO an additional $700,000 in tax cuts. That is not fair. And it doesn't work.

Now, if we get our tax policies right so that they're good for the
middle class, if we reverse the policies of the last eight years that got us
into this fix in the first place and that Sen. McCain supported, then we are
going to be in a position to deal with Social Security and deal with Medicare,
because we will have a health care plan that actually works for you, reduces
spending and costs over the long term, and Social Security that is stable and
solvent for all Americans and not just some.

Brokaw: Sen. McCain, two
years for a reform of entitlement programs?

McCain: Sure. Hey, I'll
answer the question. Look -- look, it's not that hard to fix Social Security,
Tom. It's just...

Brokaw: And Medicare.

McCain: ... tough
decisions. I want to get to Medicare in a second.

Social Security is not
that tough. We know what the problems are, my friends, and we know what the
fixes are. We've got to sit down together across the table. It's been done
before.

I saw it done with our -- our wonderful Ronald Reagan, a
conservative from California, and the liberal Democrat Tip O'Neill from
Massachusetts. That's what we need more of, and that's what I've done in
Washington.

Sen. Obama has never taken on his party leaders on a single
major issue. I've taken them on. I'm not too popular sometimes with my own
party, much less his.

So Medicare, it's going to be a little tougher.
It's going to be a little tougher because we're talking about very complex and
difficult issues.

My friends, what we have to do with Medicare is have a
commission, have the smartest people in America come together, come up with
recommendations, and then, like the base-closing commission idea we had, then we
should have Congress vote up or down.

Let's not let them fool with it
anymore. There's too much special interests and too many lobbyists working
there. So let's have -- and let's have the American people say, "Fix it for us."

Now, just back on this -- on this tax, you know, again, it's back to our
first question here about rhetoric and record. Sen. Obama has voted 94 times to
either increase your taxes or against tax cuts. That's his record.

When
he ran for the United States Senate from Illinois, he said he would have a
middle-income tax cut. You know he came to the Senate and never once proposed
legislation to do that?

So let's look at our record. I've fought higher
taxes. I have fought excess spending. I have fought to reform government.

Let's look at our records, my friends, and then listen to my vision for
the future of America. And we'll get our economy going again. And our best days
are ahead of us.