Well, the Obama campaign has come out with another video much like the other video which refutes the McCain campaign's latest distortion on his tax policy.
Digg it here, please :o)
For those who thought the other one was too long, this one is under 2 minutes, and it's very concise with more "attacks"
Jump
Since we're talking about taxes some more, the Wall Street Journal posted an op-ed by Obama economic advisers on August 14th once again comparing the tax plans. Our campaign is NOT taking this sitting down, and they are hitting back hard. All the McCain campaign can do is complain that Obama is a "celebrity"
Like the video they start out with the fact that the Republicans used the same attack against Bill Clinton in 1992, and were proven horribly wrong. Meanwhile the Republican policies we've been subject to for the past 8 years has made the situation worse for most Americans:
Even as Barack Obama proposes fiscally responsible tax reform to strengthen our economy and restore the balance that has been lost in recent years, we hear the familiar protests and distortions from the guardians of the broken status quo.
Many of these very same critics made many of these same overheated predictions in previous elections. They said President Clinton's 1993 deficit-reduction plan would wreck the economy. Eight years and 23 million new jobs later, the economy proved them wrong. Now they are making the same claims about Sen. Obama's tax plan, which has even lower taxes than prevailed in the 1990s -- including lower taxes on middle-class families, lower taxes for capital gains, and lower taxes for dividends.
Overall, Sen. Obama's middle-class tax cuts are larger than his partial rollbacks for families earning over $250,000, making the proposal as a whole a net tax cut and reducing revenues to less than 18.2% of GDP -- the level of taxes that prevailed under President Reagan
While Obama's plan focuses on helping out the middle and lower class, the McCain campaign focuses on fattening their own pockets.
In contrast, Sen. McCain's tax plan largely leaves the middle class behind. His one and only middle-class tax cut -- a slow phase-in of a bigger dependent exemption -- would provide no benefit whatsoever to 101 million families who do not have children or other dependents, or who have a low income.
But Sen. McCain's plan does include one new proposal that would result in higher taxes on the middle class. As even Sen. McCain's advisers have acknowledged, his health-care plan would impose a $3.6 trillion tax increase over 10 years on workers. Sen. McCain's plan will count the health care you get from your employer as if it were taxable cash income. Even after accounting for Sen. McCain's proposed health-care tax credits, this plan would eventually leave tens of millions of middle-class families paying higher taxes. In addition, as the Congressional Budget Office has shown, this kind of plan would push people into higher tax brackets and increase the taxes people pay as their compensation rises, raising marginal tax rates by even more than if we let the entire Bush tax-cut plan expire tomorrow.
The McCain plan represents Bush economics on steroids. It has $3.4 trillion more in tax cuts than President Bush is proposing, largely directed at corporations and the most affluent. Sen. McCain would implement these cuts without proposing any meaningful steps to simplify taxes or eliminate distortions and loopholes. In addition, Sen. McCain has floated over $1 trillion in new spending increases but barely any specific spending cuts.
Bush on Steroids. . . I like it, in fact I remember saying something similar last week about McCain's foreign policy (or lack thereof). That's what we need to get out there, McCain isn't JUST a third Bush term, they are WORSE than Bush. A couple of months ago that would have been difficult for me to imagine, but the more I learn about this man's policies and character, the more convinced I am.
In contrast, Sen. McCain has put forward the most fiscally reckless presidential platform in modern memory. The likely results of his Bush-plus policies are clear. As Berkeley economist Brad Delong has estimated, the McCain plan, as compared to the Obama plan, would lower annual incomes by $300 billion or more in real terms by 2017, costing the typical worker $1,800 or more due to the effect of large deficits on national savings and thus capital formation. Sen. McCain's neglect of critical public investments would further impede economic growth for decades to come.
Here's a link to the first Tax FactCheck diary with video.
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Also, in Fundraising news, the Washington Post has an article stating that the Obama campaign is getting ready to roll out some new fashion gear. Apparently (but not surprisingly) the fashion industry has gotten behind the Obama campaign:
Now it is enthusiastically and abundantly about style. The Barack Obama campaign, which has been actively courting the fashion industry, has coordinated some 20 or so designers who are creating official merchandise for the candidate's Web site. It is the first time, as far as Seventh Avenue long-timers can recall, that a quorum of the fashion industry has organized its financial resources and creative energy around a single presidential candidate.
The mix, available online next month, ranges from T-shirts to tote bags and will lend a bit of runway panache to the Obama brand. The list of participating designers, which includes Derek Lam, Isaac Mizrahi, Tracy Reese, Charles Nolan and Diane von Furstenberg, covers the full spectrum of the market, from high-end to inexpensive. Other names have been bandied about but not confirmed: Beyoncé, Russell Simmons, Michael Bastian, Vera Wang.
I can't wait! I love Obama gear, and I'm looking forward to the tote bags.
Designers were free to use the candidate's image and his red-white-and-blue rising sun logo. And while they received no strict parameters on pricing, Reese's original idea of an Obama dress that would have retailed for about $400 was shot down. A one-shouldered silk georgette frock, it presented something of a production challenge, she said. Her company is known for its feminine day dresses "and I thought it would be nice for Michelle" Obama, Reese said.
One of her signature day dresses normally sells for about $500 in stores such as Bergdorf Goodman; in her less-expensive Plenty line, which is sold at Anthropologie, a dress costs about half that.
The campaign approved Reese's backup option of an applique T-shirt, which she estimated would be priced at about $80.
This represents the first time Reese has had such an active role in a presidential campaign.
"The opportunity just popped up out of the blue," Reese says. "I'm passionate about this candidate. And I knew I needed to be participating and not just watching and hoping for the best."
Von Furstenberg was an adamant Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter during the primary. But she shifted her allegiance after the senator from New York lost and after she read Obama's autobiography, "Dreams From My Father." Von Furstenberg, who established her brand in 1972 on the popularity of the wrap dress among workingwomen, created a tote bag adorned with Obama's words. Mizrahi, who has designed for both Bergdorf Goodman and Target and now is the creative director of Liz Claiborne, went with a tote bag, too.
And Lam created a cotton muslin bag silk-screened with a carnation print from his first successful collection, spring 2004, which he reworked in red, white and blue. It's inscribed "A fresh start: Obama '09," and he asked that it be stitched from organic cotton. Lam launched his brand in 2003 and in 2005 created the inaugural ensemble for First Twin Barbara Bush. Typically, his dresses sell for upward of $1,000.
Tips, Recs, Comments, are welcome :o)