None of it good, but if you read the document:
http://www.gop.gov/...
you can find some pretty amazing stuff. And reading it will: a)give you a chance to re-live the 2008 presidential campaign; and b) tell you why they really don't want to provide too much detail.
You get to learn about how bad England's health care system is, and how a kid died of a tooth infection and how Ted Kennedy singlehandedly is preventing wind power exploration anywhere in the U.S. by keeping it of Martha's Vineyard..... But you also other things.
The document restates a lot of the John McCain campaign promises -- we see the building of nuclear power plants (p.12 -- those pesky safety barriers are pushed aside...thank God) and more tax cuts and capital gains cuts for the wealthy (p.10), "drill, baby drill" (pp.12-13) and promises to cut "waste" (for example, p.5) like the National Endowment for the Arts.
(Note: any plan put forth by Dems or GOPers that alleges a significant cost savings from "cutting waste" is a sad, sad joke. I have lived 45 years and I have NEVER seen any budget balanced in any significant measure by cutting waste. It is the equivalent of saying to your wife, "And we will just tighten our belts a little." Sounds good, means nothing.)
But how about these little ditties:
- Seniors (at least Warren Buffett and George Soros -- who are mentioned by name) will pay $730 more per year for prescription drug coverage. So, proposing higher medicine costs for seniors -- good political move there.
- Interest rates will be kept artificially high by monitoring inflation figures and making sure those figures don't go too high (p.18). So we want to make sure people don't get 4-5% fixed rate mortgages, cuz we know how Americans hate that -- good, good; rolling now!
- Medicare will be turned over to the states as "laboratories" to test different plans (p.8). Always a good idea -- seniors hate Medicare benefits and want to see it slowly "improved" by the southern governors who care so much about the weak and downtrodden that they reject money for the unemployed.
- Small businesses (unclear if this is the owner or the business itself) will get a tax break equal to 20% of the business income (p.10). I am not sure exactly what this means. But if I have a small business of 499 employees (under 500 qualifies) that has "income" (I assume this means gross revenue????)of $50,000,000, does this mean I get a tax deduction of $10,000,000? Can it possibly mean that?
If so, does this mean that if I have a profit margin of less than 20% that I will NEVER owe any taxes? Right? Are corporate tax rates going to be zero or negative? If "income" means "profit" then do I get to deduct 20% of my profit? So every small business in America gets a 20% tax break? And if I have a loss, can I take another 20% as a loss carry forward?
What may be most confusing about the "plan" is the promise to provide universal "access" to health care. How? Well, um, not like Obama does, or like those folks in Britain who are dropping dead left and right (p.7).
I think they are suggesting the same John McCain "tax deduction" plan that everyone laughed at in October of 2008. I think. So if you make $25,000 annually and pay $0 in federal income taxes, you can use that $25,000 to buy a $14,000 family insurance policy (somehow) and get a tax break....on your non-existent federal taxes.....of some unknown amount.
See! Instant health care. I mean ACCESS to health care.
So yeah, worth reading if for no other reason than to say "huh?" a few more times than normal today.