Obama doesn't let facts get in the way

[azamugg]

Are facts obsolete?

By Thomas Sowell


In an election campaign in which not only young liberals, but also some people who are neither young nor liberals, seem absolutely mesmerized by the skilled rhetoric of Barack Obama, facts have receded even further into the background than usual.

As the hypnotic mantra of "change" is repeated endlessly, few people even raise the question of whether what few specifics we hear represent any real change, much less a change for the better.

Raising taxes, increasing government spending and demonizing business? That is straight out of the New Deal of the 1930s.

The New Deal was new then but it is not new now. Moreover, increasing numbers of economists and historians have concluded that New Deal policies are what prolonged the Great Depression.

Putting new restrictions of international trade, in order to save American jobs? That was done by Herbert Hoover, when he signed the Hawley-Smoot tariff when the unemployment rate was 9 percent. The next year the unemployment rate was 16 percent and, before the Great Depression was over, unemployment hit 25 percent.


One of the most naive notions is that politicians are trying to solve the country's problems, just because they say so— or say so loudly or inspiringly.

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Politicians' top priority is to solve their own problem, which is how to get elected and then re-elected. Barack Obama is a politician through and through, even though pretending that he is not is his special strategy to get elected.

Some of his more trusting followers are belatedly discovering that, as he "refines" his position on various issues, now that he has gotten their votes in the Democratic primaries and needs the votes of others in the coming general election.

Perhaps a defining moment in showing Senator Obama's priorities was his declaring, in answer to a question from Charles Gibson, that he was for raising the capital gains tax rate. When Gibson reminded him of the well-documented fact that lower tax rates on capital gains had produced more actual revenue collected from that tax than the higher tax rates had, Obama was unmoved.

The question of how to raise more revenue may be the economic issue but the political issue is whether socking it to "the rich" in the name of "fairness" gains more votes.

Since about half the people in the United States own stocks— either directly or because their pension funds buy stocks— socking it to people who earn capital gains is by no means socking it just to "the rich." But, again, that is one of the many facts that don't matter politically.

What matters politically is the image of coming out on the side of "the people" against "the privileged."

If you are a nurse or mechanic who will be depending on your pension to take care of you when you retire— as Social Security is unlikely to do— you may not think of yourself as one of the privileged. But unless you connect the dots between capital gains tax rates and your retirement income, you may fall under the spell of the well-honed Obama rhetoric. Obama is for higher minimum wage rates. Does anyone care what actually happens in countries with higher minimum wage rates? Of course not.

Economists may point to studies done in countries around the world, showing that higher minimum wage rates usually mean higher unemployment rates among lower skilled and less experienced workers.

That's their problem. A politician's problem is how to look like he is for "the poor" and against those who are "exploiting" them. The facts are irrelevant to maintaining that political image.

Nowhere do facts matter less than in foreign policy issues. Nothing is more popular than the notion that you can deal with dangers from other nations by talking with their leaders.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain became enormously popular in the 1930s by sitting down and talking with Hitler, and announcing that their agreement had produced "peace in our time"— just one year before the most catastrophic war in history began.

Senator Obama may gain similar popularity by advocating similar policies today— and his political popularity is what it's all about. The consequences for the country come later.

[WayzUp]

This piece illustrates my discomforts with Obama and his ideas for "change". It's refreshing to see an intelligent argument made against a candidate using actual factual info (gasp!) based on the candidate's position on a certain issue rather than a far-reaching smear job.

The problem is, Obama may actually think he is helping the poor and/or middle class by raising the capital gains tax in conjunction with getting the minimum wage raised so I don't necessarily think he's trying to deceive/mislead "the poor" with these ideas. IMO, it's a perfect illustration how his relative inexperience could lead to his doing more harm than good. It's also more or less an affirmation to me personally that getting a candidate to run who is extremely well-versed in monetary & economic policy should have been our country's top priority in this election.

Instead we did our usual, turned it into a popularity contest where we have one guy who finished in the bottom 1% of his class, admits to not knowing how to even check his own email (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srbX26vp57c), stutters & stammers any time he's given any kind of fiscal question to answer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUZwL9GPcNw) and changes his answer on any issue depending on what crowd he's in front of that particular day. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkf8XwHs668)

We're screwed no matter who wins at this point so I'm voting my conscience still & doing a write-in vote for Ron Paul.....I just refuse to vote for the 'least bad' choice available anymore.

[Zee]

what a great article

[Gator2753]

I liked Ron Paul too Wayz. Someone here said a best a few months ago. Ron Paul will never win b/c he is just too right on all the issues. (not right as in right wing but right as in correct) Its too bad the dams had to nominate Obama. If it were Mcain vs Hillary or Mcain vs anyone else... Kerry, Gore etc. I would write in Ron Paul too. I really want to write in Ron Paul this election but I cannot stand by and let Obama take over the white house without doing all I can stop him. A vote for Mcain will be more effective than a vote for Paul will be.

[Zee]

here are some of my thoughts on Paul from a while back

I am so close to wanting to be a Libertarian it's not funny. Most of what Paul says makes perfect sense. I especially love his answer when someone asked him about abortion. He said the more difficult the question, the more localized the solution should be. I mean is that not so right? It's exactly what the founding father's suggested.
There are many more things I agree with him on. But here's my problem...what he is saying he will do, he can't do. Pulling all of our forces out of all of the bases around the world can't happen and it won't. He can't get rid of the CIA and FBI. As much as I would love for there to be no IRS, I just don't think it can happen. Because of this stuff he is unelectable. I don't agree with a lot that McCain says just like many Dem's don't agree with a lot of what Obama says. But McCain is moderate, and Obama is so far left it's scary. He is incredibly Liberal. What I take from Paul is this... He's gotten it started. Lets take some of his more reasonable ideas and start pushing for them. Let's start getting back to the constitution the way the founding father's wanted us to. Let's get rid of big govt, reject the notion of socialized anything, and realize what made us the most successful, powerful country in the nation to begin with. We've got to get back to that. But for now, let's not take a step back and vote in someone who will disarm us, tax us heavily, and give the govt so much responsibility that we lose sight of individual accountability.

[JessJess6713]

Are facts obsolete?

Raising taxes, increasing government spending and demonizing business? That is straight out of the New Deal of the 1930s.

Facts like: Bush and Reagan have created more deficit than all other presidents in history combined, excluding each other? It would be hard for Obama to increase government spending following the all time record holder. Not to mention that Obama's fiscal plan to balance the budget was said to be sound by the Wall Street Journal. Also, who's demonizing business?

The New Deal was new then but it is not new now. Moreover, increasing numbers of economists and historians have concluded that New Deal policies are what prolonged the Great Depression.

The number is increasing from what to what? Take a look at this chart of our gross domestic profit.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Gdp20-40.jpg
USA GDP annual pattern and long-term trend, 1920-40, in billions of constant dollars, based on data in Susan Carter, ed. Historical Statistics of the US: Millennial Edition (2006) series Ca9.

Roosevelt helped bring the nation out of the Great Depression with the New Deal.

Putting new restrictions of international trade, in order to save American jobs? That was done by Herbert Hoover, when he signed the Hawley-Smoot tariff when the unemployment rate was 9 percent. The next year the unemployment rate was 16 percent and, before the Great Depression was over, unemployment hit 25 percent.

FACTS:
Hawley and Smoot wrote and sponsored the bill. It was signed by Hoover and enacted the highest tariffs in the nation's history.

The unemployment rate grew from just under 4% to 9% from 1929-1930, that's about a 131% increase the year before the bill was signed.

The unemployment rate grew from 9% to 16% from 1930-1931, that's about a 78% increase the year after the bill was signed.

The bill did have a negative affect, though not like what is implied by this author, who is more interested in skewing facts than representing them. Foreign governments retaliated by raising their tariffs, resulting in a economic down turn that worsened the depression.

Obama's plan does NOT resemble this one. He has said nothing about universally jacking up tariffs to record highs. Obama is for requiring nations that we trade with to demonstrate worker/human rights, environmental protections, and fair wages. He is interested in protecting jobs by creating a market that the USA can compete in without sacrificing our quality of life.

Obama calls trade necessary and important. He says that Americans can compete in a global market. He is not for repealing NAFTA, but for fixing the broken bill that was an issue for me long before Obama came along.

Reference: (notice the edu in the URL) http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/recovery.htm

One of the most naive notions is that politicians are trying to solve the country's problems, just because they say so— or say so loudly or inspiringly.

Inspiringly? Like demonstrating a deep understanding of our problems and presenting realistic plans to solve them? That inspires me.

Perhaps a defining moment in showing Senator Obama's priorities was his declaring, in answer to a question from Charles Gibson, that he was for raising the capital gains tax rate. When Gibson reminded him of the well-documented fact that lower tax rates on capital gains had produced more actual revenue collected from that tax than the higher tax rates had, Obama was unmoved.

I remember this. I was watching that debate between Senators Obama and Clinton. His answer was that he would offer an exemption for people with annual incomes less than $200,000. He re-iterated that he was committed to decreasing taxes where possible, and not raising anyone's taxes who makes less than $200,000 a year. He stance is that the majority of American's are struggling enough.

Nowhere do facts matter less than in foreign policy issues. Nothing is more popular than the notion that you can deal with dangers from other nations by talking with their leaders.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain became enormously popular in the 1930s by sitting down and talking with Hitler, and announcing that their agreement had produced "peace in our time"— just one year before the most catastrophic war in history began.

Senator Obama may gain similar popularity by advocating similar policies today— and his political popularity is what it's all about. The consequences for the country come later.

Chamberlain was enormously popular for his domestic achievements before the treaty. He negotiated a treaty between Poland and Germany. He was excited about the agreement and thought he had avoided war. Germany broke the treaty, invaded Poland, and England declared war.

Chamberlain said the following,

"This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.

You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more, or anything different, that I could have done, and that would have been more successful. Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honorable settlement between Germany and Poland. But Hitler would not have it; he had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland whatever happened."

A British leader tried to avoid war with the most evil dictator in modern history, and it didn't work. They ended up in the same place they'd have been in if they immediately went to war without trying anything different. I hope this writer isn't implying that we should never try to avoid wars because it didn't work in this instance. It certainly seem like it though.

Are the facts obsolete? Apparently, they are for Thomas Sewell.

[zartan]

jess wins. original thought always beats cuttting and pasting from Rightie hack columns, mugg.

[JessJess6713]

Don't get mislead by media spin and polical pundits. Go the horse's mouth. Listen to each candidate talk about their own plans. Here is the first real representation of Barack Obama on this site, in his own words.

I realise that most of you won't watch the whole thing objectively. Most will probably scan the first few minutes for something to critisize. However, if you want to know where he stands, here it is straight for his mouth.

Watch the video (http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newstrategy)

[WayzUp]

Solid post, JessJess, I'm with you on a great majority of it. The contention I have and will continue to have with Obama is his wish to significantly raise the capital gains tax. He's suggested to raise it to as much as 28% and when the backlash started flying on that comment, he re-suggested that he wouldn't raise it to more than 20% instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LNqBS5OyqM

The decreasing amount of middle-class families who have the extra income to invest in stocks are discouraged to do so if say they want to invest in Big Oil & make back some of the money they lose at the pump by getting a share of those record profits they rake in quarter after quarter.

I'm sure his assumption is that by raising the CGT, he'll be sticking it to the super rich who make the most from buying and selling stocks daily when, in reality, he will be increasing the incentive to not invest and further stall the investment by those not trading stocks via their 401k or other such vehicle. If anything, we need more investment in stocks (especially domestic company stocks) to strengthen the economy overall and you do that by decreasing the CGT, not increasing it.

My mother recently retired after working her own small business most of her adult life and while she didn't take as hard a hit by the CGT as she would have (thanks to a very knowledgeable family member), it was still significant enough of a hit to make her worry about how she's going to make it through her retirement years if she's fortunate enough to live as long as she'd like. It's issues like these that I pay more attention to than relatively insignificant things like abortion and gay marriage.

[azamugg]

kudos to JessJess on the significant post but as Wayz said basic Economics is basic Economics and you don't have to over intellectualize it to try to disprove it

[the Prodigy]

I laugh at political debates. Politics wins votes. Then he'll get into office, figure things out and probably change his mind on how things ought to be done. That's how all politicians have done it. All I know is that democratic presidents seem to be able to stimulate the current economy for consumers better than old republicans who think God talks to them.

[Zee]

Solid post, JessJess, I'm with you on a great majority of it. The contention I have and will continue to have with Obama is his wish to significantly raise the capital gains tax. He's suggested to raise it to as much as 28% and when the backlash started flying on that comment, he re-suggested that he wouldn't raise it to more than 20% instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LNqBS5OyqM

The decreasing amount of middle-class families who have the extra income to invest in stocks are discouraged to do so if say they want to invest in Big Oil & make back some of the money they lose at the pump by getting a share of those record profits they rake in quarter after quarter.

I'm sure his assumption is that by raising the CGT, he'll be sticking it to the super rich who make the most from buying and selling stocks daily when, in reality, he will be increasing the incentive to not invest and further stall the investment by those not trading stocks via their 401k or other such vehicle. If anything, we need more investment in stocks (especially domestic company stocks) to strengthen the economy overall and you do that by decreasing the CGT, not increasing it.

My mother recently retired after working her own small business most of her adult life and while she didn't take as hard a hit by the CGT as she would have (thanks to a very knowledgeable family member), it was still significant enough of a hit to make her worry about how she's going to make it through her retirement years if she's fortunate enough to live as long as she'd like. It's issues like these that I pay more attention to than relatively insignificant things like abortion and gay marriage.

good points, and maybe someone with a little more insight than I can say something about the affects an even higher CGT would have on the housing market. Does it not discourage real estate investing also?

[JessJess6713]

Solid post, JessJess, I'm with you on a great majority of it. The contention I have and will continue to have with Obama is his wish to significantly raise the capital gains tax. He's suggested to raise it to as much as 28% and when the backlash started flying on that comment, he re-suggested that he wouldn't raise it to more than 20% instead.

The decreasing amount of middle-class families who have the extra income to invest in stocks are discouraged to do so if say they want to invest in Big Oil & make back some of the money they lose at the pump by getting a share of those record profits they rake in quarter after quarter.

I'm sure his assumption is that by raising the CGT, he'll be sticking it to the super rich who make the most from buying and selling stocks daily when, in reality, he will be increasing the incentive to not invest and further stall the investment by those not trading stocks via their 401k or other such vehicle. If anything, we need more investment in stocks (especially domestic company stocks) to strengthen the economy overall and you do that by decreasing the CGT, not increasing it.

My mother recently retired after working her own small business most of her adult life and while she didn't take as hard a hit by the CGT as she would have (thanks to a very knowledgeable family member), it was still significant enough of a hit to make her worry about how she's going to make it through her retirement years if she's fortunate enough to live as long as she'd like. It's issues like these that I pay more attention to than relatively insignificant things like abortion and gay marriage.

Great Argument, and well thought out criticism! It's good to see someone with a real concern and not just smear nonsense. I work directly with a couple of Obama Fellows (national volunteers). I'll put the question to them, and see how they respond.

Obama did seem caught off guard. I'd like to seem him address the concern.