Ten Things I Hate About You... Obama

Yes, the title is a little inflammatory, and and the post is long. My post about what I don't like about McCain probably won't be, but hey, I do have an opinion.

I had some time to write over the past few days with Emily being in the hospital and here is the long awaited for post on the things I dislike about Obama, or that would be bad about an Obama Presidency. Without further ado, Mr. Obama, here are ten things I don't like about you...

1. Your unmitigated, radical, and disastrous support of pro-abortion policies. I chose my words carefully here because Obama’s votes on this issue have been the most radical.
a. He voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. He has all kinds of arguments for why he voted against it, but look at what he said when he spoke against it in office. He has continually fudged on what he said, and changed his story only after he got caught. (See documentation here where Robert George pieces together a timeline of Obama's radical stance on this important issue)
b. He claims that the first thing he will do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act, lifting all restrictions on abortion, making it a federally funded right. Forcing people to go against their conscience and pay for abortions. A similar legislation lifting restrictions on abortions was passed in Maryland and the number of abortions rose significantly above average rates countrywide- see documentation here.
c. He is against parental notification for minors having an abortion.
d. When asked about the morality of abortion he said that it was "above his paygrade" but has tirelessly and without hesitation legislated his morality on the issue.

2. Your tax policies that are anti-success, class warfare inducing, lacking in transparency, investment depressing.
a. He wants to shift the tax burden even more to the richest in society, which is unfair because they already carry their weight and more.
b. It is anti-success because it punishes people for doing well. It is class warfare inducing because he said “I want to spread the wealth around.”
c. It lacks in transparency, because lifting the costs on the people who produce products and set prices forces them to raise prices on everyone who buys products and therefore effectively taxes all Americans through increased product prices.
i. Obama either knows that this is the case and is being deceptive with his 95% mantra of the number of Americans who will not see a tax increase, or he just doesn’t know, which means he is ignorant.
ii. I want this to be clear. Obama is trying to sell the idea that he is shifting the tax burden from the middle class to the richest in America. The problem is that these people that he will tax, produce and sell all of the products that Americans buy. When this happens those people have a few options, they can either eat the loss by paying the taxes, keeping their prices and costs the same, or they can cut expenses (normally through firing people), and increase prices of the products commensurate with their increase in taxes. If you were them what would you do? Be patriotic and keep your prices the same? Yeah right. Obama’s plan is very deceptive and you have just been informed about it.
iii. A good argument could be made that this plan is the worst for the poorest Americans because Wal-Mart will be one of the most affected businesses by the tax increases. Wal-Mart’s product prices will increase and this will hurt the poorest Americans worse than the middle class.

3. The plan to raise capital gains rates will discourage investments. If there is not an economic advantage to investing over and above making ordinary income people will be less likely to invest.

4. Your health care plan that is vague, unaffordable, and will cause moral hazard.
a. He has been unclear and evasive when asked direct questions about his health care plan. How will he pay for it? How much will fines be for not providing insurance? How will he work with insurance companies to reduce premiums? How will he open up the federal plan to all Americans?
b. How will he enact this plan without bankrupting America? However he works with private companies, and the federal plan will cost Americans dearly. Not to mention the 50% tax credit for employers to provide this benefit for their employees. Employer provided insurance is a bad thing in general anyway, and Obama wants to expand it, see my comments under my last McCain post.
c. How will he keep the sickest of all from fleeing to the governmental program. Insurance companies must be able to price people’s risks into their premiums and if they cannot you take away yet another incentive fore people to stay healthy, and punish people for taking care of themselves. I don’t know about you, but I take reasonably good care of myself and I don’t want to see my premiums go up because Aunt Flossie smokes, has diabetes, eats Krispy Kremes for breakfast and doesn’t exercise.

5. Your spending plans will create a further deficit, and you have no plan on how to pay for all of what you want to do. His plan will increase the deficit by an estimated $7 trillion dollars in 8 years by some estimates.

6. Your education ideas are further steps down the road toward causing education in America to completely breakdown.
a. He is unwilling to allow school choice.
b. He is unwilling to allow vouchers.
c. He is unwilling to hold teachers accountable by paying them more for performance and giving superintendents more power to hire and fire.
d. He will probably be unsupportive of home-schooling and private schools.

7. Your association with Jeremiah Wright.
a. He (Jeremiah) is a racist, who believes that God is on the side specifically of the “black community” to the exclusion of other races. See Black Liberation Theology if you don’t believe me.
b. He does not like America and doesn’t want us to survive.
c. I don’t know whether he agrees with everything that Jeremiah stands for, but at best it shows a severe lack of judgment to remain associated with such a man. This is the man who discipled him. The idea that this was a lack of judgment and that somehow he didn’t know what he really believed looks less likely than an intentional relationship with a mentor. Come on, give me a break. I am very intentional about who I pal around with as far as spiritual mentors, and I am proud of them as men who love God and love people. The idea that I would be unaware of some very central tenets of their theology that would be troublesome is highly unlikely.

8. Your association with Williams Ayers in an educational program.
a. He was a terrorist who bombed governmental agencies in America in protest of Vietnam.
b. Obama was on a board with Ayers, which by itself is not a big deal, but they worked together on an education effort to radicalize children with liberal ideology.

9. Your association with Freddie Mac. He took the second highest amount in donations from Freddie Mac executives which, along with Fannie Mae, were some of the most to blame for the recent housing crisis.

10. Your overall vision for the government getting involved in every aspect of our lives that you seem to have. This “do-gooder” mentality, while well intended, will be disastrous for our country in the long run.