This Harris poll, reported on by Market Watch, captures the muddle of the American electorate at this point in time:
It finds that John McCain has a sizable lead on defense, homeland security and keeping the U.S. safe from terrorism, and modest leads on Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East, Iran, Russia and gun control. Barack Obama has a substantial lead on the environment, education, health care and jobs. He also has a clear but not large advantage on the economy, gasoline prices, energy policy and inflation.
However, this Harris Poll also shows that most people recognize that they do not have a very good understanding of the differences between the candidates’ policies on the sixteen issues covered in this poll.
After the longest combined primary and general election in history, why is the public confused? Was this not supposed to be a clear-cut case of business-as-usual vs. the politics of change? Four more years of the failed Bush policies vs. hope?
Well, part of the problem lies in those formulations, furnished by Barack Obama. We were never told what the politics of change were. We’ve seen raised taxes before, ditto universal healthcare promises. Furthermore, whenever Obama did radically diverge from historical precedent (in proposing to talk to Ahmadinejad without preconditions, for example), he backed away from it.
On other key issues, Obama simply tacked McCain-ward. He went from pledging to “end” the Iraq War immediately to deciding to listen to the advice of commanders on the ground. When Russia invaded Georgia in August, Obama issued a statement calling for both parties to cease hostilities. After McCain came out and condemned Russian aggression while declaring solidarity with Georgia, Obama decided to do the same.
Now, with the financial meltdown seriously limiting Obama’s proposed initiatives in education, healthcare, and social services, the great blurring is complete. And just in time. If this poll is correct, one month from now Americans will be electing their next president based on an impressionistic hunch. And they won’t be able to ask their fellow citizens for clarification, nor will they really have grounds on which to object when they don’t like what they see in the White House.
“Chris Dodd is in trouble too. Which goes to show that if you are going to get a sweetheart deal on your mortgage and then try to cover it up, it’s best not to do it in an economic recession caused by a housing meltdown.”
Especially when you are the one who CAUSED the housing meltdown.
BTW, there is no level of dim that I would refuse to believe of Bill Press.
Has Jack Cafferty lost his mind or is this just a contrarian view of the world. How long can he last at CNN writing stuff like this ?
“Is Roland Burris about to be thrown under the bus by D.C. and Illinois Democrats?”
Where the hell does the “thrown under the bus” locution come from? I have never heard of a person actually being thrown under a bus. It is difficult to visualize such an action, or to imagine a situation in which it might take place. In any event, the metaphor is the stalest of cliches at this point, having been in constant use in connection with Obama for about a year. For the sake of your own reputation as a writer, consider giving it a rest.
Palin is officially a tax cheat, no different than Geithner or Daschle. Let’s see now whether you stick by your principles and agree that she, too, is unfit for office.
http://www.adn.com/palin/story/693695.html
“Gov. Sarah Palin must pay income taxes on thousands of dollars in expense money she received while living at her Wasilla home, under a new determination by state officials.”
I can hear the rightwing excuse machine revving.
Let me start revving up the rightwing excuse machine: When tax authorities make a “NEW determination,” saying something is taxable, failure to comply with that determination IN ADVANCE does not mean you are a “tax cheat”; it simply means you are not a psychic. And even if you were a psychic, you are not obliged to pay taxes before any determination has been made that you owe them.
Ruth Marcus, Harvard Law grad, married to a Democratic appartchik, is a member of the D.C. utopian clan that gracelessly wanders from business to government to journalism and back. This column, pointing out the unusual feature of Republicans not voting for Democrat initiatives, is a dog bites man story of zero relevance. She and I both wasted some irrecoverable life on that inane piece.
#4:
Read your own article, Dodo! I quote:
“Last fall we raised questions about longstanding practices within the Department of Administration regarding tax treatment of per diem payments,” Kreitzer wrote in an exchange of e-mails over the past few days with the Daily News.
“At the Governor’s request, we reviewed the situation to determine whether we were in full compliance with the pertinent Internal Revenue Service regulations,” Kreitzer wrote. “As a result of this review, we determined that per diem needs to be treated as income, requiring a revision of W-2 forms for any affected employees.”
If the article you have cited is to be believed There is not even the semblance of cheating here. There was a question about “longstanding practices” that was resolved AT GOV. PLAIN’S REQUEST. At least the initial decision has gone against her, so she owes back taxes. She had fully disclosed the payments at issue.
Let me spell it out again for the benefit of your small mind. There is no cheating involved in fully disclosing payments that are openly deducted, even if that deduction is subsequently declared invalid. Otherwise there would be “cheating” any time two accountants disagreed on the meaning of the code.
There is cheating when income is not declared. And there is most definitely cheating when an individual not only fails to pay taxes, but accepts cash reimbursement for the taxes he did not pay (which is what our dear SecTreasury appears to have done).
#4,
I understand your attempt but it fails–manifestly.
The word that should have made you think and thus not champion such foolishness is “new”. As in:
That is, not an issue she knew about. Not an issue her lawyer(s) knew about and ignored. Not an issue the IRS audited her for. No, something recently determined.
This is diametrically opposite Mr. Geithner, who was told by his employer (I know, I worked there) that he was to pay Social Security and other taxes from his income. He knew in advance he was shirking his duties and only began paying them (four years later) once the vetting process began for his Secretary of Treasury post.
Bring a situation where someone knowingly does not pay their taxes and you might have a point. On this, you have no point at all.
#7
Wow. Clueless. When the per diem scandal broke last fall, and tax experts said Palin clearly owed back taxes on some portion of that income, Palin asked why the state W-2s were not in compliace with the IRS. That’s charitably called “at the Governtor’s request.” Any competent accountant would have told her that she owed taxes on the per diems, had she disclosed that income to her tax preparer, whether it was listed on her W-2 or not. The IRS won’t care about the W-2 issue. In the eyes of the IRS, she underreported her income. Some people never see a W-2. That does not mean they can claim they have no income. Tom Daschle didn’t know his free car was taxable. IRS doesn’t care if Daschle or Palin are ignorant of the tax laws. They are guilty of ducking taxes.
You clowns are hilarious! Thanks for the entertainment!
Victor, as usual, is on the ball: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MWQyZmJkMjFiYTI1MmYyYjUwMDgwNDBkMzc0OTViYmY=
People…
I have to weigh in on the tax issues. You all can fight it out about who’s right, holding the high ground, whatever. Palin and Dashle are both good public officials that are getting bad names over these tax issues. I don’t know the entire stories with either case, but I keep seeing the same problems affecting many of our legislative officials. In every case, there does not appear to be intentional malfeasance – just good people missing some items to report to the IRS. Yeah, their accountants should have found it or they could have been more diligent, but to destroy their characters and reputations over these issues is just not right.
I’m really beginning to despise many Americans (mostly hot-air heads in the blogosphere) that continually use these trivial issues to destroy good people with the sole intention of supporting their own party preferences and ideologies. Palin and Dashle should both have the courtesy and the right – being the good American citizens that they are – to rectify with the IRS in a professional manner and then have their names cleared with the media and the public at large. But no… this will never happen since the stories are to juicy for poltical extremists on both sides to shove it in the opposition’s face. Many of you people are the problem, not the solution. And I don’t even care if my opinion makes me troll in the mind of contentionista. I work with an institution full of monkeys like many of you that claim to be geniuses and know everything, but when the hard business needs to be addressed – they can’t fill out a form correctly, write a professional memorandum or successfully complete the most mundane of tasks. I suspect that many of you fit this personality profile.
Rachel D’Oro and the Associated Press are such incompetents. Her article on the “chink” in Palin’s armor neglects to point out that in just two years of Palin’s leadership Alaska salted away $4 billion in savings, tripling the previous $2 billion balance to equal about half of Alaska’s yearly budget needs.
One of the nice things about having a big savings account is that one doesn’t have to lay of 10,000 state workers or borrow the equivalent of $10,000 per family to “stimulate” the economy and then leave the repayment to one’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.