THE DEBATES...

Over and over I hear one thing. So and so needs to do this and so and so needs to do that. Mr. McCain needs a knock-out blow. Mr. Obama just needs to not over react to Mr. McCain. I mean when people are looking for a "soundbite" to determine who won the debate...that's pretty shallow.

Polls, a few days later, will say who won the debate and why.

ALL OF IT IS PURE BS!

Why is it pure BS? Because nobody wins a Presidential Debate. A Presidential Debate is based on two different philosophies. Either you buy one or you buy the other. But the idea that an election can be "won" with a clever saying is just ludicrous.

The only people who count in Presidental Debates are the Independant voters. The question that has to be asked now is this: What do Independants look for in these debates. I'm an Independant who leans right. What do I look for? I look for what makes sense. And here's why:

I had an old friend who just to lecture me many many years ago. He was an older gentleman but he taught me one good thing that serves me well to this present day.

He said to me: Michael! I preach the gospel of mathematics.

I said to him: The gospel of mathematics? What do you mean?

He said: Michael...there's only one rule in this life that you have to pay attention to.

I said: And what rule is that?

He said: If it doesn't add up...then it just isn't true! And you can apply that to anything in life. And, Michael, that's the gospel that I preach!

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Over the years I've come to realize how wise this simple perspective really is. The only difference between me and the old man is that I've changed his term: "The Gospel of Mathematics" to "The Law of Mathematics". The principle is the same. If it doesn't add up...it just isn't true.

Let's now apply this philosophy to this Presidental Debate or better yet, the Presidential campaign.

Mr. Obama's promise to give 95% of the population an income tax break...how does that add up?

From what I understand, close to 40% of the population doesn't even pay income taxes. So right there, according to the law of mathematics, this doesn't add up.

Now I can go into breaking this down according to my own perspective but I think I'm going to use something I found on the Internet just about 1 minute ago.

Obama's Tax Plan Charade
By AC Writer, published Oct 09, 2008

Barack Obama has repeatedly stated on the campaign trail, and in two debates with John McCain, that his tax plan would provide an income tax cut to 95 percent of working Americans. Just yesterday on CNN I saw Joe Biden repeat this claim. There's only one problem. The claim is a false one.

Think about this for a minute. How is it possible for 95 percent of working Americans to receive an income tax CUT when only 67 percent of working Americans pay income taxes? The numbers just don't add up.

According to the National Tax Payers' Union, citing IRS statistics, 32.6 percent of Americans filing income tax returns do not pay any income taxes at all. So how do they get a tax cut? You can't cut from zero. It's impossible.

Here's a look at who pays income taxes. A review of data compiled by the National Tax Payers' Union (of course, you can go to the IRS web site and examine the tables for yourself if you wish) reveals the following:

Percentiles by AGI AGI Threshold Percent of Income Tax Paid

Top 1%
$388,80639.89

Top 5%
$153,54260.14

Top 10%
$108,90470.79

Top 25%
$64,70286.27

Top 50%
$31,98797.01

Bottom 50%
2.99

So the question remains, how do you cut income taxes for those Americans who do not pay income taxes? You can't. But you can give them a rebate and call it tax relief, which is exactly what the Obama plan does. It's simple: you redistribute wealth. You take money earned by some American citizens and you give it to others who did not earn it.

According to a report by the non-partisan Tax Foundation, the 60 percent burden already being borne by the top 5 percent is going to get much heavier if the Obama tax plan is enacted. The Foundation says, "In short, the Obama plan would redistribute more than $131 billion per year from the top 1 percent of taxpayers to all other taxpayers. In 2009, for example, Tax Policy Center figures show that after the income-shifting in the Obama plan, the top 1 percent of taxpayers would pay a greater share of the total federal tax burden than the bottom 80 percent of Americans combines. In other words, 1.13 million Americans would pay more in all federal taxes than 128 million of their fellow citizens combined."

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Now that was pretty simple but still a little technical. What I want to do is bring in some common-sense language to the matter.

People, on the right, can say that all they want about taxing the rich will only cause a depression. They might be right. But why isn't that resonating with the people who actually play the polls?

My feeling is that it's because people have a tendancy to let things go into one hear and out the other from day to day.

Mr. Obama's tax proposal should be in the face of the voters everyday so that it can stay in thier ears up until November 4. But what needs to be done is that his tax proposals need to be put into everyday language, which the common man understands.

This is how I would word it.

When you tax the rich you tax yourself!

The rich are not rich because they're stupid. When you tax the rich they will increase the price of their products and services. So you will be "taxed" with that price increase. Technically, you aren't being taxed by the Government but you'll be paying in the supermartket, gasline and everything else that makes over 250,000 dollars per year.

250, 000 dollars per year isn't really where the price of product and services go up. That's the place where jobs are created. The price of products and sevices for big cooporations is where you'll see the increase. And when they increase the price for those products and services that's where "95%" of the people getting those "tax breaks" will be getting TAXED!

So, we put these two ideas together and what do we get? For 250,000 small business we get job cuts. For big cooporation we get a price increase for products and services. Put together that's called inflation.

What is inflation? That's when the price of products and services go up and the money in your pocketbook is staying the same or going down.

That's what Mr. Obama's tax proposals will do. It's common-sense. It goes right along the lines of "The law of mathemathics". It can be looked upon in two ways.

Do "95%" of the population get a tax break? That doesn't add up!

Will people at 250,000 dollars a year cut jobs because they can't grow because of Mr. Obama's tax proposals? That adds up!

Will big cooporations increase the price of products and services if they get a big tax increase under Mr. Obama's tax proposals? Propably yes! That adds up, too!

So, who do you think is telling the truth? Both parties are telling the "truth" but there is a clear differance in their philosophies.

The question is this: Which philosophy do you buy into?

mike t.