No one can say. Be we can look at all the history since WWII and extrapolate it into the future. It is a fact that the U.S. economy does better with a Democrat in the White House--at least this has been true since WWII. Why? There are various possible reasons, including random luck. The author of the extrapolations below suggests the following: "Bartels’s answer reaches back to the "honeymoon period," the first year after an election, during which presidents have the maximum leverage to implement their economic program. Democrats tend to focus on employment and middle-class wage growth, which is reflected in things like job creation programs, increases in the minimum wage, more generous EITC benefits, worker-friendly appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, pro-unionization policies, and so forth."

The rest of the article is well worth reading. Here it is: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0808.drum.html
Here are the extrapolations, using the last 60 years as a guide:

If Obama wins, unemployment will average about 5 percent. If McCain wins it will average about 6 percent.

If Obama wins, real GDP growth will average about 3 percent per year. If McCain wins it will average less than 2 percent per year.

If Obama wins, poor families will see their incomes grow by more than $6,000 during the next eight years. If McCain wins their incomes will grow by less than $1,000.

If Obama wins, middle-class families will see their incomes grow by about $13,000 during the next eight years. If McCain wins their incomes will grow by about $5,000.

If Obama wins (hold on to your hats for this one), rich families will see their incomes grow by about $36,000 during the next eight years. If McCain wins their incomes will grow by about $32,000.

If Obama wins (hold on to your hats again), the stock market will perform better: the average return on stocks compared to Treasury bills will be about 9 percent. If McCain wins it will be about 4 percent.

If Obama wins, the national debt will grow about $150 billion per year. If McCain wins it will grow $400 billion per year. (For more, see Gregg Easterbrook, page 15.)

And no matter who wins, average annual inflation will be around 4 percent.

Absolutely.

My household is already circling the wagons and I am going into semi-retirement (to make less than what I can in order to avoid the increased tax burden....no point in working harder if more is witheld....I currently give a little more than 1 out of 3 bucks to Sam....and still had to write a $17K check....I'll be damned if I give anymore.)

spread the weath guys

Yes, and that 20% make 95% of the income. Raising their taxes ony equalizes the equation.
  The alternative is to eliminate the backbone of America ...the middle class. Someone has to pay "W's" bills. Without the middle class there will be no American economy...only economic slaves and economic slave owners. Thats not the America I want to live in.

Before we get to the specifics of your statement above, let's clear the air for a moment about this whole business of Demcrats raising people's taxes. First of all, "not cutting taxes" does not equal "raising taxes". Republicans love to use this tortured logic all the time to support their bogus claims and figures of how many times a particular Democrat voted for higher taxes. They take votes against tax cuts and count them as a votes for tax increases. In other words, not cutting somebody's taxes means you're raising them. This is where 99.9% of Republican "statistics" come from when citing examples of when Democrats voted in favor of tax increases. It's where nearly every one of John McCain's claim about Barack Obama voting "96 times" for tax increases comes from. Of course it's complete garbage. It's like a Democrat saying Republicans are for reducing the current federal minimum wage because they didn't vote for a bill that would increase it. Of course you don't see Democrats pulling this kind of blantantly dirty shit-ass politics which is one of the reasons why they are set to win the White House and both houses of Congress in a massive landslide.

Now to your comment. How this idea that not stopping the Republican planned expiration of a Republican tax cut program that was designed from day one by Republicans to be only temporary can somehow be translated into "Democrats raising taxes" is just mind-boggling to me. Republicans designed these tax cuts to expire in 2010. How is that the fault of Demcrats? For not making them permanent? Despite Republican campaign promises, there is no possible way the country can afford to make these tax cuts permanent. Neither party can make these cuts permanent. We didn't have the money the first time around - we had to borrow it from China. What makes you think this country is in any position to fund another wave of trillion dollar tax cuts for the rich today? Particularly considering they didn't pay for themselves as Republicans promised (your children and mine will get to pay the tab for your tax cut - how's that feel?), they didn't produce the massive numbers of new jobs as Republicans promised, and they didn't grow the economy or "trickle down" to the middle class as Republicans promised. So why in the world would we continue a clearly failed tax policy? Especially when we can't afford to pay for it. Can you answer that? Can you give me even one good reason?  

I find these kinds of narrow and short-sighted one dimensional views of finance that Republicans have fascinating. I really do. It's like they can only see 6 inches in front of their face. You've let us know on numerous occassions you are in the "top tier" income tax bracket. Assuming you file jointly as married, and are in the top tax bracket under Clinton you were taxed at 39.6%. In 2001, Bush reduced that top bracket to 35.0%. So for the last 7 years you have paid 4.6% of your annual income less in taxes than if the Bush tax cuts would have never been passed. Assuming you make about $300,000 that equates to about $13,800 per year.

#1. The idea a wealthy surgeon making several hundred thousand dollars per year would be forced into partial retirement because his taxes went up $13,800 a year is pretty laughable to say the least.

#2. There is no reason for you to be happy about your taxes going up $13,800. I don't think anybody expects you to like that idea. However, you have to consider what the Bush tax cuts "really" cost you. Again, this assumes you make exactly $300,000 which is probably wrong but the logic remains correct. Over the course of the last 8 years, the Bush tax cuts would have saved you a total of $110,400 ($13,800 per year x 8 years) than if there would have been no cuts and the Clinton plan was left in place. So, your man Bush has saved you a total of $110,400 with his tax cuts. Not chump change to be sure. That's a good amount of money.

But what have the Bush economic policies over the last 8 years "really" saved you? We know you saved about $110k total in taxes. Now, over 8 years, how much have you spent total in the increased cost of gasoline? How about energy in general? How much money have you lost in the stock market? How much home equity have you lost from the depreciation of your home due to the housing/credit crisis? How much has the skyrocketing cost of healthcare and the exploding number of Americans who no longer have health insurance cost you in new patients? Since the government had to go into debt to pay for these Bush tax cuts, how much of that $110k will you have to give back in the form of higher taxes down the road in order to repay the money we borrowed to finance them in the first place? How much will your children have to pay? How much will your grandchildren have to pay?

I don't know the answers to any of those questions. Only you do. My simple point is that many Republicans have this really dumb way of looking at taxes  where everything is flitered through this oversimplistic Lower Taxes = Always Good / Higher Taxes = Always Bad lens. And I'm sorry but it's just not accurate and in fact really dumb. I don't hear any rich people bitching about how much money they lost under the Clinton Adminstration - and Bill Clinton raised taxes on the wealthly, quite substantially in fact. And we heard all the same dire fear-mongering from the right about how raising taxes was going to destroy the economy and kill job creation and all the same shit we're hearing now. And guess what? The exact opposite happened. The economy took off like a rocketship and job creation went through the roof.

So why don't rich Republicans complain today about how much money Bill Clinton cost them and how much money they lost in the 1990's??? Because they didn't lose any!!! They made shitpots full of money. It was coming out of their damn ears. Whatever they were paying in higher income taxes was getting dwarfed by the truckloads of cash they were raking in on their investments and at their jobs.  

We need to make it easier for companies to do business competitively in this country. That will include tax breaks for small business to reinvest, it might include taxing companies that go overseas, although I defer to people with more knowledge on the consequences.

And as consumers, it may mean we pay a little more for American made products and services as we cannot get the same price for labor as we are used to getting from China and Vietnam.

How is giving tax cuts to the rich with borrowed money that will have to be repaid by our children, as Bush did, not also a redistribution of wealth? Our country went into debt to pay for the Bush tax cuts. At some point that debt will have to be repaid - most likely by our children and grandchildren. Why should future Americans have to take their hard-earned money and give it to your plumber???




LOL! Do you know a lot of plumbers pulling down 400 grand a year? Boy, that's one hardworking turd wrangler. You got to plunge a lot of toilets to be bringing in an adjusted gross income (i.e. after deductions) topping $33,000.00 every single month AFTER you pay your 2 employees and AFTER you deduct all your monthly expenses and write-offs. Which Vo-Tech did this plumber go to? I want to enroll today!  



Guess who defaults on their home loans more than any other type of borrowers? Self-employed small business owners. Far and away, self-employed small business owners produce the greatest number of defaults than any other group of mortgage-holders by leaps and bounds. Oh yeah, and guess who the infamous "Liar's Loan" was designed for? Yep, you guessed it - the self-employed small business owner. You see, these hardworking $400k/year plumbers and other small business owners you speak so highly of are almost all big fat tax cheats. Yeah, they all cheat on their taxes. They all live in million dollar homes and drive $80,000 cars, but when it comes time to pay Uncle Sam, somehow miraculously on paper their business shows very little if any taxable income. What a mystery, huh?

Well, it's pretty hard to borrow money to buy a home when you can't document any income. So many small business owners cheat on their taxes that lenders actually had to develop a special loan program for these fucking liars called a "Stated Income/No Documentation" loan. It's more commonly known as a "Liar's Loan". This is where the borrower simply tells the bank how much money they make without having to prove it with documentation. And to no surprise, Stated Income loans ended up being the single biggest source of mortgage foreclosures than any other. 1 in 3 "self-employed stated income" mortgages orginated between 2001 and 2006 is either deliquent or in default today.  

So sorry, your high school drop out isn't the guy who took out a mortgage he couldn't afford and ended up in foreclosure. It was your fucking lying cheating scumbag crooked tax cheating small business owner.  



In order to see a tax increase under Obama, a small business owner would have to report an adjusted gross income - after all of his writeoffs and deductions - of over $250,000. Do you know how many small business owners report a taxable income of over $250k after all of their deductions and writeoffs??? Not shit! You are talking about maybe 1% of ALL small business owners. I know you hate facts, but here is the article from FactCheck.org regarding just how FEW small business owners would see their taxes increase under Obama.....



What I would like to know is when are you going to pay me for all the free education I provide to you? You know, it gets really old being your free personal political science teacher. You know, you can go out an educate yourself on these policies too. It's that hard. Limit yourself to just FactCheck.org and other nonpartisan independent accredited websites and you would probably be okay.

interesting statement considering you current place of residence where there is virutaly zero income tax...but yes the Nordic countries are much more equal, but thats not conducive to America's individualistic culture...what works here doesn't necessarily work there and vice versa.  Our country was built on ambition and greed