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Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Nashville townhall, the aftermath
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Can they both lose a debate?
It was a pretty flat performance by both, but the format that supposedly favored McCain didn’t do him any favors here. For the first time, I thought his age showed. He didn’t show the flashes of vigor and energy that you’ve seen from him in previous townhalls. He didn’t seem to enjoy himself.
Overall, the discussion didn’t change a thing, and that’s a lost opportunity for McCain, who doesn’t have that many opportunities left to turn this around. I’m sure the TV audience numbers dropped significantly as time went on.
So this time, advantage Obama.
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Nashville townhall, McCain vs. Obama
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s not the bottom of the ninth for McCain, but it’s late enough that the closer is in the bullpen warming up. He needs to score a few runs.
I’ll pop in at the end with a wrapup, but won’t be doing a blow by blow this time. Feelin’ a mite peaked.
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Polls turn up the heat on explosive McCain
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The latest Gallup tracking poll puts Obama up nine points. The electoral college maps are looking ever grimmer for McCain — with 270 the magic number, Pollster.com has Obama at 320; Politico.com puts Obama at 364, which is landslide territory.
McCain is down in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida…. states he cannot afford to lose. Even Georgia is now listed as leaning red instead of solid red. There’s still almost four weeks to election day, and things could change, but for McCain they HAVE to change and change a lot.
That sets the stage for tonight’s townhall debate, the forum in which McCain is most comfortable. As others have noted, it’s not a format that rewards confrontation, but McCain doesn’t seem in the mood to keep it friendly.
Any predictions? We’ll put a fresh debate thread up tonight, but for now, have it at.
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The “half of Americans pay no income tax” fraud
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of the right-wing’s favorite talking points is the claim that 50 percent of American households don’t pay income taxes. From that claim flow a couple of other points: First, it’s impossible to “cut” taxes for those households because they don’t pay any tax in the first place; second, those households are somehow less deserving of respect or even a voice in politics because they aren’t paying their own way.
That claim is bogus both in its details and its general charge.
The actual figure of “taxable units” who don’t pay the standard income tax — a taxable unit being a couple filing jointly or a person filing — is somewhere around 38 percent. Even that number is grossly exaggerated, because it excludes what people pay through the payroll tax.
That tax, in total, amounts to 15.3 percent of earned income up to a gross income ceiling that this year is $102,000. Above the ceiling amount, a taxpayer pays only 2.9 percent. (Employers technically contribute half the 15.3 percent, but economists classify the entire amount as a tax burden on the worker because it is a tax on their labor. If you’re self-employed, you have to pay that entire 15.3 percent yourself.)
Because of that income ceiling, high-income workers end up paying the tax only on a relatively small part of their income, while poor and many middle-income households pay it on everything they earn, so the payroll tax is to some degree a surtax on the poor and middle-class worker.
How much does the payroll tax amount to? Well, last year the standard income tax brought in $1.17 trillion, while the payroll tax brought in $873.4 billion.
Technically, payroll tax receipts are supposed to be reserved for paying for Social Security and Medicare, which is what allows some people to claim it is not an income tax. However, in practice that distinction was abandoned long ago. For decades now, the payroll tax has been bringing in a lot more revenue than needed for Social Security, and the excess has been siphoned off for general fund use like any other government money.
Last year alone, $190 billion in payroll tax receipts was diverted to general fund use, paying for everything from Iraq to the salaries of park rangers.
As of 2007, a total of $2.25 trillion of payroll tax money paid into the Social Security and Medicare trust funds had been diverted to general fund use and replaced with government IOUs. In effect, the trust funds are an illusion. Payroll taxes and income taxes go into the same pool of money and are withdrawn from that same pool of money to fund government.
And for that reason, the claim that 50 percent, or even 38 percent, of Americans pay no income tax is flat out wrong.
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U.S. grip on Afghanistan slipping
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Obscured by the presidential elections and the drama on Wall Street, our grip on Afghanistan seems to be slipping.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has publicly invited Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, ally of Osama bin Laden and one of the top people on the U.S. most-wanted list, to return to Afghanistan under Karzai’s protection to run for president. Secret peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government were reportedly held in Saudi Arabia last week.
Our top NATO allies are making it clear that their patience is running out. Brigadier General Mark Carleton-Smith, Britain’s top general in Afghanistan, told the Sunday Times of London that the war against the Taliban cannot be won.
“We’re not going to win this war. It’s about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that’s not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army,” the British commander said.
That echoes a leaked assessment by Britain’s ambassador to Afghanistan that the present NATO policy is “doomed to fail.” And last week Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned that NATO could not stay in Afghanistan forever.
“One of the things I disagree with some other Western leaders is that our [NATO] plan can be somehow to stay in Afghanistan militarily indefinitely,” Harper said.
American officials don’t seem much more optimistic. There is widespread recognition that the current Afghan government has lost legitimacy in the eyes of its people, a serious if not fatal problem that is impossible for Americans to fix. And Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, says he needs another 10,000 troops in addition to a combat brigade scheduled to arrive in-country in January. With the administration committed to keeping a high troop total in Iraq, he’s not likely to get them anytime soon.
Without them, McKiernan says, security conditions in the south and east of Afghanistan continue to deteriorate.
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