YOUR COMMENTS

Robert

With every thing government has touched and screwed up because the bottom line seems to be if it's broken it simply needs more money, I see no reason any of us should seek to give it more control over more institutions. I swear reading your replies you must work for the socialist liberals among us and get paid commission for every mind you sway. When democrats call it free as in health care it is anything but free.

Any private business can do any job more efficiently than government and be accountable for failing at the same time. I'm not falling for the tactic that every democrat running for every position is running against Bush. Bush has been more like a Liberal Democrat than a Republican which means even I don't approve of him. That's why I'm seeking Republicans who are what they claim this election rather than a democrat who claims he’s not going to raise my taxes. Obama would be the first one in my lifetime to not lie to my face then raise them once elected. He say’s he is change but so far he’s promising every thing to every one. In my book that is the same old, same old.
- Ross Mansfield, Derry

I'm a liberal democrat, I was an early supporter of Obama's, and then I started picking up on his unwillingness to provide any substantive information on his plans. He makes promises that he can't follow through on, and he refuses even to acknowlege that given the severe economic crisis, with job losses guaranteed, his promise to bring in even more immigrants and provide amnesty to the 30 million that are here now, does not make any sense at all. He expects us to ignore it when he's caught lying, and take it all on faith.. he's no different than George Bush.

He says he will renegotiate NAFTA, then he says that it's not so bad. He claims to care about helping Americans, but he doesn't believe that Americans civil rights should be protected, and that we're bitter when we demand our rights be protected.

Then you learn that Obama is violating campaign finance laws, and is taking millions from foreign nationals, especially those who demand to outsource and to exploit our visa programs. He refuses to even provide his birth certificate, when it's in our constitution that a president has to be a natural born citizen.

I will not vote for Obama, I wish John Edwards were the nominee, he cared about the American people and putting us first. Obama only wants to put himself and those who line his pockets first. Just like Bush.
- Jenny Perry, Manchester

Robert, according to your analog, the government, in its role as "parent," should enforce more sharing among its "children" (i.e., able-bodied slackers). And this noble aim is achieved by imposing excessive taxes on our most industrious citizens--the ones who own businesses and provide jobs. Wow! Our founding fathers are surely churning in their graves!

But here's the real problem: under your incentive-less system, who would want to work? Even the industrious would turn indolent. With no one working, who would pay the taxes for the goodies you say we need to share? We're not talking cookies here.

This is why all Utopian experiments in socialism have failed. Without incentives, no one wants to work. And this is proven social theory.
- Susie Nickerson-Warley, Horseshoe Bay, Texas

Laurette Hebert, shame on you for such a distortion of the facts. The GOP ruled both houses of congress when Bush took office. It was not only Dems that blocked the reform legislation, it was both parties. And Clinton did not say"mostly." Please, enough of the finger pointing! How about some solutions?

Anyone...
- Lex, Lowell, MA

I guess none of your mommies forced you to share with your playmates when you were young. Probably never taught you to stand in line either. These are basic skills of socialization not socialism. As adults they are the basic skills of democracy. Just look at what happens when you grab everything that you can see as fast as you can. It is called greed and if your IQ is high enough and the restraint of your conscience is low enough you get - Wall Street as currently conceived.
- Robert Mann, Deerfield

When President Bush took office, he recommended a significant regulatory overhaul of the housing finance industry for supervision of Fannie-Freddie. The democrats stopped the bill each of the 17 times it was raised and wouldn’t bring Senator McCain’s cosponsored bill to the house floor. See www.govtrack.usbillS-190 . The democrats would be screaming by now but, they know their policies were responsible for the demise of these financial institutions. In a recent interview President Clinton acknowledged his party was mostly responsible for the current crisis.

You really have no idea what kind of person your voting to put in the white house. The church he went to for 20 years teaches Black Liberation Theology which is an extension of Marxist Theology. Reverend Wright equates Israelis to whites oppressing the dark skin Palestinens and even put the writings of Hamas Militant in the church bulletin. He allowed a service which Obama attended to be conducted by The Nation of Islam Louis Faracan calling Obama their savior. Obama has a large Cuban flag of Che Guevara - communist mass murderer displayed on the wall in his Houston campaign office. Guevara was a Socialist Revolutionary portrayed as a Christ in liberation propaganda (socialized health care, welfare and gun control). Research it yourself! The main stream media is rooting for Obama and wouldn’t reveal this to the country. You may as well give them a cheer leading suits with some pom poms. When this country goes to hell, you can blame the media and the Democrat party.
- Laurette Hebert, Londonderry

Yes Linda, its called charity. With charities people choose where their money goes. The government just forces people to give their earnings (redistribution), which is socialism. More government programs means more crowding out of the private sector which equals a reduction in private sector jobs. Why on earth would I want to tax myself just to pay myself in a government job?
- Alex Capri, Northwood, NH

You are trying to scare people about "socialism". Obama did not. say anything about "redistributing" wealth. He did not say that there must be "equal outcomes", those are your words. The current financial mess is primarily the result of "risks in the market place" and a group of people being rewarded for their greed. To say that our state will help people financially is a joke when your paper almost constantly speaks against any type of taxes, or budgets for social services. Isn't the Healthy Kids Insurance program a way of helping "share the wealth" by providing health Ins. for children, or is that too much "socialism"? Where do churches, charities etc. get the means to help? Not just from the rich but from people with middle and even lower incomes, but those people need to have some wealth in order to help others. Sometimes wealth can be measured in time, but in order to have free time to help you need to have enough wealth for your own basic needs before you can help others. If we are to take care of all Americans (the sick, veterans, children, the elderly) the resources (wealth) have to come from somewhere. What could be more Christian than the concept of "sharing the wealth"?
- Linda Scerbinski, Peterborough

Isn't comparing Obama to the devil as crazy as comparing him to Jesus.
- Kevin White, Nashua, NH

Good editorial, but.....

"....the rotting corpse of American socialism...."

Nice sentiment, if only it were true.
Given Obamas fawning multitudes, I would say that the evil beast is more alive than it's ever been.
Hopefully the nation will survive it's latest rampage.
- Michael Paradis, Manchester

John R - I am not a business owner, but I know what "tax deductible" means. And yes, I am aware that it's not "free money" because you have to generate the income to pay expenses. Your points are well presented and noted.
Have you studied the tax credit promised you for creating new jobs in your business? It would be interesting to get the point of view of an "insider" about that. Don't feel obligated to reply.
From an outsider's (my) perspective, it would seem totally illogical (call it what you will) to spend umpteen dollars to create a new job for a seemingly negligible carrot of $3000.
As to Joe the plumber's exposed phoniness, your guess is as good as mine why he wanted his particular moment of fame, now of infamy.
- Guy Plante, Manchester

It would seem Guy is not a business owner. Tax deductible doesn't mean free money. It simply means the money used is untaxed. I still have to generate the money used to pay expenses. Health insurance is different than other expenses for an owner but I digress.

None of this matters because it turns out Joe the plumber is a fraud. He's not a plumber (no license) and he made only 40K last year. The business he has talked about makes 100K a year. Why this gentleman waded in to the political waters with this phoniness is beyond me. I make more and pay far more in taxes than this man. I paid almost his entire income in taxes last year.

His new argument is he doesn't believe Obama. That is a much better argument than his original, fake nonsense.
- John R, Keene, NH

John R of Keene says of Joe the plumber "if after he pays his workers he is making 250K profit, then I have no issue with him paying more" (in taxes).

That 250K profit is an arbitrary figure, useful at this point in time as a talking point for Obama to get himself elected. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine that once the government puts a hand in one of your pockets, it'll soon figure out a way to put a hand in all of your other pocket(s). Will John R of Keene be singing the same tune when he is coerced by Washington to dip into his then-considered-to-be-unfair profit to share it with those who haven't help him earn it?

Those that Obama wants to "share" others' success with will be for the most part that 30% of Americans who pay no income taxes at all, yet who, somehow magically, get a "refund" on money they haven't paid to Washington in the first place. That's a freebie, my friends, and we all know that there "ain't no freebies" in this world. What the government giveth to one has already been taketh from another.

As to John R's statement "My health insurance premiums have exploded, this year alone I saw the rates increase over 10K", what is he whining about? Don't those premiums come under "wages and business expenses (that) are tax deductible"?

Another Obama promise in his class warfare attempt to get elected is to give a $3000 tax credit to a business for every new job it creates. Let's see if I understand that correctly.
Whatever it costs a business to "create" a new job, be it $12 K, $30K, $112K, $xxxK, Washington will give the business a $3000 tax credit, which means "$3000 off the top" of taxes owed. Is that really a net plus for the business?

I do believe that Bush is largely responsible for the upcoming demise of the Republican Party. I might even venture to say that he and his cronies have fed the GOP feet first into the tree shredder. However, those who believe that an Obama administration and a Congress with a Democratic majority will be "the change" that America has been waiting for are sadly mistaken. Their Obama/Biden vote will be worse for America than anything Bush has ever done or even thought of doing. If we all get shafted in the end, will the disciples of Obama ever admit that they made a mistake? Don't hold your breath, people. "I was wrong" is not now part of the liberal DNA. Never was. Never will be.

God help America! No thanks to the Rev.Wright.
- Guy Plante, Manchester

You've got to be kidding me. All I saw last night at that debate was a liberal Obama who would turn our country into Europe and their socialist agenda. It all makes sense now why Obama went over seas to have some rallies in Germany and the like. America is NOT Europe. We don't want to be like Europe. Obama will ruin everything our country has ever stood for with the help of a Democratically controlled congress and senate. Obama will have a blank check to do what ever he, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid wants to do. Doesn't that scare the heck out of you???
- Casey Johnes, Manchvegas

Both Presidential candidates keep dancing around the tax issue and show an abysmal ability to grab the bull by the horns and make a real, meaningful change to an obviously broken, unfair system.

Senator Obama would be far better served if he pushed to implement a flat rate tax, with no exemptions.

There is more than enough evidence to demonstrate that the federal government is not competent to manage the economy. Therefore, the use of "tax incentives" isn't a solution to any economic problems, and should be totally abolished. Flat tax, and no incentives means no loop holes.

At a 15% rate, if you made $1000 a year, you pay $150. If you made $250,000, you'd pay $37,500. If you made $50 million, then you'd pay $7.5 million in taxes. Clean, simple, easy. H&R Block could go back to just being accountants. The IRS could downsize their staff, and put most of them on auditing and get rid of the tax lawyers. And congress could send all the little piggies at the slops trough home because they wouldn't need them to create byzantine, labyrithian tax rules that nobody can comply with 100% of the time.
- Michael D. Houst, Barrington, NH

If Joe the Plumber gets to earn 250k, the extra $7,500 in taxes Obama would make him pay will diminish Joe's ability to expand his business, create jobs and give to local charities. Instead, Obama will disperse the &7.500 across the vast federal bureaucracy. Some plan.
- Paul Mirski, Enfield

Socialism is Obama's dream--and America's worse nightmare. Socialism is a word McCain should have used without hesitation in last night's debate. He did mention Obama's manifesto for "class warfare," but only once. And he should have reminded viewers that this was the very mantra of Karl Marx.

So what's wrong with socialism--apart from the fact that it doesn't work? Well, essentially, it robs us of our freedom of choice. It robs us of the freedom to give to the charities of our choice. It robs us of the freedom to determine the amount of our donations. But at the same time, it would give Obama, together with his Congress, the express freedom to fund the social programs of their choice. Ah, but that's alright. After all, taxes are paid in the spirit of "sharing," "fairness," and "patriotism," right?

But is it fair? Is it fair that socialism punishes the hard-workers and rewards the slackers--that is, those who refuse to work, but sure do know how to "work the system?" Obama's aspiration to subsidize able-bodied Americans is beyond absurd. Does he not comprehend that such a policy only encourages indolence?

And don't forget about the huge bureaucracy that will be needed to collect and redistribute your tax dollars under the welfare state he intends to create.

Welcome to Obama's Utopia!
- Susie Nickerson-Warley, Horseshoe Bay, Texas

"Done to death by slanderous tongue
as the Hero that here lies"
Claudio~Much Ado About Nothing (V, iii, 3-4)

God bless the UL for sending me out to find some appropriate Shakespeare! (Makes me wish the op-ed staff here was more involved with teaching High School English in our state. Hard right leanings aside, you guys write well.)

For the record; in "Much Ado..." Hero is not dead, only struck down, by lies. The analogy with Obama and the UL is obvious.

I understand the UL has to defend the GOP, but it is a stretch. Of all the politicians I have listened to, Obama is one of the most sincere, and has as much going on upstairs as any. Hardly the devil, and of course not dead by the UL's words.
- Tom Labrie, Rochester

Well said!

Senator Obama would force you to spread your wealth with his less successful friends. Senator McCain would force you to spread your wealth into the silk pockets of his wealthy banker friends. Only Libertarians will leave your wealth in your pockets for you to spend as you see fit.
George Phillies
Disclaimer: George Phillies is on the ballot as Libertarian Party candidate for President.
- George Phillies, Worcester, MA

the tone of this editorial doesnt surprise me ,its been that way forever.the ul will take the far right position on anything anytime anywhere ,they have to.the blind allegience to the conservative cause is in thier blood.it once again proves the point that the definition of a conservative is one who cares about no one else but themselves.bill and nacy would be proud of you
- duncan leary, bedford

“Failed policies”, what does that mean? The mantra of the Democratic Party in 2008 has been “failed policies”. Why are specific “failed policies” never offered up? Is it possible there aren’t any? Not only is possible, it’s plausible.

The Nationalization of banks is a direct result of the $700 billion bailout passed by both Democrats and Republicans. The $700 billion bailout is a direct result of “reckless spending” and lending. The “reckless spending” and lending is a direct result of the Community Reinvestment Act.

We have to have rocks in our heads to think this is not the catalyst of our Nations current economic problems. How could it have ever made sense to force lending institutions to write subprime loans to people that could never have afforded the loan? It made perfect sense to Karl Marx as described in the first plank of the Communist Manifesto. Banks are in the lending business not the real-estate business. In July 2008 the dollar figure was at $435 billion lost. Current estimates are over $1 trillion lost. Is this not a problem?

Now ask yourself who voted for and supported the Community Reinvestment Act. Look at who proposed greater regulation and who blocked it. Finally, look at who’s profited directly from Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac. It’s all a matter of record.

Couple this with importing $700 billion plus, in foreign oil while we sit on the means of independence? Happy days and good times.
- Wally, Manchester, NH

Since when did it become a negative to acquire wealth and financial independence in this country? Most people who earn 250K in income actually earn and work for the money. It doesn't mysteriously fall from the sky. These people are already paying close to 50 percent of their income in taxes when property taxes, sales taxes, and social security/medicare deductions are added into the mix. It is also well documented that conservatives donate more to charities than do liberals. People of means also invest in the ecomony and create employment.
Read between the lines. Obama is a socialist with intent of redistributing income. This is trickle up poverty. Socialism is a failed experiment. In closing, I never received a job from a poor person.
- Vincent Caruana, Beford

Forcing us to 'share'

Obama replied. "My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the
bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the
wealth around, it's good for everybody."
Gee it was only about six month ago you were scolding a leading republican for moving in a socialized direction for his support of SCHIP. Nothing so powerful as the truth.

The difference is do we believe in a free people or a free country?

Libertarian Candidate for U.S. Senate Ken Blevens
- Libertarian Ken Blevens, Bow

Implicity referring to someone as the Devil is a great way to incite the fear-based hatred of the extreme right and encourage division among the general populace, but when that reference is to a man who just may be our next President, you're setting the stage for dangerous times. Neither Obama nor McCain is the Devil. For Heaven's sake, Union Leader! Behave yourself!
- Marty Cote, Manchester

Jason needs a little help with his revisionist history. If he can point out where the founding fathers were talking about redistribution of wealth I will listen. Perhaps he forgot "no taxation without representation".

As far as Joe the plumber, if after he pays his workers he is making 250K profit, then I have no issue with him paying more. Sorry Joe. Wages and business expenses are tax deductible. How does a $7500 tax increase on 250K profit make it so he can't buy a business?

I own and operate a small business and cannot understand Joe's logic. My health insurance premiums have exploded, this year alone I saw the rates increase over 10K.
- John R, Keene, NH

If there is a rotting carcass in the room, it is most certainly that of unregulated financial markets fueled by greed and excess. We will never forget that true socialism - nationalizing the banks - was brought to you by the Bush Administration, one result of their disastrous fiscal management, which has also brough record deficits combined with tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America. Laying this at Obama's feet indicates a refusal to take responsibility for your own failed policies. Good try though UL.
- Dave MacCrellish, Sandwich, NH

Perfectly explained and well said. Obama is a disaster. McCain must win. I must believe in that for sake of our great country, and our futures.
- Toni Bell, tonibell37@hotmail.com

Obama and the democrats may indeed push the socialism button too hard over the next four years, but the unbalance from the last eight of republican exedutive branch rule must be corrected. Millions of retirement funds have been put at higher risk by an administration that throws billions of dollars around like its monopoly money. The market is not and never was totally a free one. Selective regulation and tax laws controls what is done. New approaches need to be taken. If Obama ends up overdoing a robin-hood strategy, that can be corrected in two years by voting out the democratic congress. For now, getting rid of the party that controls an executive branch is the top priority. It started a war, bumbled the NOLA disaster recovery, strives for no transparency, damaged global respect for the USA and allowed the financial crisis to occur. What a record!
- Bill Gassman, Moultonborough, NH

We once wrote a document in 1776 to abolish forced redistribution of wealth at the hands of authority.

And now Obama, in a cult of personality, a literal cult with followers, wants to bring it back.

Every socialist regime in history has failed. Every one. Every time. And they want to try it again.

God help us all. If he wins, with the single-party power of limousine liberals like Pelosi and Reid working with him absolutely unopposed, we might not survive this as the America we know and celebrate.
- Jason Entres, Hollis