Smear E-Mail Redux - Obama & McCain On The Issues

Here we go again. Another Obama smear e-mail, this time comparing the supposed stances each presidential candidate. Once again, the list of unverifiable information in the e-mail is astounding. But I'll go through them by actually doing as little research, as the sender of this e-mail most likely has not.


2008 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE COMPARISON TALKING POINTS

ISSUE: Favors new drilling offshore US
JOHN McCAIN - Yes
BARACK OBAMA - No

False. Obama opposes offshore drilling as the sole solution, but said he would consider a compromise if it were part of an overall comprehensive policy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and point us toward a path of new, renewable sources of energy.

From CNN.com 8/3/08 - Obama said Friday that he would be willing to compromise on his position against offshore oil drilling if it were part of a more overarching strategy to lower energy costs.
"My interest is in making sure we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices," Obama told The Palm Beach Post early into a two-day swing through Florida.
..."I made a general point about the fact that we need to provide the American people some relief and that there has been constructive conversations between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate on this issue," he said during a press conference in Cape Canaveral. "What I will not do, and this has always been my position, is to support a plan that suggests this drilling is the answer to our energy problems," Obama added.
"If we've got a plan on the table that I think meets the goals that America has to set and there are some things in there that I don't like, then obviously that's something that I would consider because that's the nature of how we govern in a democracy."

And let's think about this logically. The oil companies currently own approximately 63 million acres of offshore leases that they are available to drill on and currently do not drill on. Even if they started drilling today, which is what John McCain proposes, there wouldn't be a drop of oil produced from any of the sites until 2017, nine years from now, and not a drop of usable oil because of the lack of refineries until 2030. That's twenty-two years from now... is that going to help short-term gas prices? And ultimately, if the oil companies did drill and got the oil out of the earth, it is now their oil, which goes on the global market. It isn't going to be sold exclusively to the United States. So to say that offshore drilling is going to reduce our prices is a false argument.


Will appoint judges who interpret the law not make it.
JOHN McCAIN -Yes
BARACK OBAMA - No

Okay gang, everyone say it with me. Judges do not make laws. Congress makes laws. Judges interpret the laws. Now if you want to get into a philosophical argument about Obama and McCain's stances on Roe v. Wade (I like to call it a patient's right to privacy not a woman's right to choose) then have at it. But for someone like McCain who vowed to appoint Supreme Court judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade, isn't that the same as saying that his judges would "interpret" the law to his liking?

OBAMA: When we get in a tussle, we appeal to the Founding Fathers and the Constitution's ratifiers to give direction. Some, like Justice Scalia, conclude that the original understanding must be followed and if we obey this rule, democracy is respected.
Others, like Justice Breyers, insist that sometimes the original understanding can take you only so far--that on the truly big arguments, we have to take context, history, and the practical outcomes of a decision into account.
I have to side with Justice Breyer's view of the Constitution--that it is not a static but rather a living document and must be read in the context of an ever-changing world.
I see democracy as a conversation to be had. According to this conception, the genius of Madison's design is not that it provides a fixed blueprint for action. It provides us with a framework and rules, but all its machinery are designed to force us into a conversation.

Source: The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p. 89-92 Oct 1, 2006

Served in the US Armed Forces
JOHN McCAIN - Yes
BARACK OBAMA - No

True. Duh... what does that have to do with anything? Is this to infer that McCain would support the troops and Obama wouldn't? The same McCain that voted against funding the troops in the middle of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over a dozen times and didn't even have the guts to vote on the new GI Bill, deciding instead to skip the vote, that John McCain?


Amount of time served in the US Senate
JOHN McCAIN - 22 YEARS
BARACK OBAMA - 173 DAYS

False. I don't know when this e-mail was originated, but Barack Obama won his senate race in November of 2004 and was sworn in as a US Senator in January of 2005. I know that math is hard for some Republicans but just for the record, today is August 31, 2008. I think that's more than 173 days. He also spent 8 years as an Illinois State Senator from 1997-2004.


Will institute a socialized national health care plan
JOHN McCAIN - No
BARACK OBAMA - Yes

Sigh... Yes, those evil social programs like Medicare and Social Security and public schools, and police and fire departments and the post office... boy they've made our lives a living hell, haven't they? And oh, by the way, every member of Congress including John McCain gets affordable health insurance... the kind that Barack Obama wants everyone to have. You can see his detailed health care plan here.


Supports abortion throughout the pregnancy.
JOHN McCAIN - No
BARACK OBAMA - Yes

False. See Obama's stance on abortion here.


Would pull troops out of Iraq immediately
JOHN McCAIN - No
BARACK OBAMA - Yes

False. Since when does "being as careful getting out as we were careless getting in" constitute "immediate" pull out? This is just another scare tactic for those who believe Iraq is the central front on terrorism (Al-Qaeda wasn't in Iraq until after we got there). but even if you debate that issue, here is what Barack Obama said:

Barack Obama offered his "Plan for Iraq" in an op-ed in today's New York Times, affirming that he would begin a "phased redeployment of combat troops" that would remove them in 16 months, by summer of 2010.

You can read the Times Op-Ed here. Also, since it seems that the Bush Administration and the government of Iraq are in negotiations for a timeline for US troop withdrawal, then I suppose Obama was right after all.


Supports gun ownership rights
JOHN McCAIN - Yes
BARACK OBAMA - No

Here are a quick couple of quotes regarding Obama and his stance on gun ownership rights:

"As a general principle, I believe that the Constitution confers an individual right to bear arms. But just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of that right, in the same way that we have a right to private property but local governments can establish zoning ordinances that determine how you can use it."

"...I think it's important for us to recognize that we've got a tradition of handgun ownership and gun ownership generally. And a lot of law-abiding citizens use it for hunting, for sportsmanship, and for protecting their families. We also have a violence on the streets that is the result of illegal handgun usage. And so I think there is nothing wrong with a community saying we are going to take those illegal handguns off the streets. And cracking down on the various loopholes that exist in terms of background checks for children, the mentally ill. We can have reasonable, thoughtful gun control measure that I think respect the Second Amendment and people's traditions."

And seriously, does anyone really oppose registering and licensing guns for law abiding citizens, while at the same time, trying to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill? Haven't we had enough random bell tower, college campus shootings?

You can view Obama's more detailed stance on gun control here.


Supports homosexual marriage
JOHN McCAIN - No
BARACK OBAMA - Yes

False. From CNN.com:

Barack Obama opposes same-sex marriage, but also opposes a constitutional ban. Says he would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment. As stated on the Obama campaign Web site, he supports full civil unions that "give same-sex couples equal legal rights and privileges as married couples, including the right to assist their loved ones in times of emergency as well as equal health insurance, employment benefits, and property and adoption rights." Says the Employment Non-Discrimination Act should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Advocated legislation that sought to expand federal hate crimes law to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Says the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy needs to be repealed.

John McCain also opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment.


Proposed programs will mean a huge tax increase
JOHN McCAIN -No
BARACK OBAMA - Yes

False, as you will see in the related issue below. You can also see Obama's detailed economy plan here.


Voted against making English the official language
JOHN McCAIN - No
BARACK OBAMA - Yes

True. Here's the reason.

"I believe the American people understand in order to succeed in our society, immigrants need to learn English. But the amendment would do a number of things that are problematical. The first is that it is contrary to the provisions of law that exist in many States. For example, in New Mexico, you have in their State Constitution, a provision that says that many of the documents within that State have to be provided in both English and Spanish. The same thing is true for the State of Hawaii. I believe this is a States rights issue, and those constitutions of those States ought to be respected. I do not believe it is a matter we ought to be imposing here from Washington DC. Also, this amendment would undo an executive order conceived by President Bill Clinton and implemented by President George Bush. Both recognized it is important that people who have limited English proficiency receive the kinds of services so they can understand what is going on in terms of the interface between the Government and themselves."

Common sense, no?


Voted to give Social Security benefits to illegals
JOHN McCAIN - No
BARACK OBAMA - Yes

False. This is simply a twist of the wording to confuse the reader into thinking that any illegal immigrant can apply for Social Security benefits. What the bill was actually about was to reduce fraud and prevent identity theft by undocumented workers. What it would have done was to deny benefits accrued to those who paid into the system after they became legal. Barack Obama voted yes to kill the bill on the basis of the following:

"Americans understand that for years there are undocumented workers who have tried to follow our laws and be good neighbors and good citizens, and have paid into the Social Security Trust Fund.
Once that person regularizes his or her status, and as they proceed down the path to earned citizenship, they should have the benefit after having followed the law and made those contributions. That is fairness.
We should not steal their funds or empty their Social Security accounts. That is not fair. It does not reward their hard work or their financial contributions.
The amendment proposes to change existing law to prohibit an individual from gaining the benefit of any contributions made while the individual was in an undocumented status. I oppose this amendment and believe it is wrong."

And by the way, it's also false because McCain voted WITH Obama to kill the bill as well.



*******
The second part of this e-mail deals with the claim that Obama would kill us on the tax front. This has been debunked at FactCheck.org, a non-partisan group.

They write:

"Alert readers may already have noted that this chain e-mail does not provide links to any of Obama's actual proposals or cite any sources for the claims it makes. That is because they are made up. This widely distributed message is so full of misinformation that we find it impossible to believe that it is the result of simple ignorance or carelessness on the part of the writer. Almost nothing it says about Obama's tax proposals is true. We conclude that this deception is deliberate."

I'll provide their answers here to the following claims as well but feel free to check the link above.

CAPITAL GAINS TAX

MCCAIN - 0% on home sales up to $500,000 per home (couples). McCain does not propose any change in existing home sales income tax.

OBAMA - 28% on profit from ALL home sales. (How does this affect you? If you sell your home and make a profit, you will pay 28% of your gain on taxes If you are heading toward retirement and would like to down-size your home or move into a retirement community, 28% of the money you make from your home will go to taxes. This proposal will adversely affect the elderly who are counting on the income from their homes as part of their retirement income.)

False. The claim that Obama would impose a 28 percent tax on the profit from "all home sales" is false. Both Obama and McCain would continue to exempt the first $250,000 of gain from the sale of a primary residence ($500,000 for a married couple filing jointly) which results in zero tax on all but a very few home sales.

It's untrue that Obama is proposing a 28 percent capital gains tax rate. He said in an interview on CNBC that he favors raising the top rate on capital gains from its present 15 percent to 20 percent or more, but no higher than 28 percent. And as for a 28 percent rate, he added, "my guess would be it would be significantly lower than that." Furthermore, he has said only couples making $250,000 or more (or, his policy advisers tell us, singles making more than $200,000) would pay the higher capital gains rate. That means the large majority of persons who pay capital gains taxes would see no increase at all.

DIVIDEND TAX

MCCAIN - 15% (no change)

OBAMA - 39.6% - (How will this affect you? If you have any money invested in stock market, IRA, mutual funds, college funds, life insurance, retirement accounts, or anything that pays or reinvests dividends, you will now be paying nearly 40% of the money earned on taxes if Obama becomes president. The experts predict that 'Higher tax rates on dividends and capital gains would crash the stock market, yet do absolutely nothing to cut the deficit.')

False. Another false claim is that Obama proposes to raise the tax rate on dividends to 39.6 percent. Dividends currently are taxed at a top rate of 15 percent, and Obama would raise that to the same rate as he would tax capital gains, somewhere between 20 percent and 28 percent but likely "significantly" lower than 28 percent. This higher tax also would fall only on couples making $250,000 or more or singles making more than $200,000.

INCOME TAX

MCCAIN (no changes)
Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $31,250

OBAMA (reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts)
Single making 30K - tax $8,400
Single making 50K - tax $14,000
Single making 75K - tax $23,250
Married making 60K - tax $16,800
Married making 75K - tax $21,000
Married making 125K - tax $38,750
Under Obama, your taxes could almost double!

Patently false. The claim that "Under Obama your taxes will more than double!" is also false. The comparative rate tables this e-mail provides for McCain and Obama are entirely wrong, as we explained in an earlier article March 13 about another false e-mail from which these tables are copied. It is supposedly a comparison of tax rates before and after the Bush tax cuts, but it grossly overstates the effect of the Bush cuts. Furthermore, Obama proposes to retain the Bush cuts for every single income level shown in this bogus table.

The false numbers in the e-mail were copied from a similar smear accusing Bill Clinton of the same thing in 1999. It was just copied Obama's name was inserted. Shameless.

INHERITANCE TAX

MCCAIN - 0% (No change, Bush repealed this tax)

OBAMA - Restore the inheritance tax Many families have lost businesses, farms, ranches, and homes that have been in their families for generations because they could not afford the inheritance tax. Those willing their assets to loved ones will only lose them to these taxes.

FALSE! The claim that Obama proposes to "restore the inheritance tax" is also false, as are the claims that McCain would impose zero tax and that Bush "repealed" it. McCain and Obama both would retain a reduced version of the estate tax, as it is correctly called, though McCain would reduce it by more.
The tax now falls only on estates valued at more than $2 million (effectively $4 million for couples able to set up the required legal and financial arrangements). It reaches a maximum rate of 45 percent on amounts more than that. It was not repealed, but it is set to expire temporarily in 2010, then return in 2011, when it would apply to estates valued at more than $1 million ($2 million for couples), with the maximum rate rising to 55 percent.
Obama has proposed to apply the tax only to estates valued at more than $3.5 million ($7 million for couples), holding the maximum rate at 45 percent. McCain would apply it to estates worth more than $5 million ($10 million for couples), with a maximum rate of 15 percent.


NEW TAXES PROPOSED BY OBAMA

New government taxes proposed on homes that are more than 2400 square feet. New gasoline taxes (as if gas weren't high enough already) New taxes on natural resources consumption (heating gas, water, electricity) New taxes on retirement accounts, and last but not least....New taxes to pay for socialized medicine so we can receive the same level of medical care as other third-world countries!!!

FALSE! The e-mail continues with a string of made-up taxes that it falsely claims Obama has proposed. He has not proposed a tax on new homes with more than 2,400 square feet, or a new gasoline tax or a tax on retirement accounts. The most laughably false claim is that Obama would tax "water."

Two claims in this message, while not completely false, are still grossly misleading.

The claim that Obama would impose "new taxes on natural resources" may refer to his support for a cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions, which indeed would impose large costs on industries burning coal, gas or oil and, indirectly, on their consumers. But McCain also supports cap-and-trade legislation, and even coauthored an early version of a bill that reached the Senate floor this year. Obama's plan would give the federal government more of the revenue from auctioning pollution permits than McCain's plan. Whether cap-and-trade amounts to a "tax" is a matter of interpretation. The fact is neither McCain nor Obama call it that.

There is also some truth to the claim that Obama would impose "new taxes" to finance his health care plan, depending on your interpretation of "new." He has said he would pay for much of his plan "by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for people making more than $250,000 per year, as they are scheduled to do." That would certainly be a tax increase for those high-income persons, compared with what they are paying now. But whether that's imposing a new tax, or just letting an old one come back, depends on your point of view. It may well be that Obama will eventually propose tax increases to finance some of his plan. We've noted before that the "cost savings" that he says will finance much of his plan are inflated and probably won't materialize, according to independent experts we consulted. But it's wrong to say that he's proposing such taxes now.

The short answer to our reader's question is, no, this message isn't real. It's a pack of lies.

**************

Here's a chart from the Washington Post that breaks down Obama's and McCain's tax plans by income demographic. While both Senators are proposing tax plans that would result in cuts for most American families, Obama's plan gives the biggest cuts to those who make the least, while McCain would give the largest cuts to the very wealthy.

Notice the misleading final line of the chart stating McCain's "Average Cut" would be more than Obama's. Well sure it is when you're giving a 4.4% tax cut to those making almost $3 million per year and a 0.2% tax cut for those making under $20,000 per year. (Click on chart for full size.)

And one last thing regarding the final asinine line of the e-mail: "New taxes to pay for socialized medicine so we can receive the same level of medical care as other third-world countries!!!"

Someone should tell the citizens of Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, and a host of others that they're apparently living in a third world country because they receive universal health care!