In a post a few days ago I noted my reasoning for voting for John McCain. Now I present my reasons to vote against Barack Obama.
1. Mr. Obama continues to ask voters to believe he can pay for every dime of an ambitious health care plan and other spending proposals while cutting taxes for all but the most affluent. Budget experts say that's unlikely. Mr. Obama claims to have "offered spending cuts above and beyond" the cost of his proposals. Mr. Obama is one-upping himself, again. When he accepted the Democratic nomination, Obama said that he would "pay for every dime" of his new programs with spending cuts. This is just pure misleading. Independent budget experts say that Obama's proposals will increase the already swollen federal deficit substantially.
The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget just revised its "Promises, Promises" guide, and now says Obama's tax and spending proposals – in the unlikely event that Congress enacted them unchanged – would add anywhere between $262 billion and $316 billion to the federal deficit in 2013, the final year of the next president's first term. They also have increased their estimate of the likely cost of Obama's health care plan and now figures it could cost anywhere from $52 billion to $106 billion per year when it is fully phased in. Since the Congressional Budget Office recently projected the deficit in 2013 to be about $147 billion if no laws are changed, that would mean a tidal wave of red ink. This does not even take into account passage of the $700 billion bailout package and worsening economy. Plus, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down nearly 17 percent since this projection was issued.
Mr. Obama himself conceded that he probably won't be able to fulfill his promises, at least not right away. He acknowledged on September 30th that, in light of the financial crisis, "it is likely that some useful programs or policies that I've proposed on the campaign trail may need to be delayed." He somehow did not fit this statement into his 30 minute informercial last week.
The Tax Policy Center stated on September 15, 2008 that without "substantial cuts in government spending" the plans "would sharply increase the national debt. Including interest costs, Obama’s tax plan would boost the national debt by $3.5 trillion by 2018.
2. Mr. Obama also kept up the rhetoric with a promise to end "tax breaks for sending jobs overseas," as though that could do much to keep jobs at home. Experts say it can't. Obama's infomercial last week and his end of the election season TV ads have continued to preach on the theme of "tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas," which Obama proposes to eliminate. But, eliminating them won't do much to keep jobs in the United States. The Tax Policy Center concluded that eliminating such tax breaks "is a nice political slogan, but will do little or nothing for U.S. employment or incomes."
3. Obama's Health Care promises are pure spin, too. In his infomercial/sermon last week, Mr. Obama claimed his "health care plan includes improving information technology, requires coverage for preventive care and preexisting conditions, and lowers health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year." Back in June an Obama adviser told FactCheck.org "that more than half of it is attributed to savings from the widespread adoption of electronic records, at least some of which is expected to go to government, employers and insurance companies. The campaign, we were told, expects a trickle-down effect that could reach consumers in the form of lower taxes, reduced premiums or higher wages. So even if the savings materialized, some of them would be passed along in a variety of ways that might not be seen as lowering health care costs, such as premiums, by $2,500 a year."
I quote from Factcheck.org: "The savings estimate, though, is a goal unlikely to be met. Obama's claim assumes that 90 percent of doctors and hospitals will adopt health IT. But adoption has been slow, and experts say getting to that level of use will take much longer than one presidential term. Estimates vary, but in 2006, the Congressional Budget Office said only 12 percent of physicians and 11 percent of hospitals had electronic records systems.
Dr. Rainu Kaushal, a professor of public health at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, told us that with the right policies, 90 percent adoption is achievable. But, "I think it's pie in the sky for the next five years," she said. "I think we're looking more in the eight to 10 [year] range."
And more important, experts also believe that any big-dollar savings from health IT are unlikely to flow through directly to the general public. Catherine Desroches, an instructor at the Harvard Medical School and a researcher at the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital, called the idea of trickle-down premium reductions an “unlikely event.” Despite the doubt expressed by some, Obama has continued to cite this optimistic – to say the least – figure."
One of many reasons, besides questionable character issues I have with Mr. Obama, are reasons to vote NO for Obama.
