Question of the Day: Which Presidential Candidate Will Be Better For Our Economy?

Please, keep this civil. I’m interested to know which candidate’s economic plan will be better for our country? Don’t know their differing plans? I’m not going to go through all of it here, so research it on your own.

My Answer: In my opinion, it’s McCain all the way. He’s weak on the economy, but he’s going to pick a VP who is strong on it, and his conservative principles will create more job opportunities, ACTUALLY tax the middle class less, AND tax corporate America less which will keep corporations from going overseas and creating more jobs. When you look at the Bush tax cuts, it cut the lowest tax bracket from 15% to 10%. That’s a 33% decrease. If you let those tax cuts expire for the lower-middle class, you are in effect, raising their tax bracket 50% higher (going from 10% to 15%). I don’t like that Obama wants to raise the capital gains tax, because even working-class America will be affected by that, because much of the middle class has equity and real estate investments that would be affected by a capital gains hike.

What’s your take? Please explain WHY, not just because you love the way Obama smiles or that McCain is a patriot.

Erik Folgate
Erik and his wife, Lindzee, live in Orlando, Florida with a baby boy on the way. Erik works as an account manager for a marketing company, and considers counseling friends, family and the readers of Money Crashers his personal ministry to others. Erik became passionate about personal finance and helping others make wise financial decisions after racking up over $20k in credit card and student loan debt within the first two years of college. Another one of Erik's projects is the site, Stuff We Google.

Learn more About Money Crashers - including co-founders Andrew Schrage and Gyutae Park.

steve

Your statement that McCain will tax the middle class less is incorrect. Obama’s tax plan would decrease taxes for the lowest tax bracket more than McCain’s plan. Additionally, you have to have an income over $200,000 before there’s any increase in the amount of taxes paid. Even then, it would only be an average of a $12 increase… That’s $1 a month. If you’re making that much money you can afford an extra dollar a month. You’d have to make over $600,000 before you feel any significant increase.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/11/news/economy/candidates_taxproposals_tpc/index.htm

McCain has a plan to start taxing employer sponsored healthcare. This will be a huge tax increase on the middle class, that doesn’t show up in his income tax figures. Even with his proposed tax credit, it doesn’t increase at a high enough rate to cover increasing healthcare costs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/us/politics/30mccain.html?_r=3&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Obama has proposed limiting his capital gains increase to only effect certain income levels. Furthermore, capital gains does not effect investments in retirement accounts, since those are either taxed as ordinary income (401k) or tax free at withdrawal (Roth IRA/401k).

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/Obama_talks_capgains_rate_with_CNBC.html

Overall, I support Obama’s plan because he focuses on shifting the tax burden away from the middle class. This will increase spending more than trickle down economics because it puts the money in the hands of people that will use it. His focus on renewable energy is a wise investment, and it can add millions of jobs for people in sectors that are hurting right now. His focus on increasing regulation on the financial sector will help us avoid situations like the one we’re seeing right now. These protections help the many instead of the few.
J

You wrote:
“When you look at the Bush tax cuts, it cut the lowest tax bracket from 15% to 10%. That’s a 33% decrease. If you let those tax cuts expire for the lower-middle class, you are in effect, raising their tax bracket 50% higher (going from 10% to 15%).”

How do you reconcile what you wrote with the numbers in the sidebar of this article, in which every taxpayer with income from “under 19K” to 112K will pay less taxes under Obama versus McCain:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/11/news/economy/candidates_taxproposals_tpc/index.htm
J

You wrote:
“I don’t like that Obama wants to raise the capital gains tax, because even working-class America will be affected by that, because much of the middle class has equity and real estate investments that would be affected by a capital gains hike.”

With 401K contribution limits of $15000 and Roth IRA contribution limits of $5000, how much of “working-class America” has investments in taxable account that are subject to capital gains tax? The answer is “very few”.

Further, very few in “working-class America” have “real estate investments” beyond their own home – which are already cap gains tax free for all but the most expensive homes (which no one in “working class America” owns).

Your comments in this blog post make no sense.
http://www.getmoneyenergy.com MoneyEnergy

Obama’s a patriot too, BTW.

And what about all the Republican spending on the war? How does that fit in with the supposed “fiscal responsibility” of the so-called more conservative party?

I think it’s better to look beyond party labels and caricatures and just make micro-judgments on a point by point basis.
http://timncox.com Tim Cox

Check out this article. re: economic policy
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122039919493892941.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Erik is right on about this. A tax increase for the wealthy/businesses means the consumer (the rest of us) will pick up the tab. It’s easy to latch onto a robin hood mentality when it comes to economic strategy, but it doesn’t work in the non-fairy tale world.

Don’t be a fairy.
author

So, who do you believe? the NY Times and CNN, or the Wall Street Journal? It’s obvious that the NY Times and CNN are in the tank for Obama, so you can’t site partisan articles written by liberals that want Obama to win.

In that CNN article, Obama has NEVER said that he will extend the bush tax cuts for everyone except the top earners.

Look, I was in the 15% tax bracket this year, and i didn’t pay a dime in income taxes because i used a tax credit for paying for my wife’s college tuition. Every penny I withheld got sent back to me. So, don’t tell me that the lowest income earners in America pay a higher percentage of taxes than the wealthy do. They don’t. Very few of them ACTUALLY pay income tax. NO one can get around SS and Medicare, it’s the same percentage no matter who you are. We need to stop fighting for the poor by looking for more hand-outs for them and start empowering them with knowledge and skills to help them get jobs and develop careers that earn more money.
J

Wow, man. First this stuff, now the confused rant of short-term thinking on “what’s up with the stock market?” really show that you are more confused about money, finance, and micro and macro econ than I thought.

I know you won’t miss me, but I can see I’m not going to get much out of this blog. You’re gonna have to come off the RSS feed. Anyway, good luck to you.
Proletarian

Question:

Will creating more jobs be a good thi8ng for unskilled workers. I submit that creating more jobs will be a bad thing for unskilled workers.

Question of the Day: Which Presidential Candidate Will Be Better For Our Economy?

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