Both presidential candidates are going to cut taxes in some way, shape or form. How they decide to pay for it is going to depend a whole lot on what Congress does and what each person's ideological preferences are. Despite the fact that supply-side economics has been a total failure, that won't stop McCain from trying it again. On the other end of the spectrum, Barack Obama would raise taxes on the wealthiest of the wealthy, something that has worked to reduce income inequality and improve the economy, not to mention the fact that it improves the status of the middle class.

So where do you fall? Here's a graph chart of each tax cut plan. Despite the fact that more people STILL think Obama is going to raise their taxes, the truth is McCain plans on the exact opposite: cutting taxes on a massive scale for the wealthiest wealthy, and giving the rest of us peanuts.

After you look at the chart, you'll probably realize Barack Obama's plan is better for you. You can use this calculator to see just how much of a tax credit you'll get under his plan.

And yet, somehow, McCain gains in the polls. Although, if you trust polling data as a science of sorts, we should see McCain's post-convention bounce dissipate by the end of next week. Let's see together ...

Ken Brosky

First off, if you're interested in a pretty excellent overview of the Democratic National Convention, click here to read David Sirota's most recent column. It'll sum up the good and the bad from someone who generally despises traditional Washington politics and the big money interests typically involved. There are some things that are troubling, but also some encouraging signs that we can get past this culture of "Big Money."

For those of you who are confused about national presidential polls and really want an in-depth analysis of state-to-state polls and other match-ups including presidential, senate and gubernatorial, click here to vist Pollster.com. This is without a doubt the most professional analysis of polls, and the most accurate given its history so far. While polls can be misleading in the leadup to the presidential election, the pollsters at this site do a great job analyzing each poll and explaining why one polls gets weighed more (for instance, Rasmussen, up to this point, has stacked its questions with a conservative bias, hence its often backward results).

Pollster.com also shows a tight race, but not as tight as we would be led to believe. Based on what's happened so far, a lot of traditional red states are probably going to go blue, and few if any blue states are going red. It's also important to remember that a lot of these polls rely on landlines, not cell phones, and so the "youth vote" isn't weighed as well. Note: this site can get downright addicting.

Seven. He lost count when asked, but the answer is seven. While his wife owns most of them, it's joint ownership under marriage, which is probably why he forgot about a couple of them. After all, who REALLY needs seven houses, unless they have one picked out for every day of the week? But Barack Obama is the elitist, remember, because ... well, he just is.

For those of you interested in numbers, John McCain also has 159 lobbyists working on his campaign. But don't worry ... I'm sure he understands what it's like not living in the richest one percentile. 

 I'm posting below Barack Obama's comprehensive energy plan, courtesy of ClimateProgress.org. ClimateProgress is run by climate scientist Joseph Romm, and it's an important note for two reasons:

1. Romm has been EXTREMELY critical of both Democrats' and Republicans' energy plans for the past twenty years.

2. Romm is EXTREMELY impressed with Obama's energy plan, going so far as to say it's the best one he's ever seen from a presidential candidate. Why is he so surprised? Because Obama's embracing the concept of efficiency (which is, to date, the most cost-effective way of controlling carbon output and pollution), as well as alternative energy solutions. Here's the full plan:

• Deploy the Cheapest, Cleanest, Fastest Energy Source–Energy Efficiency: Barack Obama will set an aggressive energy efficiency goal–to reduce electricity demand 15 percent from DOE’s projected levels by 2020. Implementing this program will save consumers a total of $130 billion, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 5 billion tons through 2030, and create jobs. A portion of this goal would be met by setting annual demand reduction targets that utilities would need to meet.
• Set National Building Efficiency Goals: Obama will establish a goal of making all new buildings carbon neutral, or produce zero emissions, by 2030. He’ll also establish a national goal of improving new building efficiency by 50 percent and existing building efficiency by 25 percent over the next decade to help us meet the 2030 goal.
• Overhaul Federal Efficiency Standards: The current Department of Energy has missed 34 deadlines for setting updated appliance efficiency standards….
• Reduce Federal Energy Consumption: … He will make the federal government a leader in the green building market, achieving a 40 percent increase in efficiency in all new federal buildings within five years and ensuring that all new federal buildings are zero‐emissions by 2025. He will invest in cost‐effective retrofits to achieve a 25 percent increase in efficiency of existing federal buildings within 5 years.
• Invest in a Smart Grid: … Obama will pursue a major investment in our national utility grid using smart metering, distributed storage and other advanced technologies to accommodate 21st century energy requirements: greatly improved electric grid reliability and security, a tremendous increase in renewable generation and greater customer choice and energy affordability.
• Weatherize One Million Homes Annually….
• Build More Livable and Sustainable Communities….
• Flip Incentives to Energy Utilities: An Obama administration will “flip” incentives to utility companies by: requiring states to conduct proceedings to implement incentive changes; and offering them targeted technical assistance. These measures will benefit utilities for improving energy efficiency, rather than just from supporting higher energy consumption. This “regulatory equity” starts with the decoupling of profits from increased energy usage, which will incentivize utilities to partner with consumers and the federal and state governments to reduce monthly energy bills for families and businesses. The federal government under an Obama administration will play an important and positive role in flipping the profit model for the utility sector so that shareholder profit is based on reliability and performance as opposed to total production.
• Increase Fuel Economy Standards: Obama will increase fuel economy standards 4 percent per each year while protecting the financial future of domestic automakers….
• Invest in Developing Advanced Vehicles and Put 1 Million Plugin Electric Vehicles on the Road by 2015: As a U.S. senator, Barack Obama has led efforts to jumpstart federal investment in advanced vehicles, including combined plug‐in hybrid/flexible fuel vehicles, which can get over 150 miles per gallon of gas… [more details below]
• Partner with Domestic Automakers: Obama will also provide $4 billion retooling tax credits and
  loan guarantees for domestic auto plants and parts manufacturers, so that the new fuel‐efficient
  cars can be built in the U.S. by American workers rather than overseas.
• Mandate All New Vehicles are Flexible Fuel Vehicles
• Develop the Next Generation of Sustainable Biofuels and Infrastructure
• Establish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard: … The standard requires fuels suppliers in 2010 to begin to reduce the carbon of their fuel by 5 percent within 5 years and 10 percent within 10 years.

I strongly urge you to read the entire posting here. Romm not only full supports this plan, he's the author of a number of peer-reviewed studies regarding energy efficiency and global climate change. Note to conservatives reading: "Peer-reviewed" means reviewed by scientific peers, something global warming deniers fully avoid.

Yours,

Ken Brosky 

John McCain's vote against Martin Luther King Day was no mistake, and you need to understand this because race plays a BIG role in the modern conservative movement. It plays a big role because the modern conservatives first began in the late 50's to play on the racism of white Americans in order to turn what was once a very tiny sliver of the Republican Party into what we now know as the GOP.

There was a time, in the mid-fifties, where white voters in the south were just as likely to vote Democrat or Republican. The reason they did so was because, from the late 30's through the 50's, Republicans had generally accepted the successful policies of the New Deal. Republicans HAD to accept these policies because they, along with pro-labor, pro-union reform, America had reached what economist Paul Krugman refers to as "The Great Compression," a society where financial inequality was at its lowest in our nation's history. Everyone was beginning to benefit, thanks in no small part to the large union movement (helped by the government's pro-labor reform), which helped guarantee fair wages for union members and had the effect of positively affecting wages in competing non-union jobs.

But there was always a small minority dedicated to eliminating the New Deal policies, including cutting taxes for the rich and eliminating the government's pro-labor reforms. This movement--Modern Conservatism--saw its chance in the late fifties when Democrats were pushing for civil rights reforms. In 1957, The National Review published an editorial arguing that whites could suppress African-Americans because whites were the superior race:

"The central question that emerges--and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by merely consulting a catalog of the rights of American citizen, born Equal--is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes--the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race ... sometimes the numerical minority cannot prevail except by violence: then it must determine whether the prevalance of its will worth the terrible price of violence." 

 Not only did the National Review make a point of noting our Constitution as "merely ... a catalog", it made a point of affirming that whites had the right to commit violence in order to retain their superiority, a right many racist whites agreed upon late in the fifties and during the sixties. When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights act into law, the entire South became lost to the Democratic Party and continues to this day to be almost impenetrable (although the racial barrier is collapsing in recent years).

And slowly, Modern Conservatism grew, despite its interest in appealing primarily to the richest one percent of Americans. Slowly, the fringe group became the Republican Majority, and the Republican Party began its attempts to tear down the New Deal policies while cutting taxes for the rich despite having no evidence at all to suggest it would help the economy (there were, in fact, no economists at all in the early days of "supply-side theory," confessed Irving Kristol.). "Liberal Premissiveness," according to Richard Nixon, were at the heart of America's problems.

Modern Conservatism leaped into the fray with Ronald Reagan, who announced his bid for president in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the same town where three civil rights activists were killed in 1964. His speech centered on "states' rights," and there was no denying what the underlying tones were. They were present in another famous speech, one in which he described a so-called "Welfare Queen"--and story that was elaborate fiction to begin with--that never mentioned race, and yet everyone knew what color this woman's skin was. It continued, spreading even into the most libertarian gospels, like those found in Ron Paul's own self-published newsletters.

Through it all, there was always an I'll-scratch-your-back mentality, which was necessary for Modern Conservatism to survive. Loyalty was rewarded above all else, and once Modern Conservatism dominated the Republican Party, Republicans were almost forced to go along with the policies (especially once Karl Rove jumped into the mix and proved himself capable of gutting the Republican Party of anyone who supported New Deal policies). Cronyism was always rewarded with new jobs, and the Bush administration is a clear example at every single level. Even John McCain is learning this now, going out of his way to flip-flop on every single ideology that once made him a "Maverick." Now he'll cut taxes for the rich. Now he'll cozy up to the religious right. Now he'll sell himself out to lobbyists.

Through it all, Modern Conservatism has remained true to its roots in helping only the richest one percent of Americans, and yet the Republican Party has continued to garner strength. While topics like national security and religion and abortion rights have always had a minor role in that popularity, only race has has stood the test of time. John McCain knew the rules back in the day, and he knows them now. 

Now he'll apologize for voting against MLK Day. But you know what? He knew EXACTLY what he was doing when he voted against it. He was following Modern Conservatism in order to reap the rewards of its growing power. Had he not, he would be nothing but a footnote in history by this point.

The good news is that racism is losing its popularity even in the deepest heart of the south, and tolerance has grown by leaps and bounds. It's only a matter of time before a significant majority of Americans realize that our country has spent the last 35 years helping only the richest one percent. Once that time comes, Modern Conservatism will desperately clutch at straws before finally disappearing (and indeed already does, preying on our various fears), taking John McCain with it. 

 For those of you interested in learning more, I heartily suggest "The Conscience of a Liberal," by award-winning economist Paul Krugman. The information detailed here represents a fraction of information you'll find in his book.

Yours,

Ken Brosky