Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama

[Naked Gents Rut]

1. You're not going to be able to raise taxes until the coming recession is over. It would be wise to raise them afterward to balance the budget, but not in the fashion Obama is proposing (increased tax burden falling entirely on the rich, handouts for the large swathe of Americans who don't pay income tax).

2. Since you can't raise taxes for the time being, cutting spending is the only positive option available at the moment. McCain has promised to do his best to cut spending; Obama has trouble naming parts of his planned spending increases that he would give up.

3. Gridlock is the surest way to keep government spending down. I hope America never has a GOP President/GOP Congress or Dem President/Dem Congress again. It was a fiscal disaster under Bush and will be a fiscal disaster under Obama.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
I think its being far more of an idgit to think that Obama with a Dem Congress will be spending less than McCain with a Dem Congress.

If you want to claim "competence" that's one thing, but spending wise, I don't think there is a contest.

There were people in 2000 and 2004 who voted for Bush, thinking he would spend wisely.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut
1. You're not going to be able to raise taxes until the coming recession is over. It would be wise to raise them afterward to balance the budget, but not in the fashion Obama is proposing (increased tax burden falling entirely on the rich, handouts for the large swathe of Americans who don't pay income tax).

We have been cutting taxes primarily for the wealthy for the last 28 years. Taxes in the highest income brackets are half of what they were 28 years ago, and almost a third of what they were 40 years ago. It is time to raise them for the wealthy once more.

JM

[Naked Gents Rut]

I agree, taxes should be raised on the rich once the recession is over. Taxes should also be raised on other taxpayers.

[MrFun]

Lower class do not need higher taxes. They have it hard enough as it is. Just raise taxes on upper class and upper middle class.

[Jon Miller]

Obama will only increase taxes by a noticeable amount for people who make more than 603k per year. I am fine calling such people rich.

JM

[Naked Gents Rut]

No one "needs" higher taxes put upon them. However, if the U.S. government really needs more funding, everyone except the destitute should be expected to chip in a little more. As Joe Biden said, paying taxes is a "patriotic" duty.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut
3. Gridlock is the surest way to keep government spending down. I hope America never has a GOP President/GOP Congress or Dem President/Dem Congress again. It was a fiscal disaster under Bush and will be a fiscal disaster under Obama.

QFMFT.

Unfortunately too few people realize that gridlock and the need for moderating compromise are exactly what made Clinton such a great president. Now they think electing Obama will be a return to the Clinton era even though its driving dynamic will be missing. Instead the temptations of a legislative monopoly will just make him a flipside of the Bush coin.

[TheStinger]

Powell would have been a better president than Bush by so much it would be diffciult to quantify, the fact that he is endorssing who he believes to be the best candidate rather than following his party just shows that to be the case

[Darius871]

Why the hell didn't the guy run anyways? He would have been a juggernaut in both the primary and general, so...

[dannubis]

I assume he wasn't licking the local chruch floor while forgetting what christianity is all about ???

[MrFun]

Obama and Powell

Obama: Powell will have a role in adminstration
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Digg Facebook Newsvine del.icio.us Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Bookmarks Print By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer Laurie Kellman, Associated Press Writer – 14 mins ago
Featured Topics: John McCain Barack Obama AP – Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks at a rally in the Crown Center Coliseum …
Slideshow: Sen. Barack Obama Play Video Video: Rudy Giuliani responds CNN Play Video Video: Talk of the Town - Palin gets in on joke. Reuters WASHINGTON – Colin Powell will have a role as a top presidential adviser in an Obama administration, the Democratic White House hopeful said Monday.

"He will have a role as one of my advisers," Barack Obama said on NBC's "Today" in an interview aired Monday, a day after Powell, a four-star general and President Bush's former secretary of state, endorsed him.

"Whether he wants to take a formal role, whether that's a good fit for him, is something we'd have to discuss," Obama said.

Being a top presidential adviser, especially on foreign policy, would be familiar ground to Powell on a subject that's relatively new to the freshman Illinois senator. Obama has struggled to establish his foreign policy credentials against GOP candidate John McCain, a decorated military veteran, former prisoner of war and ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In the NBC interview, Obama said Powell did not give him a heads up heads-up before he crossed party lines and endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate on the network's "Meet the Press" a day earlier.

In that interview, Powell called Obama a "transformational figure" in the nation's history and expressed disappointment in some of McCain's campaign tactics. But, Powell said, he didn't plan to hit the campaign trail with Obama before the Nov. 4 election.

"I won't lie to you, I would love to have him at any stop," Obama said with a grin Monday. "Obviously, if he wants to show up he's got an open invitation."

Powell's endorsement came just hours after Obama's campaign disclosed that it raised $150 million in September — obliterating the old record of $66 million it had set only one month earlier.

He expressed disappointment in the negative tone of McCain's campaign, his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate and their decision to focus in the closing weeks of the contest on Obama's ties to 1960s-era radical William Ayers, saying "it goes too far."

At a boisterous rally Sunday, Obama said McCain was "out of ideas and almost out of time."

He and his aides appear so confident of his prospects that apart from a brief stop in Madison, Wis., next Thursday, Obama currently has no plans during the next 10 days to return to Pennsylvania, Minnesota, New Hampshire or any other state that voted for John Kerry in 2004.

Instead, he intends to spend two days this week in Florida, where early voting begins on Monday, and travel to Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico and possibly Nevada and Indiana. Those states hold 97 electoral votes combined, and Bush won all in 2004.

Obama also may stop in West Virginia, where his campaign recently bought statewide television advertising in a late attempt to put the state's five electoral votes into serious contention.

Obama speaks about Powell's endorsement

[Naked Gents Rut]

Obama looks more and more like Bush every day...

[Patroklos]

Yessir, Mr. Patro, let me reevaluate why I like someone who is regretful for what he did whilst the others believe regrets are un-American.

If thats what you think happened fine, thats not really what happened though. For those who think Powell was somehow tricked or hoodwinked it is nothing more than self delusion. If you respect Powell then you have to do so knowing he did what he did while having all the info anyone else did at the top. That means you have to reevaluate your opinion of either Powell, or his peers. Or just be a hypocrite, which is far more likely.

Well, the GOP has added over $5,000,000,000,000 to our national debt with nothing to show for it and expanded the size and power of the federal government like there's no tomorrow....and McCain wants to continue these very same policies that have left us so FUBAR!

What policies does he want to continue? Have you seen the spending matchups between Obama and McCain?

[asleepathewheel]

Much like John McCain, this endorsement would have been worth a hell of a lot more 8 years ago.

The right wing media is really overplaying the hysteria-embarrassing-it would probably be best to just ignore it and focus on McCain's recent endorsement.

Spoiler:

joe the plumber