Almost from the first day since winning his Senate seat less than four years ago, Barack Obama has been running for president. After Chicago's leading political consultant, David Axelrod, agreed to run Obama's Senate campaign in 2003, The Economist magazine in Britain reported "he simultaneously set about using his contacts in the Washington press corps to present Mr. Obama as a national star in the making."
Axelrod is a firm believer in the importance of telling "a positive story about the candidate rather than to muddy the narrative with lots of talk about policy details." Oh those "silly" policy details -- who cares about them when we can have a Greek god/rock star for president?
This focus on biography has left Americans wondering about his readiness. Sure, he may be a nice guy, but we are electing a president to lead America.
Bill Clinton tried to put the experience issue to bed in his speech at the Denver Democratic convention, but the question still lingers in Americans' minds. Is Obama ready to lead our country of 300 million people? In addition, the next question is how will his policies affect me?
When the honeymoon is over and people's infatuation with Obama wears off, they will definitely care about his policies. They will care about how these policies affect their day-to-day lives and pocketbook. Obama cannot be bothered with sharing these policy positions in his rhetorically flashy speeches because they are considered boring. Therefore, we did the research, and will answer the question of how they will mean to you.
John McCain would like to make the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 permanent, and McCain has proposed a few more tax cuts of his own. Obama, by contrast, favors allowing the tax cuts to expire; that expiration will be the largest tax increase in American history.
As though gas prices are not high enough, Obama proposes new oil and gasoline taxes.
However, that is not all in the way of new taxes. Retirement accounts will see new taxes as well as natural resources, including natural gas used to heat homes, water and electricity.
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