Saturday, November 1, 2008

Obama tax breaks -circa 2008

Some of you may remember that I posted this on another blog (that has since been deleted) back in 2008 during the presidential. I'm posting it again because I need it for a discussion I'm having on facebook about how conservatives don't care about SAHM but liberals do.

Sorry the links have all expired, you'll just have to take my word for it.

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Money talks:
How Obama bought his way to the white house
(and how its more disturbing than how the other guy tried.)

It’s no secret that politicians buy and sell votes everyday with the bills they sign and the deals they make. So why is Obama any different than anyone else? Perhaps he’s not and I’m just now noticing how crooked politicians really are, but something inside, tells me Obama is not the run-of-the-mill politician. No, he’s marching to the beat of a different drum and because American’s are desperate for change, they believe that any change is better than no change, so they march too.

I thought I’d march for a bit, give him the benefit of my doubt. I visited his website and was a little bothered that there wasn’t a biography, section. Ok…I probably wouldn’t want my personal stuff on a professional website either, I can let that go. The next thing that caught my attention was the calculator. I LOVE to crunch numbers. I have filled up pages and pages of notebooks with all sorts of numbers. Financial, time management, predictions, percentages….ohh I just love it. I often wonder why I’m not an accountant, a mathematician, or a cashier. Anyway, I saw that little calculator and couldn’t resist. Go ahead, Obama, show me my tax break. So I answered these questions:

1.     Annual Income
2.     Filing Status
3.     How many dependents
4.     If you are over 65
5.     If you have child care expenses
6.     Saving for retirement
7.     Outstanding balance of your mortgage
8.     Do you have college expenses

Not too painful. And now ladies and gentlemen, may I have a drum roll please? Rat-a-tat-tat-a-tat-a-tat-a…..

(Now before I go further, I want you all to know that his post is not about the dollar figures you see on this post. It’s about what these numbers MEAN. So please don’t stop reading once you see the numbers, there’s more.)

….tat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-a!

Obama tax savings                           McCain tax savings
$2155                    $397

Not too bad Obama…that’s a lot of money and what’s up with Tightwad to the right? Oh, what was that? I answered one of the questions incorrectly? No problem let me change my answer and lets get the REAL number.
Obama tax savings                           McCain tax savings
$1619                    $932

Dollars and cents say, no matter what, I get more if I vote for Obama…so…GO Obama !! Right? Well perhaps many of you were like me and although the money says it’s a better savings to vote for Obama, something, just didn’t quite seem right. So you find yourself taking a closer look. Does anyone see what I see? Or am I reaching here?

Ok enough I’ll just get to it.
Why did McCain’s numbers get higher on the recalculation and Obama’s fell?

On the first quote I answered that I had childcare expenses. Believe you me I have three kids I have childcare expenses! Diapers, food, clothes, cleaning supplies, etc. On the second quote, I realized that when they asked if I had childcare expenses what they meant to say was, “Do you pay someone to take care of your children for a significant part of the day, while you work or do whatever it is that you do”? Well I don’t so I changed my answer.

Obama’s numbers tell me that he wants to reward parents who work outside the home and contribute financially to the countries economy or to make it possible to support a family in our unstable economy.

These numbers also tell me that McCain chooses to reward families who keep one parent home in the hope of strengthening their families and supporting their children rather than building their personal wealth or financial security.

Who is right? Well I’m not going to pretend to know. But whether right or wrong, I can tell you which side I believe in. I believe the family is central to God’s plan. And any effort made to separate parents from each other and/or from their children is contrary to God’s will and is aligned with the efforts of The Great Deceiver.

Perhaps I’m oversimplifying a complex issue but this is what the numbers above say to me. And it irritates me that Obama is essentially buying the middle class vote with the promise of tax relief. It’s bad enough to know that politicians buy each other, but he stoops to a new low when he buys off the American people. So, go-a-head, check it out. How much will Obama being buying your vote for?

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Infidel-Review


INFIDEL
By: Ayaan Hirsi Ali

 (This is my original review from June 25, 2008. 
To view comments generated by this post click here 
to go directly to the review on my goodreads page



Synopsis
The author tells her account of how she became an Infidel in the eyes of Islam. She was raised Muslim and after an abusive childhood and adolescence she began to question her faith. She ran away from an arranged marriage and was granted refugee status in Holland. While there further questioning and more education eventually caused her to turn away from Islam and God.

Review
Although this book was quite intriguing I can only give it 2 ½ stars (at best 3). A book must be much more than intriguing to get 5-stars. I wish it left me with more than a knot in my stomach. I wanted there to be a solution, a guide for what the world can do to help those who are held captive by dominating tradition or family honor. It just wasn’t there. Instead I was left feeling like, it may be okay to uphold stereotypes that all Muslims are violent and potential terrorists…and I’m just not ok with that.

Another item I took issue with was seeing Ayaan slowly question her faith and turn away from God. No matter how backward you may think Islam, or any religion, it is unsettling to me to see someone turn away from God.

In my reading I also found many parallels between Islam and Mormonism. I really wasn’t exciting about possibly being labeled by others as one of the “radical” religions of the world so I then began searching for differences. My favorite difference is that Latter-Day Saint (LDS) doctrine teaches its members to seek truth and find confirmation. We are not encouraged to keep questions bottled up. This then is in stark contrast to Ms. Ali’s account of Islam that any question to the Koran or it’s teaching is unholy and punishable. As a Latter-Day Saint, we believe in continual, constant revelation for our entire church down to each individual member. When we have questions, we are encouraged to ask God. How thankful I am for that and for my own personal witness of many truths.

To a Muslim, this book would probably be classified as what Mormons call “Anti” literature. And as many of us know, we are encouraged to stay away from such things. In order to find out about a religion we should go to the source not to the deviant account. Although I believe the authors account to be true, I hope it is the deviant account. We may never really know. While the majority remains silent, the loud minority will always be the managing voice of the group.