What are the substantive differences between Obama and McCain (apart from abortion)? Or, does someone know of a website (non-partisan) that does a good job of showing the differences between the two?
McCain's health plan is to tax health care benefits, and also to give tax breaks for people for health care. I'm not sure whether or not it's a good idea. It seems sort of like going around your elbow to get to your thumb, at best, but I'd love to see an explanation of its practical effects.
In my mind, there are three major policy differences that should matter to people. 1. Iraq -- they both say that we should eventually leave but the immediate plan to be pursued by McCain is to stay and the immediate plan of Obama is to leave. Without making an argument for which is correct, I do believe this is the biggest difference between the two that effects most everything else. 2. Energy -- both plans hit the buzz words. It is clear that McCain's plan focuses on increased production in the traditional sources -- oil, NG, coal and nuke -- followed by lip service to the others. Obama's is somewhat flipped in priorities. I would like to hear more from him on nuclear because he includes it as a part of the picture but only after we address storage and disposal issues. 3. Taxes -- McCain is admittedly the exact same as bush. Obama's plan will return the top payers to Clinton levels and provide additional relief down the brackets. There are questions about his plan for capital gains. In my mind those are the big three. There are others but they pale in comparison.
Here is an article that's a bit old (from June), but I had saved it, because I think it describes in general terms, and without all the partisan bullshit from both sides, the major differences between McCain and Obama when it comes to economic issues. http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/04/news/economy/mccain_obama_econplans/index.htm Of course, candidates promise what people want to hear and try to avoid talking about the tough choices, that is the way politics are played. But the reality after they take office is often very different from the rethoric. The last sentence of the article says it all:
SD, see ASF's link above. Besides being an excellent article, it has a good section on the Health Care initiatives of both candidates. There are also some follow up links at the bottom of the Health Care section for more details.
He ain't gonna say shit about nuclear power while Nevada is still in play. Nor should he, if he wants to win.
Obama has always said that nuclear should be "in the mix" but that we need to address the problems with it. I wholeheartedly agree but he never gets into real specifics on how we address those problems. Not a major knock on him but I would like to know more about how he sees nuclear playing out in this country. You may be right about not filling in the blanks before the election. Personally, I think the waste should be dealt with in the producing states. That way people in those states can weigh the risks and benefits.
That would be fine, except that I don't think that electricity produced in a given state is only consumed in that state.
Maybe he shouldn't to win the Democratic primary, but this in the general election and people outside of Nevada want to see that his energy policy is realist. Publicly supporting Yucca Mountain as the nuclear waste repository is the first step. Yucca Mountain is the local place. It is at the Nevada Nuclear Test site, within miles of where more then 900 nuclear bombs have been tested. And on a military base. We aren't going to be build suburbs there ever. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain We dig Uranium out of the ground, and after we finish using it that is where it should be put back into the ground.
I sort of agree, but I suspect the President has more leeway in dealing with health care. I'm not so sure either one of them will be able to do all that much about the economy except hope we ride out the bad times as soon as possible.
That's not a foregone conclusion... yet. I have very strong and very real fears that you may be correct given what we saw in the Democratic primaries, but I remain hopeful that race won't be an issue for enough voters. If you put it that way, give me the commie. Better answer than mine.
This is true. The president can't really do much about the economy as things stand. I just have a real concern about the inevitability of more government control of health care. While McCain's plan is really a band-aid and Obama's plan is more creeping government control, I don't see much in the way of a real solution. We are inevitably moving towards a system of government provided health care and I am one of one persons on this board that thinks it's a terrible idea. Having said that, this is one of the reasons that I see no real philosophical difference between Obama and McCain. Both, after all, believe the solution lies with the government.