The Obama File

In the past, I've been critical of the GOP running on the "lesser of two evils" platform.  Yet, though I feel McCain's positives outweigh his negatives, I am less a great fan of McCain than fearful of an Obama presidency.  Obama would undoubtedly be the most liberal US president ever.  Without much ado, here is a rundown of links and articles that actual address Obama on the issues (not the issues of "hope" and "change").

Abortion: Obama is the most pro-abortion nominee in history. Obama's support for the "born alive" legislation that would protect babies that survived attempted abortions from being put to death, is just mind boggling.

Taxes and Social Security: While Obama has attempted to move to the middle on taxes (claiming he wouldn't raise taxes too much, i.e. a return to the rates under Bill Clinton), his plan doesn't just call taxing "on the rich", and combined with his Social Security proposal, represents a dramatic increase in taxes and redistribution mechanism. 

Indeed, it is his plan to "save Social Security" that will prove most destructive - he proposes no Social Security tax on income between $102,000 and $250,000, but a "windfall" rate above that.  This flies in the face of how Social Security is supposed to work - i.e. you get back roughly what you pay in - and makes it purely a redistribution scheme.   

Ethanol While Obama decries not taxing "big oil" enough he does support mandates and taxpayer subsidies (not to mention tax breaks) for Big Ethanol. Coincidentally, the New York Times notes the political connections between the Obama camp and big ethanol.

Lobbyists: Obama claims to be the candidate to clean up Washington, most notably highlighting his refusal to take money from lobbyists.  But USA Today found this was a complete deception:

His fundraising team includes 38 members of law firms that were paid $138 million last year to lobby the federal government, records show.



Those lawyers, including 10 former federal lobbyists, have pledged to raise at least $3.5 million for the Illinois senator's presidential race. Employees of their firms have given Obama's campaign $2.26 million, a USA TODAY analysis of campaign finance data shows.

Political deception:  John Lott runs down a number of "flip-flops" by Obama, but a number of these - most notably his change in rhetoric on NAFTA - were clearly attempts to pander to the left during the primary and pander to the middle now.   In fact, Obama even warned Canadians that his NAFTA demagoguery was just campaign bluster.

School Choice: Obama opposes school choice - for your kids.  Like most wealthy politicians, he prefers school choice for his own.

Voting against his own platform: How bad are Obama's campaign promises?  So bad that when Senator Allard of Colorado introduced $300 billion/year worth of Obama's promises, instead of enacting them into law, every single senator voted against them - including Obama himself.

This is your messiah?