For our economy, our safety, and our workers, we have to rebuild America. I’m proposing a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that will invest $60 billion over ten years. This investment will multiply into almost half a trillion dollars of additional infrastructure spending…
And where’s that additional 500 billion dollars going to come from?
My energy plan will invest $150 billion over ten years to establish a green energy sector that will create up to 5 million new jobs over the next two decades – jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced. We’ll also provide funding to help manufacturers convert to green technology
From what programs will this money be transferred, or better to ask, how much will taxes be raised to cover this economic spending? Those 5 million people aren’t going to work for free. Massive state companies were set up in China, and only survive by subsidy, in fact they are even selling some of them off.
I’ve paid for every element of this economic agenda – by ending a war that’s costing us billions, closing tax loopholes for corporations, putting a price on carbon pollution, and ending George Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans.
By the way, those corporations are NOT going to absorb that added tax burden, it will be passed along to john doe consumer. Carbon pollution? Now that’s nice and vague. What are you going to do, add a carbon tax to power plants and other factories? It may sound nice to revoke those tax cuts for the “wealthiest 2%” but when you have a so-called “progressive” income tax those in the top brackets are paying the largest percentage of their incomes.
I’ve proposed a fund that would provide direct relief to victims of mortgage fraud.
Hmm, I smell more taxes
I won’t wait another ten years to raise the minimum wage – I’ll guarantee that it keeps pace with inflation every single year so that it’s not just a minimum wage, but a living wage.
Sound’s like a recipe for spiraling inflation. Whenever it becomes more expensive to produce a product, that cost is passed on the consumer, or the company finds a way to make the product more efficienty (RE: Fewer workers)
In addition to cutting costs for working families, we also need to help them save more – especially for retirement. That’s why we’ll require employers to enroll every worker in a direct deposit retirement account that places a small percentage of each paycheck into savings.
So, in addition to the necessary tax increases to fund federal social and economic spending, the government is going to be telling you what to do with YOUR money. Very nice to say a “small percentage” when for the poorest, every small percent helps!
..ban [credit card] rate changes to debt that’s already incurred; and ban interest on late fees.
Again, this sounds like a nice way to “stick it to the credit cards” however, it will only reduce credit available. As a [likely] unintentional side affect, this reduction could actually be good in the long run if it forces people to live more within their means.
Every American would be able to get the same kind of health care that members of Congress get for themselves, and we’d ban insurance companies from denying you coverage because of a pre-existing condition.
Here’s where we get into the real meat-and-potatoes of tax mania, the Universal Health Care cure-all. The thing about the government providing the health care that Obama seems to be ignorant of here, is that there would likely be little if any private market left for health insurance, hence insurance companies would cease offering health insurance, in large part to the high cost of pre-existing conditions. Example: Person needs high cost surgery, buys health insurance, gets the surgery and drops the insurance. The companies will just cease the coverage rather than see the complete draining of their monies.
And the main difference between my plan and Senator Clinton’s plan is that she’d require the government to force you to buy health insurance and she said she’d ‘go after’ your wages if you don’t. Well I believe the reason people don’t have health care isn’t because no one’s forced them to buy it, it’s because no one’s made it affordable – and that’s what we’ll do when I am President.
Presumably, Hillary would offer the same kind of “affordable” health insurance. You dodge the issue of whether or not you’d force it by merely addressing that you’d make it “affordable.” But if your going for so-called “universal health care” you are going to have to opt people into the system. Thanks but no thanks
Source for Obama Speech Quotes: barackobama.com
