Taxes
McCain on Taxes - McCain believes that American business need lower corporate taxes to compete in the global economy. He wants to phase out the Alternative Minimum Tax, cut corporate taxes from 35% to 25%, and maintain the 15% tax on dividends and capital gains.
Obama on Taxes - Obama believes in a situational approach to taxing. For example, he wants to tax oil companies' windfall profits to provide American families a $1,000 energy rebate, provide a tax credit of $500 per working indivdual or $1,000 per working family (i.e., the tax cut for 95% of Americans), and eliminate income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000/year,
Similarities on Taxes - Both support tax incentives for corporate research and development.
Report card - I give the advantage to McCain because lower corporate taxes can make American companies more competitive in the global economy which can ultimately lead to a stronger U.S. job market for the lower, middle, and upper classes. Further, taxing oil companies is not going to give them any incentive to work on energy independence.
Technology
McCain on Technology - McCain supports an increase in H-1B visas so companies can hire highly skilled foreign workers that are trained in U.S. graduate schools. Further, he supports tax incentives for telecommuting and for providing Internet access to low income families. McCain is against cell phone taxes, internet taxes, stem cell research, and Network Neutrality.
Obama on Technology - Obama is for Network Neutrality, tools for parental control over TV and the Internet, increased privacy protections, biomedical research, and stem cell research. In addition, he wants to create the nations first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to improve tbe security of our Internet networks and to improve inter-agency integration. He is against broadcast media consolidation.
Similarities on Technology - Both believe that all americans should have access to high speed internet. In addition, both advocate the need for increased global protection of American intellectual property and patents and, specifically, to provide additional resources to the U.S. Patent Office.
Report card - I give the advantage to Obama because he is in favor of Network Neutrality, which is the issue with the biggest implications. Network Neutrality (the current Internet policy) prevents broadband internet providers like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon from providing preferential/detrimental treatment (i.e., bandwidth access and speed) towards online service providers like Google, Yahoo!, YouTube, Amazon, EBay, MySpace, and Facebook. Specifically, Network Neutrality guarantees internet users equal access to all web sites whereas Internet providers want to limit or tax web sites that use a lot of their bandwidth (e.g., YouTube and MySpace). Elminating Network Neutrality would have affects on the global economy that are difficult to predict and seemingly unneccessary (i.e., "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"). Limiting broadband provider power is in the best interest of Internet users and businesses.
How do you grade the candidates on taxes and technology?
4 comments:
Good stuff Robert. I would actually like to see the Fair Tax implemented to take the strain off corporations and jumpstart our economy. Plus it would guarantee that all legal or illegal citizens would be taxed. Thus, we would have a greater ability to fund governmental programs for technological research and development to keep our country competitive and in the forefront.
I only want to speak about the tax comparison.
There is no strain on corporations. Taxes, like salary and wages are part of doing business. Those corporations benefitted from infrastructure we all paid for in the form of taxes. Take away the roads and many corporations would wither and die (railroads excluded - although they got a buttload of land to build on). It is only fitting that they pay their fair share for the privilege of using the infrastructure we built.
also, taxing windfall profits will make the oil companies less likely to raise prices on a whim: "Today Marci sneezed and oil jumped $60/barrel". They are taking advantage of inelastic demand and they can share in their success. Not too much, but a little would be nice; I have my child's allergy shots to pay for.
Marci, you bring up some good points. But first, taxes play a huge role in business decisions like mergers, business form (i.e., corporation vs. LLC vs. partnership), employee stock vesting, 401K, and health coverage. Most companies compete in the global economy so positioning American companies for success in the global economy is important. Tax law is one way to position companies for success.
To your point, my business law notes state that the cost of employee health coverage is tax deductible by a company as a business expense with costs to employees passed down via a pre-tax plan. Thus, connecting back to my first point, most companies will probably prefer that their employees continue using their corporate health insurance plan because if an employee switches to a non-company plan using McCain's $5,000 tax credit then the company will lose some of their tax deduction.
Regarding oil companies, take a look at this post: Why are oil companies so profitable?. Taxing oil companies windfall profits is not going to not going to get them to reduce their profits. Instead, it gives them a huge incentive to beef up their expenses. Further, oil companies make their money on huge volume not added pennies to the price of gas. Finally, oil companies invest in projects that are going to make them money so they'll start investing in clean/green technologies when they believe those technologies will help them make more money than they are making now.
Rob, I think it might be over-simplified to say that Net Neutrality has greater implications than stem cell research. I think is important to support both. As a sidenote, John McCain isn't totally against stem cell research. I think the tricky part of his position is that he opposes the "intentional creation of human embryos for research purposes," which fails to mention stem cells harvested from unused eggs after artificial insemination. I wonder if that is a conventient omission? Uh oh, don't let the zealots find out.
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