By Phil Tympanick

So you’ve decided to vote for Obama, but will do so with some reservations. This article isn’t for those that have been drinking the BO-Kool-Aid since he arrived on the scene in 2004 when he gave the key-note speech at the Democratic Convention. This is for those people who, based on a 4-1 spending differential and clear media bias for BO, have been convinced that their lives will improve under a President Obama administration, and worse, a super majority in the house and senate under which the democrats would have unchallenged power and a majority that could change the world, and not just the United States as we know it.

Maybe you believe that Barack will cut your taxes, because he says 95% of working Americans making less that 250K will get an income tax cut, over and over and over. The problem is that 95% of people can’t get an income tax cut, because 40% of that 95% don’t pay income taxes. To get an income tax cut presumes you actually pay income tax so 40% of that 95% will be getting a hand-out, not a tax cut. It’s how he distributes wealth. It’s welfare using the tax code to do it.

The real truth behind his tax cuts however, is that he’s also also planning to raise the payroll tax (FICA), which is the “other” federal tax you see on your pay stub that goes to Social Security and Medicare. Today, that tax is only paid on the first 102K of your income and stops once you exceed that amount. If, however, you make, or aspire to make more than 102K, you’ll continue paying until you hit Barack’s new payroll tax threshold, which may rise as high as 150K. That means everyone that makes over 102K will pay more taxes, albeit not income taxes, but payroll taxes. What’s the difference? It’s still money out of your pocket and 102K is a far cry from 250K, at which Barack claims is his cut-off for tax hikes.

Now consider the higher taxes he wants to levy on businesses. Remember, businesses have a before, and after-tax profit. If they want to maintain their profit margins at 10% they will need to raise the prices of their goods to account for the fact that the tax rate on their pre-tax income is rising. Therefore, you’ll be paying for this tax increase though higher prices for the products you buy from all businesses, and therefore, businesses really don’t pay corporate income taxes, you do!

Finally, he’s going to raise the capital gains taxes on all investments. This sounds like a tax that will only affect people who buy & sell stocks, which, after all, is the prevue of the rich, not the middle-class right? Wrong! If you have a 401K or an IRA, you’ll be subject to these capital gains when you go to cash out on your investments, whether for college education, a new home, or for your retirement. If you sell your home for a profit, you’ll be taxed at the new capital gains rate. And the amount of the increase is not trivial. He’s looking for another 1/3 of your investment gain by raising the tax from 15 to 20%. Truthfully however, that could rise to 25% or higher, which would be a 66% increase in the capital gains tax!

Maybe you believe that Barack will end the war in Iraq and bring home the troops from Iraq, saving us $10 Billion a year in spending. At the same time he says this however, he’s also proposing moving troops to Afghanistan. How, will moving troops from Iraq to Afghanistan save us $10 Billion dollars as he’s saying? That’s double talk isn’t it? It’s simply not possible. Furthermore, if he pulls out of Iraq too soon, and the vacuum created is filled with insurgents hell bent on destabilizing the region all over again, what will it cost to re-deploy the troops back into Iraq? That’s what we need to think about. Given how close we are to victory in Iraq, thanks to the brave and tireless work of our American soldiers, pulling out prematurely, and before our military leaders advise us to would be penny wise and pound foolish.

Maybe you believe that Barack will improve our relations around the world based on his glorious speech, and the reception he received speaking in front of 250K Germans. You may very well be inspired by his popularity abroad, but you need to ask yourself why is that the case? Why, are devout enemies of the United States such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, the Palestinian Militants in Hamas and Hizbullah, and various Iranian officials, outwardly supporting Obama? It’s because he sympathies with them. According to Saul Singer, a writer for the Jerusalem Post, “What matters most for Israel right now is not a candidate's stance on foreign assistance or the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, or even more controversial issues such as settlements and targeted killings of terrorists. Much more significant is the candidate's position on the wider threat of radical Islamism and its potential nuclear epicenter, Iran.

He went on to say, that “on the one hand, he has co-sponsored a bill to impose further sanctions on Iran, and has spoken out on the seriousness of the Iranian threat. On the other, while he supported the sanctions that the Administration eventually imposed on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, he opposed the amendment that Hillary Clinton voted for.” This was the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, which designates the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a foreign terrorist organization. The reason for BO’s opposition to this amendment was outlined in an email to the JP in which Barack rationalized his opposition by saying "it tied our presence in Iraq to an effort to counter the Iranian threat, which he felt could 1) give a green light to premature military action against Iran, and 2) provide a rationale to keep our troops in Iraq, when of course, he believes we need to end our presence there."

Singer concluded “In other words, Obama placed the risk of a US military response to Iran and the risk of lengthening the US stay in Iraq as higher and more important than the risk that international sanctions will be too weak to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Such logic is warped and mistaken...It is not possible to be ‘pro-Israel’ without a serious policy for preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power, because a nuclear Iran--besides threatening Israel directly--would substantially ramp up its support for all the forces that are arrayed against Israel and the US: Hamas, Hizbullah, and al-Qaida.

Maybe you believe he'll get us to energy independence sooner rather than later and focusing on alternative energy sources vs. traditional ones is the key to our success. Most experts agree that energy independence will require us to leverage all of our energy resources and Obama knows it, but his alliances with environmentalists and his hatred for big oil companies prevents him from accepting that. He’s against drilling in the US, he’s against coal burning plants from which 50% of our electricity is generated and which he claims he’ll bankrupt by regulating them out of business through green-house gas taxes, he’s against nuclear energy, and he’s for taxing oil companies through wind-fall profit taxes. Virtually everyone in the energy business, the most publicly prominent being T. Boone Pickens, who is leading the charge to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, disagrees with Obama and says we need all our resources to solve the problem. Barack’s plan to energy independence is only as good as the air in your tires, which he claims if we keep properly inflated, we'll end our dependency on foreign oil. Not likely Senator.

All that, and I didn’t even mention Rev. Wright, the radical practitioner of Black Liberation Theology which preaches white racism, Bill Ayers who planned bombings of the Pentagon, Capital, and police offices around the country and who has never repented, and in fact claimed on 9/11 that he wished he had done more bombings, Rashid Khalidi the former spokesperson for the PLO when they were designated a terrorist organization, Tony Resco, the imprisoned real-estate investor who gave Barack a sweetheart deal on his home and property, or any other of the power brokers that propelled Barack to power base in Chicago. At best, he’s not been candid about these relationships and at worst, he has outright lied about them all. While it’s been politically advantageous to distance him self from these people now, he didn’t seem to have a problem with them before he was running for President. What does that say for his judgment and who he’s likely to bring into the White House to fill his cabinet positions?

If you’ve read this far you’ve now heard why I'm not voting for Barack Obama. These facts, however, have been out there for many months, but the national media has painstakingly avoided giving them to you. If you still decide you want to vote for Barack Obama for President, then at least you can say you did so knowing what you were getting, and if he wins, I’ll be back four years from now to say…I told you so!