Obama to supporters: Don't get 'bogged down' (on details of) war, taxes

seafan

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Fri Aug-05-11 11:37 AM
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Obama to supporters: Don't get 'bogged down' (on details of) war, taxes

Obama to supporters: Don't get 'bogged down' on war, taxes

By Michael O'Brien - 08/04/11 09:38 AM ET
The Hill

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The president, in a video conference with supporters Wednesday night from Chicago, encouraged his backers to focus on broad themes when it comes to his policies on taxes and war, instead of the specifics of individual policies.

"I think the key is not to get too bogged down in detail," the president said last night.
"If somebody asks about taxes, nobody is really interested in hearing what precise marginal tax rate change would you like to see in the tax code," Obama said.

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On Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama said: "If somebody asks about the war, whether it�s Iraq or Afghanistan � if it�s Iraq, you have a pretty simple answer, which is all our folks are going to be out of there by the end of the year. If it�s Afghanistan, you can talk about, look, we think it�s time for us to transition to Afghan lead and rebuild here at home. So, again, it�s a values issue: Where are we prioritizing our resources?"

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Obama said his campaign, led by Jeremy Bird, his national field director, would take the lead in ensuring that volunteers have good talking points to take out on the campaign trail. The president said his administration would also lay out new initiatives that would help his grassroots volunteers sell his record.

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He doesn't think we are interested in details. So we shouldn't worry our little heads about it when his grassroots volunteers come calling to get him reelected.

Let's not look at details like the push for another corporate tax holiday, which is getting no attention anywhere. Hey, it's even getting more and more bipartisan support.

On the corporate tax holiday:

Matt Taibbi:

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Here�s how it works: the tax laws say that companies can avoid paying taxes as long as they keep their profits overseas. Whenever that money comes back to the U.S., the companies have to pay taxes on it.

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Only there�s a catch. In 2004, the corporate lobby got together and major employers like Cisco and Apple and GE begged congress to give them a �one-time� tax holiday, arguing that they would use the savings to create jobs. Congress, shamefully, relented, and a tax holiday was declared. Now companies paid about 5 percent in taxes, instead of 35-40 percent.

Money streamed back into America. But the companies did not use the savings to create jobs. Instead, they mostly just turned it into executive bonuses and ate the extra cash. Some of those companies promising waves of new hires have already committed to massive layoffs..

Taibbi then says that after this tax holiday happened in 2004, these companies immediately and deliberately began offshoring their profits again, with the hope that in the future, they would get another tax "holiday", to bring their profits back here, yet again.

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According to Drucker, lobbyists met with President Obama last December to ask for another holiday.

Evil Corporate Tax Holiday Deal Still Alive, Taibbi, August 4, 2011

And let's not look at the details on Iraq:

US drags its feet in Iraq

By Karamatullah K Ghori
August 6, 2011

After days of wrangling, leaders of the main political parties of Iraq agreed on August 2 to hand a joint mandate to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to negotiate with the United States on whether some Americans troops will stay on in Iraq to "train" Iraqi forces beyond the end of this year.

United States forces, according to President Barack Obama's withdrawal plan, are scheduled to vacate Iraq by the end of year deadline. It's also an "open secret" however that the long-established American preference is not to leave Iraq entirely. Pentagon pundits in Washington, and some of their fellow-travelers in Iraq, have long been thinking aloud that some American troops ought to stay on beyond the deadline, if only to train the Iraqis in keeping peace and ensuring security once the Americans are gone.

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And let's not look at the details on Afghanistan:

Road building key tactic for U.S. in Afghanistan

August 4, 2011

(CBS News)

The war in Afghanistan isn't just being fought with guns and bombs. Shovels and backhoes are being used to transform a countryside that hasn't changed in centuries-- all in the name of security. CBS News correspondent Seth Doane traveled to Kandahar province where American soldiers are hard at work on a major project.

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The idea across the area is for the coalition to come in and control more roads and thoroughfares - building checkpoints - and get rid of the Taliban.

It took just a day to push to the river, plowing right through cropland and unearthing one of the ever-present conflicts that makes this war harder to win -- the tension between military and civilian goals: In this case the welfare of the civilian farmers who stood in the way.

Though they'll be compensated, winning the "hearts and minds" of these farmers will take much more than the trinkets that captivate the younger generation: toys and radios from the soldiers.
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'Let's not look at the details. People don't care about those. Let's look over there instead.'

We the people damn well are interested in the details, Mr President. And no amount of obfuscation will hide them.