<p>A question… hasn’t McCain pretty much aligned himself with Bush on most issues? With Bush’s approval rating now at 37%, do McCain supporters think he’ll make a better president than Bush? How?</p>
<p>[Rasmussen</a> Reports: The most comprehensive public opinion coverage ever provided for a mid-term election.](<a href=“http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/political_updates/president_bush_job_approval]Rasmussen”>President Bush Job Approval - Rasmussen Reports®)</p>
<p>1) Both are republicans and as such share a wide similarity in their beliefs. That being said what has made McCain so famous in his sometimes infamous ability to depart from the party line and do his own thing. </p>
<p>2) Approval numbers are no indication of how good of a president you are. Just because Bush has a low approval rating doesn’t mean that will be transferred over to McCain despite some of the views they might share. </p>
<p>3) You can have the same beliefs and carry them out in 2 very different ways. </p>
<p>4) If you think mccain = bush then you could certainly say that Obama=Clinton</p>
<p>How is McCain different than Bush?</p>
<p>Letterman doesn’t have a Top Ten list of public tantrums thrown by Bush.</p>
<p>McCain supports Bush’s Iraq invasion. I’d like him to explain how the U.S. and the Middle East are better off for it. I see 4,000 U.S. dead, 30,000 U.S. seriously injured, 1,000,000 Iraqis dead, Iraq destroyed, far more terrorists now than before, a more unstable Middle East, a gigantic U.S. deficit, the hunt for Bin Laden abandoned. The good side: Saddam is dead, and we found out there were no WMD aimed at us. I like that McCain voted against Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, but it scares me that he is more hawkish than Bush.</p>
<p>The majority of congress, including the majority of democrats, voted in favor of the war.</p>
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<p>You don’t like tax cuts? You realize that you got $$ back thanks to those “tax cuts for the rich?”</p>
<p>"Myth #10: The Bush tax cuts were tilted toward the rich.
Fact: The rich are now shouldering even more of the income tax burden.</p>
<p>Popular mythology also suggests that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts shifted more of the tax burden toward the poor. While high-income households did save more in actual dollars than low-income households, they did so because low-income house*holds pay so little in income taxes in the first place. The same 1 percent tax cut will save more dollars for a millionaire than it will for a middle-class worker simply because the millionaire paid more taxes before the tax cut.</p>
<p>In 2000, the top 60 percent of taxpayers paid 100 percent of all income taxes. The bottom 40 percent collectively paid no income taxes. Lawmakers writing the 2001 tax cuts faced quite a challenge in giving the bulk of the income tax savings to a population that was already paying no income taxes.</p>
<p>Rather than exclude these Americans, lawmak<em>ers used the tax code to subsidize them. (Some economists would say this made that group’s col</em>lective tax burden negative.)First, lawmakers low*ered the initial tax brackets from 15 percent to 10 percent and then expanded the refundable child tax credit, which, along with the refundable earned income tax credit (EITC), reduced the typical low-income tax burden to well below zero. As a result, the U.S. Treasury now mails tax “refunds” to a large proportion of these Americans that exceed the amounts of tax that they actually paid. All in all, the number of tax filers with zero or negative income tax liability rose from 30 million to 40 million, or about 30 percent of all tax filers.[17] The remaining 70 percent of tax filers received lower income tax rates, lower investment taxes, and lower estate taxes from the 2001 legislation.</p>
<p>Consequently, from 2000 to 2004, the share of all individual income taxes paid by the bottom 40 per<em>cent dropped from zero percent to –4 percent, mean</em>ing that the average family in those quintiles received a subsidy from the IRS. (See Chart 6.) By contrast, the share paid by the top quintile of households (by income) increased from 81 percent to 85 percent.</p>
<p>Expanding the data to include all federal taxes, the share paid by the top quintile edged up from 66.6 percent in 2000 to 67.1 percent in 2004, while the bottom 40 percent’s share dipped from 5.9 per*cent to 5.4 percent. Clearly, the tax cuts have led to the rich shouldering more of the income tax burden and the poor shouldering less"</p>
<p>[Ten</a> Myths About the Bush Tax Cuts](<a href=“http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg2001.cfm]Ten”>http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg2001.cfm)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdoc.cfm?index=7718&type=1[/url]”>www.cbo.gov/ftpdoc.cfm?index=7718&type=1</a> </p>
<p>But hey I guess it’s much more fun to repeat what your liberal leaders tell you to…who needs facts?</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, quite true. However, many of those, though tardily, have realized it was a mistake. Few are gungho about continuing, or abaout also “Bomb, Bomb, BomB, Bomb-Iran”–ing. It takes a special kind of hawk for that.</p>
<p>How is McCain different than Bush?</p>
<p>You mean aside from having served his country honorably, being smarter, possessing a vocabulary that includes four-syllable words, and not acting out his issues with his dad through disastrous public policies?</p>
<p>That “Bomb Iran” song was a joke - pretty funny how it fit w/ “Barbara Ann”.</p>
<p>Actually it worked pretty well to get McCain some much-needed publicity at the time. I’m confident that the comment/song was just meant in jest, and McCain will have the MOST pragmatic approach toward Iran and ALL areas of the Middle East. The guy’s been around long enough to know exactly what to do.</p>
<p>BTW - did you know that it was McCain who advised Pres. Reagan AGAINST sending troops to Beirut back in '83. If Reagan had listened to McCain, the Marine Barracks wouldn’t have been blown up, killing all those sleeping Marines.</p>
<p>owlice - good answer. </p>
<p>About the four-syllable words, sometimes I think McCain needs to “dumb down” his speeches a bit so the average American can follow what he’s saying! haha!</p>
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Yes, and I think my tax cut was disgusting. I am appalled at passing on this deficit to my children and grandchildren. This is the first time a president lowered taxes during a war. McCain was absolutely correct in voting against it. And, yes, I am glad he can use more than one syllable words.</p>
<p>The reason McCain voted against the tax cuts was because there were no provisions to control SPENDING as well. McCain was absolutely correct to vote against them. Once again, if the powers that be had heeded McCain’s advice, we wouldn’t have such a big mess.</p>
<p>Let’s get McCain in there and FIX some of these problems!</p>
<p>McCain SHOULD’VE been elected in 2000!
I submit that we wouldn’t have gotten so tangled up in the ME if he had been elected!</p>
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<p>No, but he does regularly feature Great Moments in Presidential Speeches in which he contrasts W’s stumbling inability to conjugate a verb next to FDR’s or JFK’s soaring eloquence.</p>
<p>W runs his government by hunch. McCain would think and study.</p>
<p>McCain has a pleasant smile instead of a smirk.</p>
<p>No, but he does regularly feature Great Moments in Presidential Speeches in which he contrasts W’s stumbling inability to conjugate a verb next to FDR’s or JFK’s soaring eloquence.</p>
<p>As I have a condition known as dyspraxia which includes getting sentence structure mixed up, inability to remember common words and difficulty with pronouncing words, I have sympathy for Bush re: public speaking.</p>
<p>i believe Bush is a Texas Ranger’s fan and McCain roots for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Beyond that, if McCain is elected it’ll pretty much be more of the same.</p>
<p>I can’t think there’s anything funny about bombing civilians in Iran, no matter what song it’s set to.</p>
<p>but ek4: you’re not the president. I can’t fun fast. I wouldn’t be a police officer or fire fighter or track and field start.</p>
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<p>It was a joke? Quit being all “PC” and have a laugh for once…god forbid it might not be the cleanest joke in the world! Oh noes!</p>
<p>McCain is a Liberal. Bush used to be a Conservative. There is a pretty big difference between the two men.</p>