Improvement, yes. Change, no.

For the operative meaning of Obama’s change & hope (aka “chope”) see CHICK in above linked video.

I have two thoughts for you.

This Chick on Video

And re-read Samuel Adams and Abraham Lincoln (see above post #145) And this from Jefferson.

“To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers have acquired too much, in order to spare to others who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equaled industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, ‘to guarantee to everyone of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.’”

-Thomas Jefferson

The current economy has absorbed massive gas price hikes, the housing bubble, and a Stock-market crash, but is still a fairly decent economy overall. That was a strong economy to start with! Gramm was right, we’re whiners.

1) They lack the expertise. If you really know how to run a business, you rarely are in government… and vice-versa. Government investment is very inefficient. A dollar of government investment generally yields to the economy a dollar of revenue. The same dollar invested by private industry yields 3 dollars of revenue. It’s a matter of hunger and efficiency. It’s why the socialist pie is finite.

2) It’s unfair competition. The government prints money, and can borrow it more cheaply. If you think the big box companies hurt small businesses, wait until you see what government-backed companies will do. The initial shock will wipe the small guy out, because the government does not need to turn a profit.

3) The government prefers not to invest. They prefer to spend. Government investing leads to corruption, anyway. The Fannie/Freddie problem was essentially government investing in the housing industry. F/F was understood, despite government protestations, to be backed by the government. So, they used the gov’t's credit rating and unlimited borrowing. This was the basic cause of the housing bubble. See how well that turned out?

As to bottom up, no respected economist backs that. Independent economic studies comparing the two candidates’ plans show McCain’s plan far superior. Indeed, Obama’s plan will lead to another Great Depression, as it directly mirrors what Hoover and FDR did.

This is what the Marxists desire. Communism only takes over when the economy is a real disaster. Crisis always increases the State’s power. FDR was a Socialist, and he nearly finished off our economy. People began to believe that it was going to be a permanent condition; that this was all there would ever be. WWII saved us. Read your history on the Great Depression. Remember that the rest of the world had a short depression. Only in America was it Great.

“The bottom 50% of earners pays a grand total of 3.1% of total federal taxes. In excess of 35% of earners pays no federal taxes AT ALL”- tanstaafl

As I pointed out you cannot base your argument on total percentage because within that top 1% there are the the corporate executives that make 100 million dollars. Think about how much more taxes someone like that is going to pay than someone making the median income of 44,000 dollars. So the reason for the bottom 50% paying only a marginal amount of taxes is because their income is marginal compared to the earnings of the top 1%. Out of total income the top 1% pays less than they should and the middle class pays more than they can afford if they can still be expected to purchase upper class goods. And you know why it seems like such a large amount of people don’t pay taxes, because those are teenagers who are working part time while being in high school or trying to earn a marginal amount of money to pay for college. I hope you don’t support taxing them because if you want to continue to harm the level of education in America and send increasing amounts of jobs overseas. This is where those statistics come from and they show that the upper class is paying less than they should based on their income.