Presidential Debate- Oct. 3 2012

I am one of the first to admit that I do not know that much about politics however, in watching the debate on October 3rd I came across some claims that are seem to be untrue. One of Romney's big points was his promise to "not reduce the taxes paid by high- income Americans" and to also "lower taxes on middle-income families". However, Romney failed to mention how this could take place without increasing the already large deficit. Without raising the taxes on the Americans with the larger income, and yet decreasing the taxes for the Americans with the lower income, that would do nothing but create a larger deficit for the country to deal with. While Romney's idea appeals to the middle class he didn't mention a solution to the larger picture. Obama offered the solution of increasing taxes for the upper class to be "rates that we had when Bill Clinton was president". However Obama forgot to include how his new health care law to add on to that. Most upper class Americans will end up spending way more than when Clinton was president. Obama's Affordable Care Acts calls for a 3.8% tax on "unearned" net investment income. After looking up what this means I found that this means capital gains from the sale of stock or real estate, interest income, annuities, rents, and royalties. There is also expected to be an additional .9% Medicare surcharge on top of the Medicare tax, starting January 1st. Showing that if Obama raises taxes to the same rates that Clinton had, the upper-income Americans will be paying significantly more than they did under the Clinton administration. These are just a few points that I picked up on while watching the debate. I am sorry to say that after watching the debate I am still just as confused to where my vote lies.

5 Things I didn't know about political parties

I would never consider myself to be a person that knows a lot about political parties or platforms. I usually just associate the parties with major issues such as abortion or gay marriage. However in doing some research there were some facts I discovered that I find to be very interesting. I found it very interesting to find out that the Republican Party was founded by opposition to slavery, I knew that their party was against slavery just not that they were founded based on opposition to it. I was also not aware that the Republican Party wanted to restrict the role and power of judges. I was not aware that the Democratic Party played a large role in women being able to vote. I was also not aware that a Democratic president signed an important document that ended discrimination against minorities and women, I find this ironic being that the Republic Party was founded in opposition to slavery. I was also completely unaware to the values of the Socialist party, I did not know that it was basically founded to have the working class fight against the ruling party to lead to "real democracy".