My case for Barack Obama - Part 1

As the cliche goes, every presidential election is the most important one in history. But, in case of this Presidential election, it is probably not a hyperbole to make that overused claim. Barack Obama and John McCain represent the two sides of American politics: old school conservative polices versus the new center left liberal ones.

As one of my favorite media commentator Fareed Zakaria put it in his Newsweek article, Obama is just the right man for this moment. He is the person who has been able to bring excitement and hope (I know this word has been overused but in this case I think it is an accurate one) to millions of young people like me who always looked at politics as an old people vocation. I admit that he does have some limitations but overall the choice between him and McCain is a simple one: Do we rely on old recycled and discredited Regan era ideas (which have not work) or do we take a chance on a first term senator from Illinois who has show a refreshing grasp of the important problems that we face as a nation?

Now, let me review some of the policy positions put forward by Obama and contrast that with McCain. I admit beforehand that I have not gone line by line and reviewed all their proposals dealing with the major issues facing our country (I don't think anybody outside their own campaigns has done this either because of the volume of proposals put forward). But, I am going to try to summarize the gist of their proposals to the best of my understanding.

Taxes and Spending: McCain wants to freeze any new spending and make George Bush's tax breaks given to the wealthiest Americans permanent. And, he loves to talk about how he is going to stop all pork barrel spending under his presidency. Obama on the other hand wants to let George Bush's tax breaks expire for the wealthy but keep it for the middle class and other lower income households. It seems to me that both of these positions are flawed in their own ways, and the difference is a matter of degree.

Considering that almost every economist believes that we are already in recession which is likely to continue for most of 2009, Obama's plan to let the tax breaks for the wealthy expire is not going to help the economy recover any quickly. And, I think he will have to consider delaying his tax plans by couple of years if he gets elected. But, McCain's plan to cut pork barrel spending to get us out of our current economic and financial crisis is almost laughable. Does anyone really believe that we can unfreeze our credit markets or create jobs by cutting pork barrel spending? Considering that the Treasury and the Fed have already pledged more than 1.5 trillion dollars to help the financial companies and the banks get out of trouble (that they themselves made), does McCain really think that eliminating pork barrel spending (which was less than 15 billion dollars in 2007) will help balance our budget? He wants to remain in Iraq for a foreseeable future (estimated cost 400 billion a year) and he wants to slash the capital gains taxes by half (estimated cost hundreds of billions) but claims that he is going to balance the budget within his first term. This is just nonsense. It seems like McCain can not bring himself to accept that the Republican orthodoxy of cutting taxes as a solution for all economic problems has been thoroughly discredited. The idea that you can cut taxes in all situations and somehow the economy will keep on growing, deficits will reduce and the world will be hunky dorry was never based on reality (voodoo economics as the Senior Bush put it in the 80s). It is time to move on and Obama is showing the better way forward in this issue.

Health care: McCain thinks that there is nothing wrong with the health care that we have today where close to 50 million have no coverage. And even for those that have health insurance, it is like pulling teeth in trying to figure out what is covered and what is not. To add to this existing misery, cost of health care has gone up rapidly in recent years (significantly higher than the rate of inflation) making insurance premiums out of reach for a lot of middle class families. McCain's assertions that this situation can be fixed by tinkering around the edges is simply wrong.

Obama's proposal to provide health insurance to every American is the right one because of 2 main reasons: moral and cost. From the moral point of view, no American deserves to suffer because of the lack of health care in the time of need. Health care should be a right for every American (unlike what McCain seemed to suggest during the second debate). Second, if you mandate health insurance for every American, it will provide economies of scale and should reduce cost significantly. Lot of Americans who do not buy health insurance or cannot afford to buy one go to emergency rooms for treatment. Emergency treatment is expensive and increases cost for everybody. Obama's plan for universal health care should mitigate this extra cost. Also, another source of cost saving will be the government's ability to negotiate better price with health care providers under Obama's plan. I have to admit that there will be an added expense to move away from today's broken system to this new one, but I think this expense is justified. We Americans love to say that we are the richest nation in the world, and if we believe in that then surely the richest people in the world deserve basic health care.

I will continue this discussion in my future posts and elaborate more policy differences between McCain and Obama. Keep tuned...