In the highly contested American presidential elections, both the candidates had different views on the socioeconomic classes of the citizens in the country. When we look at the democrats’ policies, the presidential candidate Barrack Obama did not consider all the socioeconomic classes to be the same. In his view, Barrack Obama said that there is no way someone making less than one hundred and fifty dollars a year would be compared to another person making more than two hundred and fifty a year. “Unfortunately, a close inspection of Obama’s proposals reveals something disquieting: he would raise marginal tax rates for many middle-income taxpayers, a bad move for anyone seeking to promote economic growth” (Mark J. Perry). This kind of argument seemed to be unfair from the democrats’ point of view.
In his arguments, Barrack Obama said that the only way of improving the bottom-up economic growth that will make a difference in the people’s lives is by noting or identifying the difference between the different classes (Mark J.). However, due to the fact that the American economy was at a dying point, Barrack Obama promised that if he was elected the president, he would consider various factors in the matter of taxation. He said that since the American economy had a negative or shortfall of four hundred billion dollars in the financial year, he would be forced to do extra work to fill the gap.
He said that the shortfall that occurred in the budget as a result of unemployment among so many Americans. However, he then promised to deal with the issue of unemployment by creating many employment opportunities. To improve the economy and get it back to where it was at first, he said that taxation on the citizens will depend on the socio-economic class to where one belongs.
Obama promised to raise tax on some individuals while reducing it for others. He said that those who were earning more than two hundred and fifty dollars per year would be taxed a bit higher. He said that this would be so because those who are earning this amount are rich and can afford at least something. In his point of view, he said that the rich who were earning a large amount of money could not feel it, or could not feel any harm if they were taxed.
Whereas the issue of the middle-class earners who are believed to be including the majority of the Americans was promised lower taxation. Obama said that he would do this because the low earning individuals don’t get enough money that if they are taxed heavily, they would feel a lot of harm. This kind of policy that Obama applied helped him win many hearts because most people are unemployed or are employed but do not make that much, the majority of them being youths who are the largest number of voters.
The Democrats believed that the middle class for eight years now have been the workhorse of the American economy in the Bush administration. While they have been struggling to pay tax from the little money that they earn, the rich people have been trying their best to evade the tax payment. Obama said that he would deal with them thoroughly, more so the larger companies like the oil companies have been making larger profits and some bigger businesses but make away with it without being taxed, but instead, the whole burden of tax-paying has been upon the middle-class earners (Domenico ). That is why the Democrats wanted a real change, a change that the people could believe in. Obama even used a television advert that lasted for thirty seconds with the title of ‘Dignity’ which stressed his acts as human rights activist whereby he turned down large amounts of money but instead helped the people who lost their jobs.
On the other hand, the Republicans led by Senator John McCain had a different opinion on the class ranges. Though they a little bit sounded to be the same since they all believed that the wealthy could not be compared to the working class and the middle class, the issue of taxation brought the main difference that was seen. We find that in Senator McCain’s policy, the working class could be favoured. He said that only the hard-working class individuals but with families would pay the Alternative Minimum Tax. That is, the working-class families would save more since their taxes would go down.
Nevertheless, the Republicans said in their policies that the entrepreneurs would as well be favoured when it comes to the issue of taxation. They stated clearly that the entrepreneurs would pay lower taxes despite the huge profits that they make. McCain promised them lower tax payments because he believed that they are the ones who help in running the economy because they create so many employment opportunities for the citizens. The other difference that Senator McCain saw between the socioeconomic classes was about the issue of healthcare whereby he said that as the president, he would subsidize the health care services to enable the poor access treatments.
References
- Domenico Montanaro. ”Obama v. McCain on middle class” 2008.
- “Economy:Obama vs. McCain on the Economy” Web.
- Paul Steinhauser. “Obama tax plan: $80 billion in cuts, five-minute filings” 2007. CNN. Web.
- Professor Mark J. Perry’s. “Obama’s Tax Plan Folly: A Middle-Class Tax Hike“ 2008. Web.