http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/us/politics/14campaign.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

The most important stuff is in bold, but you should read everything of course.

TOLEDO — Senator Barack Obama on Monday expanded his economic platform, including proposals to spur
new jobs, to give Americans penalty-free access to retirement savings
to help them through the downturn, to urge a 90-day moratorium on home
foreclosures and to lend money to strapped local and state governments.

Mr. Obama also is calling on Congress to double $25 billion the
government loan guarantees for automakers and to temporarily eliminate
taxes on unemployment benefits.

Campaign advisers said those steps and several others could be taken
before January through current laws or by the Democratic-controlled
Congress acting in a lame-duck session.

Mr. Obama is outlining his revised plan in Toledo, Ohio, a
struggling city that is representative of the economic crisis and the
battle for industrial-belt swing states that could determine the winner
of the Nov. 4 election.

Senator John McCain,
his Republican rival, also gave an economic speech in Virginia Beach,
Va., but he had no new policy prescriptions, having rejected his
advisers’ options over the weekend as too gimmicky, according to one
Republican close to the campaign.

Mr. Obama was not originally scheduled to present new policy
proposals in his speech at the Sea Gate Convention Centre in downtown
Toledo. But when word spread on Sunday evening that Mr. McCain would
not offer new economic proposals, as had been suggested by some aides,
the Obama campaign saw an opportunity to expand upon Mr. Obama’s plans
to offer relief for the middle-class with ideas on the table.

“We have the advantage of sharing ideas that are consistent with
the ideas we have shared before,” David Axelrod, the campaign’s
chief strategist, said in an interview. New polls suggest mounting
economic anxieties among voters are fueling Mr. Obama’s growing lead in
many polls against Mr. McCain.

The main new proposals would:

— for the next two years, give businesses a $3,000 income-tax
credit for each new full-time employee they hire above the number in
their current workforce;

— allow savers with tax-favored Individual Retirement Accounts and
401(k)’s to withdraw 15 percent of those retirement savings, up to a
maximum of $10,000, without paying a tax penalty as the law currently
requires for withdrawals before age 59 and a half;

— bar financial institutions that take advantage of the Treasury’s
rescue plan from foreclosing on the mortgages of any homeowners who are
making “good-faith efforts” to make payments;

— direct the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to create a temporary facility for loans to state and local
governments, similar to the Fed’s new arrangement to loan corporations
money by buying their commercial paper, which are the I.O.U.s that help businesses with daily operating expenses like payrolls.

So what do you guys think of these proposals?

is it me or does he want more spending?  I like the 401 K idea and the tax credit... still am unsure about that tax those above 250,000 range, that's small businesses that get hit and I'd like for him to do something with the Federal Reserve... it just seems to me they have way too much power in a opaque way

Oct 13, 2008 - 01:47PM, juswest06 wrote:

Oct 13, 2008 - 01:39PM, Focust wrote:

is it me or does he want more spending?  I like the 401 K idea and the tax credit... still am unsure about that tax those above 250,000 range, that's small businesses that get hit and I'd like for him to do something with the Federal Reserve... it just seems to me they have way too much power in a opaque way

Well yea he wants more spending. So does the other guy. They'll both spend insane amounts of money just in different ways

True but really can we afford that from either, the US debt is now 10,150,603, 734,720 according to the debt clock

Oct 13, 2008 - 02:01PM, juswest06 wrote:

Oct 13, 2008 - 01:53PM, Focust wrote:

Oct 13, 2008 - 01:47PM, juswest06 wrote:

Oct 13, 2008 - 01:39PM, Focust wrote:

is it me or does he want more spending?  I like the 401 K idea and the tax credit... still am unsure about that tax those above 250,000 range, that's small businesses that get hit and I'd like for him to do something with the Federal Reserve... it just seems to me they have way too much power in a opaque way

Well yea he wants more spending. So does the other guy. They'll both spend insane amounts of money just in different ways

True but really can we afford that from either, the US debt is now 10,150,603, 734,720 according to the debt clock

well of course not. But hey they don't really care

lol apparently... I think Andrew Jackson was the last president who had the US out of debt

I think it's funny that politicians are so afraid to be realistic. What is needed is major cuts in spending and increase in taxes. Seems pretty simple to me and basic economics but for some reason the public can't stand that realistic solution.