Spring Break
On the issues: Barack Obama
Christopher Duray
Issue date: 11/3/08 Section: Election Special
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is the Hawaiian-born son of a Kenyan goat herder in America on a scholarship and a woman from Kansas studying at the University of Hawaii. Eventually, his father returned to Kenya and Obama was raised in Chicago by his mother and her parents. He graduated from Columbia University in 1983, and following college, worked as a community organizer in Chicago. Obama graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991 and went on to become president of the Harvard Law Review. He was elected to the senate in 2004, where he pushed through early childhood education requirements, helped create state earned income tax credit to provide relief to poor families and served on the Veterans' Affairs Committee.
Economy
Obama intends to invest heavily in technologies for manufacturing businesses to increase global competition and create new jobs. He will also investigate promising sciences and research like clean energy and other green technologies to open new sectors for potential jobs. Obama also believes a better defense and encouragement of unionization will help protect the economy and its workers.
To jumpstart the overall economy, Obama proposes a windfall profits tax on oil companies to fund a $1,000 rebate to citizens and a $25 billion state fund to help people and local governments manage the crisis. From there, he intends to enact a tax plan that aims to relieve the middle class. He further plans to reform bankruptcy laws and create better regulations, rating systems, and guidelines for mortgage and credit card practices.
Taxes
Obama advocates cutting taxes for people making less than $250,000 a year, which he says amounts to 95 percent of workers in the country. For those citizens, it could mean an annual reduction of anything from $500 to $3,700, depending on one's salary and number of dependents.
The remaining 5 percent of the country will face higher taxes to compensate, particularly in the top 2 percent of earners.
Economy
Obama intends to invest heavily in technologies for manufacturing businesses to increase global competition and create new jobs. He will also investigate promising sciences and research like clean energy and other green technologies to open new sectors for potential jobs. Obama also believes a better defense and encouragement of unionization will help protect the economy and its workers.
To jumpstart the overall economy, Obama proposes a windfall profits tax on oil companies to fund a $1,000 rebate to citizens and a $25 billion state fund to help people and local governments manage the crisis. From there, he intends to enact a tax plan that aims to relieve the middle class. He further plans to reform bankruptcy laws and create better regulations, rating systems, and guidelines for mortgage and credit card practices.
Taxes
Obama advocates cutting taxes for people making less than $250,000 a year, which he says amounts to 95 percent of workers in the country. For those citizens, it could mean an annual reduction of anything from $500 to $3,700, depending on one's salary and number of dependents.
The remaining 5 percent of the country will face higher taxes to compensate, particularly in the top 2 percent of earners.
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