The Global Bloc

Okay, I got two wonderful bits of information for you guys today. First off, I read an interesting article from former CEA chairman N. Greg Mankiw (however you pronounce that), who conveniently slipped an op-ed piece into the New York Times today, regarding the similarities of Obama's tax policies to those of George W. Bush. Now I'm not really up on my high level economics lately, but it seems that this article was a bit of a reach a former White House economic adviser to slam Obama on his tax policies, being that Bush was such a screw up, Mankiw sets Barack at his level, stating that he has "embraced a central element of the Republican agenda", regarding corporate dividend tax.
So now that I've made up my mind about who I want to vote for, some economic guru comes along, and casts a shadow of doubt on my prospects, and for what reason? Now, for some of you not up on their Economics 101, based on the Wikipedia, dividend tax "is an income tax on dividend payments to the stockholders (shareholders) of a company." In other words, the profit made by stockholders on stock, is taxed on top of tax deducted from the company's profit. So, now that that is laid out for you, in 2003, Bush proposed to Congress to eliminate dividend tax, saying, it was a form of "double taxation", and that it would cause our economy to falter.
Now, Mankiw, is stating in his piece that in 2008 Obama plans on proposing "only a modest increase in the top tax rate, to 20 percent from 15 percent." He goes onto say that this would appeal to Bush's policy.
I simply am not getting this. If Bush planned on cutting the dividend tax, and then moved Congress forward with bills to do so, how is that following in the footsteps of a president, whose policies from every angle have sent the economy into a downward death spiral. The increase would put more pressure on those who reap heavily from investments (mostly upper middle class, and the rich), not those who are poor, and in most cases don't even own stock. Obama plans to draw from sources that have resources of money. It is a way to open up the economy from the top, instead of throwing a tax blanket over the general revenue base in the U.S.
Also noted, in an LA Times blog entry, it links to an Obama campaign plan document, that lays out in print, that even though he is raising the dividend percentage to 20%, "the rate on dividends will be 39% lower than the rate president Bush proposed in 2001." This is a smarter way to deal with the upper echelon of taxpayers, who have over the past eight years played an unfair game of fiscal irresponsibility, costing the middle class, and the poor more than they could pay out to the government (reflections of Enron and Anderson Consulting). There is absolutely no connection between Obama's plan for policy, and Bush's policies that have proven a failure to the American people. Mr. Mankiw, you are an outright propagandist, and you have sold out your own people for the sake of having another hack elected to office, John McCain.
I also wanted to address something I've been noticing over the past year or so, and that is how much effort the Bush administration has put into trying to pull the wool over our eyes, when it comes to globalization. In The World is Flat by Tomas L. Friedman, I found a passage that struck me, stating, "At the precise moment when the world was being flattened…requiring some very important adjustments in our own society and that of many other Western developed nations-American politicians not only were not educating the American public, they were actively working to make it stupid." Is that not a slap in the face as a wake up call or what? On this note, I shouldn't single out the Bush administration, because it had a lot to do with our Congressional leaders as well, who fought ferociously to keep the Republican bills to pass that fostered NAFTA. Then to come full circle, in this passage in Friedman's book, our good friend Mankiw shows up having been lambasted by the media, and his own administration tucking him away from the media, for supporting the gains that could be made from outsourcing, which would be a major part of NAFTA, and a "manifestation of the gains from trade that economists have talked about..."
I for one support outsourcing, and I see it as a way to open our country up to some new business and manufacturing concepts and applications. We are flailing in a sea of offshoring and outsourcing, and our leaders, Republican and Democrat, have purposefully set the course for hiding globalization from the American public. Why? Is the conservative wing and wealthy Democrats of the U.S. attempting to stay ahead of the rest of the competition, by eliminating public knowledge of the globalization effort, of which corporate strongholds in the U.S. are taking full advantage, by outsourcing jobs, offshoring production, and benefiting from these elements? It seems that the political/economic right in the U.S. does not follow a fair policy of capitalism, and by not leveling the playing field for all entities in America, it seems they are controlling the economy (a.k.a. Communism).
Call it what you will.