Electoral College what it means to the little guy

We've all seen the maps, Blue or Red and sometimes we may feel like we are in the wrong state by the color on a map. Recently a good friend of mine sent me this website http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/ the writer displays the popular votes in Cartograms reflecting how the states are more favorably weighted based on Demographics. He makes a lot of great points about the weighting of states and does his best to show the bias of the polls reflected in his Cartograms.

Obviously the electoral is supposed to provide an equal playing field to the country. It might be simpler to go with the popular vote, of course that was the argument back when Gore lost out to the electoral in 2000, but the electorates are set up by politicians to help ensure incumbenancy IMO (In My Opinion). Here is the county map from this website that shows the voting from Mark Newman's Blog.



Now here is a map of what the population demographic looks like at night.



So I overlayed them so you can get a view of what the world really looks like.



California Has 55 Electoral Votes and a population of 36,457,549.

Idaho for example has 5 Electoral Votes (10% of CA) and a population of 1,293,953. (Only 3.5% of CA's population). This rather gives Idaho a greater impact in the Electoral that California based purely on the % of population in the state.

Now that's a different look on the same information, be carefull what you read, investigate before making decisions.

Party Welfare Plans

Democratic Welfare Plan:

Tax the Wealthiest Americans who have Capitalized most on being American to balance the budget and use that money to ensure health and welfare for the poorest Americans, who in turn use that money to buy goods and services stimulating the Economy . That money passes through all levels of income and ultimately ends up back in the pockets of the Rich. This creates jobs as more goods and services are REQUIRED by the Economy forcing companies to hire.

Republican Welfare Plan:

Reduce tax to the wealthiest .5% of Americans so they can keep more of their money and when that's not enough provide 300 Billion Dollars in Corporate Bailouts to the largest financial instutions in the country so the CEO's and Board of directors can keep ther multi-million dollar per year job. In turn those CEO's and World's elite re-invest their windfall in other Companies padding the pocket books of their rich friends. This is supposed to create jobs as companies have more money they may try to offset their tax burden by recapitalizing (putting money in other companies by building offices or buying products) and padding their workforce.

The ridiculous part of the system is we all pay 100% tax. Every dollar that is earned and then spent ultimately gets taxed at 100% and ends up back in the government pockets. All tax can be deemed unfair and all money (despite popular belief) is taxed multiple times not just once. Being on a bonus system myself I see the effects of a Varied income tax, on one check where I get NO Bonus and just earn my base I don't even pay Federal Taxes (SSI still bites). On another check I pay the countries maximum because I get my monthly income on that check and it's calculated as if I make insane money, that check netted only half of what I earned.
the above scenarios simply explain two terms we hear all the time but are never explained. The Dems believe in the Trickle UP philosophy and the more Popular Trickle Down is the Republican version.

You must decide which way you want it to work, 1 puts money in the hands of the poor who spend ALL OF IT passing the money through the hands of the entire country. The other puts more money in the hands of few hoping the y will spend it on the workforce. The problem as I see it is that the wealthiest americans although they spend a lot of money on what seems to be unimportant stuff, they KEEP MOST OF THE MONEY they get. If you don't understand this concept you must read "Richest man in Babylon."

The good news is that it doesn't matter what happens in Nov, right now the economy is in trouble and it will take some time to turn. Neither of the above are quick fixes.

- Undecided, still?

You must be RICH!