TALE OF TWO CANDIDATES

AND JUST FOR KICKS, let's have a look at the respective tax plans of the two candidates. ABC news posted this comparison. In general:

If you make up to $18,725, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will give you a tax cut of $65, while Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., will give you a tax cut of $567.

If you’re in the second tax quintile, earning between $18,725 and about $37,000 a year, McCain will give you a $259 tax cut, Obama will give you a $892 tax cut.

If you’re in the third quintile, earning between about $37,000 and almost $66,000, McCain will give you a $608 tax cut, Obama will give you a $1,118 tax cut.

If you’re in the fourth quintile, making between almost $66,000 and about $110,000, McCain gives you a $1,487 tax cut, Obama will give you a $1,264 tax cut.

If you’re in the top quintile, making above $110,000, McCain will give you a tax cut of $12,144 while Obama will raise your taxes $4600 more.

Here’s where the starkest differences come in. If you’re in the top 1 percent of wage-earners, making $602,000 to around $2.8 million, McCain gives you a $109,214 tax cut on average, while Obama raises your taxes on average by $121,689.

If you’re in the top 0.1 percent, making $2.9 million a year or more, McCain gives you a $577,148 tax cut, Obama raises your taxes $699,872.

So if you’re voting based on the tax proposals a candidate is making — there you go. ABC promises more on this tomorrow morning on “Good Morning America.”

TWO PARABLES

AFTER READING ARCH-CONSERVATIVE Tony Blankley's syndicated article about the shortcomings of the presumptive Democratic nominee's worldview, two comments left on the site intrigued me even more than Mister Blankley's.

First, the comment by SoxConn:

Obama needs to go back to his sources of "principled diplomacy". One of the underlying principles was internationalizing "liberal capitalism" NOT internationalizing liberal socialism. There is a big difference in who controls the distribution of "fruits of labor", those that earn it or those elitists that want to socially engineer equality. It's been tried before in 1917 and 1924 to 1953 and failed.

Global Warming or Climate Change or whatever it is today is losing it's appeal as revenue (and political power) source because of conflicts with energy problems and a false foundation in consensus science. A goal of reducing "extreme poverty" 50% by 2015 is Miss Congenialty stuff. The guy needs a baseline in reality, not celebrityism.

The comment left by a woman who dubbed herself—Bandai—is even more likely to ring true for many of us:

My late husband and I worked way too hard and made good money. We could have had a great life in our retirement but for the fact that we both tried to help out our families, whose needs were endless, and whose ambition was limited to transferring our "wealth" to support their idleness.

My husband is now gone, and I struggle every month to make ends meet, but I had the good sense to turn off the constant drain on our resources after I was diagnosed with a progressive illness that will eventually be terminal and had to stop working.

Despite their solemn promises to repay the "loans" at the time of request, not one of them has ever repaid a dime. The family has long forgotten all the help they received from us, and I am resented for my necessary decision.

The point is, one working couple most likely cannot support an extended family in comfort in perpetuity; nor can one country sharing their wealth support the world and make everyone wealthy or happy.

And contrary to logic, our generosity will not win us the respect of the world, but rather resentment.

We can still do good in the world, just not by transferring our wealth, which we, as individuals, will eventually need to support ourselves. I volunteer my time to local organizations. Most of us have talents that can benefit others in some way.