Ken's Comments

A quick thought on the idea of taxing people earning over $250,000 per year. I am not a tax expert by any means, so I can only cover this at a high level. However, there are some things that stand out. Question -- if a person has their money placed in a trust fund, does that individual "earn" money? For example: the Kennedy's, the Rockefellers, Bill Gates, etc. Are they earning money or is their trust fund earning money? Also, Warren Buffet makes money on the stock market or other investments (as do most of the others mentioned above and/or their trust funds). Question: What impact does raising the income tax have on investments? Answer: None. Investment income is taxed only when you sell the investment and then it is taxed at the Capital Gains tax rate which is a lot lower than the income tax rate. Look at the big dollar figures that CEOs either make or walk away with when they retire or are fired. Is that a pile of income? No, it is all in stock or stock options

Barack Obama is now flooding the airwaves with more advertisements than we have ever seen before. Because he is in the lead, his ads are very positive. Because he is a liberal, his ads promise all things to all people -- including tax cuts to people who do not pay taxes. Kudos to Senator Obama and his campaign. They have been pretty smart. Meanwhile, the campaign for John McCain has been disappointing. John McCain made a difference in getting the bailout package passed and he did not capitalize on that at all. In fact, he allowed Democrats to wrongly get the message out that Sen. McCain injected politics into the process. The McCain campaign spending their limited money to bring up the Bill Ayers connection via commercials also made no sense at the time those were released. They made no headway and came across as nasty. Only now has the McCain campaign seized on a theme that works. The commercials tying Barack Obama to the liberals in the Senate and the House and then saying that John

Gov. Palin's performance in tonight's debate changed the election -- at least for a little while. The momentum has been going against Sen. John McCain for the last few days. Gov. Palin's performance has changed that, at least for a few days. The Fox News Channel had a focus group of undecided voters -- half voted for Bush four years ago and half voted for Kerry. EVERY SINGLE PERSON said Sarah Palin exceeded expectations. EVERY SINGLE PERSON save two or three said Sarah Palin won the debate. Now... let's be honest, as a person who very much has liked Sarah Palin since I learned about her after her nomination, I had some trepidation about this debate. So I have to be honest and say part of the reaction of that group was driven from lower expectations. But that does not take away from the very, very positive impression she made. The most important impression she made on that focus group is that she spoke to us and like us. Sen. Biden is talking Washington and talkin