Many people believe that Obama’s plan to raise taxes on only those making $250,000 or more will not affect them, but what they don’t realize is the fact that what is done to the few will certainly affect the whole. The more any of us is taxed, the more we as a collective whole pay our government.

What many of us don’t stop to consider is the effect that high taxes have on the human psyche. Isn’t it disheartening when you receive your paycheck and half of it is gone? Is it fair that our doctors, for example, attend years of medical school, complete an internship, and after more years of hard work establish residency in a hospital, then work long hours doing the most demanding job that exists, to have half their income taken by our government because we’ve decided they have plenty to give? What is this going to do to the quality of our doctors…

and more importantly, to their passion for practicing medicine? What’s the point of putting in the time and honest hard work when the reward is taken away to subsidize those who don’t work as hard yet somehow feel entitled to obtain it? There are people in our country who have the drive and the motivation to make the most of themselves and are passionate about their work. If we continue to raise taxes on these quality people who take pride in what they do, we as a collective whole will be responsible for smothering the desire and motivation of the decent, hard working people we all desperately need in this country. We are milking these people dry and sucking the drive out of them by taking what doesn’t belong to us. This is a fundamentally unethical way of living.

Does this economical approach have an eerie familiarity to it? It seems analogous to the recent bailout that just occurred though a slow rise in taxes is a lot less conspicuous then a large, quick injection of money into a failing economy which, we can’t fail to note was due to a lack of integrity and responsibility of the few. The government may have had a responsibility to fix the problem, but they don’t have a responsibility to raise taxes and decide who should pay them. At what point do we look down at our paychecks and say, “Enough.” Providing people with money they haven’t earned is enabling them to remain stagnant and complacent. We have to stop all the blaming and take a good look at how we are conducting our own lives. Otherwise we may become the only country in the world with a democratic government that simultaneously practices a “disguised” form of socialism.

            Through personal life experience, John McCain has developed character traits such as integrity, compassion, patience, tolerance and humility to name a few. These traits cannot be learned or taught as they cultivate an invaluable quality called wisdom.  The question we should ask ourselves on Election Day is: Do we want a president who has proven that he merely has a formal education or a president who has demonstrated that he has grown immeasurably in wisdom and is better equipped to repair our current problems? Once considered an independent, McCain selected the GOP as the party that mostly reflects his beliefs, as opposed to a candidate who modifies his beliefs to fit those of the party. McCain has proven himself to be a man who stands on his own merit and therefore can bring us the right changes we need.

When you get right down to it, when a tough decision has to be made, we should all want a leader that has the wisdom and the integrity to make it.