US Features
It's ad-vantage Obama as campaigns reach climax
By Andy Goldberg Oct 30, 2008, 5:41 GMT
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Older Talkback
Taxing the “rich” / hurting the poor / enriching the government: YES WE CAN!
I had a shocking conversation with a 'well-informed' voter the other day. She asked about Barack Obama’s “tax cut for 95 percent of Americans.” I laughed, noting that it was going to be quite a trick to give a “tax cut” to the roughly 40 percent of Americans who don’t pay federal income taxes.
“What?” She asked.
It stopped me dead in my tracks. “After deductions, about 40 percent of Americans don’t end up owing income taxes,” I explained. “Barack Obama’s idea of a ‘tax cut’ for them is to send them a ‘refundable tax credit.’ In other words, he’s going to cut everyone a government check.” (“Spread the wealth around,” indeed.)
We’re days away from a national election, and no one in the media has even bothered to explain Barack Obama’s “tax cut.” No one has broken down just what Barack Obama is proposing and what it will mean for you, your family budget, your retirement savings, and your job security.
Obama’s tax plan includes four main components: Higher marginal rates; higher estate taxes; higher corporate taxes; and higher taxes on investments. Let’s go through them, one-by-one.
Start with the now-famous “Joe the Plumber” tax which would raise taxes on income over $250,000. (Is it $250,000? Obama’s new ad now clearly says $200,000. Just this week, Joe Biden said it was $150,000. So who really knows? It seems to be dropping daily.) According to the Wall Street Journal, the combined Obama tax plan would “add up to about a 10-percentage-point hike in marginal tax rates for those making more than $250,000 a year, including millions of small businesses that pay taxes at individual rates.”
And there’s the problem. The “Joe the Plumber” tax raises taxes on small businesses, crushing entrepreneurial job creation at the most basic level. Most small businesses are LLC’s or S-Corporations. Every net dollar they earn is taxed as “income” for the owner. Even if a small business owner decides to take a small salary each year and leave money in his or her business for future investment or payroll, all of that money is taxed as “personal income”. Moreover, many small businesses live from contract to contract. They might receive a large check at the end of a year and then set that money aside to make sure they can make payroll for upcoming lean months. Obama’s plan raises taxes on that money, perversely calling it “income”. In the real world, that money is often next month’s paycheck or next year’s job security for employees.
Barack Obama is also calling for higher estate taxes: More “tax the rich” class warfare, more real-world pain for working Americans. The current estate tax rate is scheduled to sunset over the next few years. Barack Obama will set it at 45 percent. For Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, that might not be that big a deal, but what about a family farm or small business? Many are worth enough to trigger the estate tax but only produce a modest income for the owners. Those farms or businesses are taxed at the “value” of the company, not for the revenue they produce. All too often, the only way the next generation can cover their estate tax bill is to sell off the farm or business. Most “Mom and Pop” small businesses don’t survive to the next generation. The estate tax destroys them.
But what if you don’t own a small family business, don’t work for a small family business or don’t shop at small family businesses? Well, do your parents own their home? If they passed away, would you be able to write a check to cover the estate taxes on the value of that home, or would you have to put it on the market in order to pay the government? On December 31, 2010, the estate tax is scheduled to expire. Barack Obama wants to set it to 45 percent for the highest marginal rates. Part of the American Dream is that our children will live better than we do, that we’ll be able to create something and pass it on. Barack Obama’s tax plan makes that dream unattainable for many Americans.
Barack Obama will raise taxes on “big oil.” Who do you think actually pays for those taxes on “big oil”? We do, of course. Everyone pays, regardless of whether or not we can afford it. We pay higher prices at the gas pump and higher prices for our groceries. (It takes gas to run farm equipment and the trucks that get the groceries to the supermarket.) Barack Obama’s higher taxes on “big oil” will hurt lower-income Americans the most. While they might make for a nice sound bite, taxes on “big oil” are among the most regressive and punitive taxes. Remember those 40 percent who don’t owe federal income taxes? Ironically, Barack Obama’s plan means they take less money home at the end of the week.
Finally, a question: How’s your 401k these days? Your pension? Stocks have plummeted as investors have pulled their money out of the market. Yet just as the market is crashing, Barack Obama is planning to raise taxes on capital gains and dividends, further discouraging investment and cutting an even larger chunk of money out of the stock market. Were you planning on retiring anytime soon? Under an Obama administration, you might be working a few extra years.
We’ve seen this type of “tax the rich” mentality before. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush and the Democrat-controlled Congress passed a ten percent “luxury tax” on yachts priced at more than $100,000, thinking that the “rich” would easily be able to afford the surcharge. What happened? Just two years after the new tax went into effect, the New York Times reported that “In the last two years, about 100 builders of luxury boats -- recreational craft costing more than $100,000 -- cut their operations severely and laid off thousands of workers.”
Thousands of workers lost their jobs: Machinists, tradesmen, carpenters, laborers, designers. The “tax the rich” mentality – especially higher taxes on business – sends lower and middle income workers to the unemployment office. Higher estate taxes destroy the ability to pass small businesses, family farms or homes on to the next generation. Higher taxes on “big oil” lead to regressive cost increases at the gas pump and the grocery checkout lane. Higher taxes on investments leads to reduced values for retirement accounts, 401k’s and pensions.
That is what Barack Obama is proposing. That is his change for America. Look at it this way: Maybe you can use your government check – oops, I mean “refundable tax credit” – to pay for it all. You might even want to spend it on some new resume paper. You’re going to need it.
Preemptive Disarmament:
Get set for not only a 25% reduction in defense spending, but the Department of Peace. This is the agenda of the modern Democrat party. They have no interest in hiding their intentions.
Democrats want to see the Defense Department gutted, so that they can instead have a Department of Peace, which promotes such novel ideas as the Office of Peace Education and Training; Office of Domestic Peace Activities; Office of International Peace Activities; Office of Technology for Peace; Office of Arms Control and Disarmament; Office of Peaceful Coexistence and Nonviolent Conflict Resolution; and Office of Human Rights and Economic Rights.
Supporting peace and nonviolence is all well and good, but unless terrorists, terror regimes, and enemies of the US decide to use nonviolence as a means of opposing the US, this is as destructive and corrosive an idea to US national security as any proposed in the history of the nation. It's based on hope and wishful thinking rather than hundreds of years of history and the course of human events.
The Democrats are engaging in Preemptive Disarmament.
Essentially, the Democrats are hoping to force the US to use harsh language to combat our enemies, instead of killing them on battlefields around the world. This will be destructive to US foreign policy as our allies will be unable to rely on the US to come to their aid should they be attacked and we will have less capacity to handle conflict should it be waged against us.
Rarely discussed part of the Obama 'Economic Plan' is the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
This treaty is all about redistributing the wealth WORLDWORLD Nixon and LBJ refused to sign it. Jimmy Carter did sign it. Since then it congress has refused to ratify it. But Senator Obama has said that he will make a renewed effort to get it ratified. With a filibusterer-proof Senate that will not be difficult.
REDISTRIBUTIVE CHANGE: THE DEATH OF FREEDOM
Obama, the Leftist community organizer schooled in the radical methods of Saul Alinsky, recognizes that in the current legal landscape legislation will be necessary to impose the injustice he calls “economic justice.” Lawmakers needn’t do all the work. Politically unaccountable judges, many favorably predisposed toward Leftist schemes, can be a force multiplier. First, however, they must be given just enough legislative license.
As luck would have it, a President Obama may be well positioned to give that license at the very start of his term, without the political risk inherent in proposing his own detailed “economic justice” program. The solution is ready to hand: all it needs is an election-day tide that swells the Democrats’ Senate majority.
In 1966, with key help from the Soviet Union, the United Nations began promoting a monstrosity of a treaty known as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). It is chockablock with exactly the things Obama would say government must do on your behalf: provide housing, clothing, education, health care, employment, a living wage that accounts for comparative worth (meaning the government, under the guise of preventing discrimination, determines what you are paid), limited labor hours, paid vacation and holidays, paid parental leave, nearly unrestricted trade unionization, social security (including “social insurance”), “equitable distribution of world food supplies in relation to need,” and so on.
This economic-justice compact was so patently socialist that, even at the height of his Great Society and War on Poverty, President Lyndon Johnson declined to sign it. So did Presidents Nixon and Ford. But alas, there is always Jimmy Carter. Thirty years ago, he signed the ICESCR, but it has languished ever since, never ratified. President Clinton lauded the treaty but shrank from prodding the senate, where staunch Republican opposition made the required two-thirds approval margin a pipedream.
Obama, by contrast, expects to have the wind at his back, at least for a time. Gone is the Republican Congress of the Clinton years. Despite their appalling performance and historically low approval ratings, cocky Democrats expect to pad their congressional majorities. They anticipate inching close to 60 seats, or beyond. With an assist from the usual GOP moderates — who’d no doubt be anxious to join a charismatic new president in a bipartisan effort to “improve America’s image in the world” — the 67 votes needed for ratification could be attainable.
The Constitution stipulates that, once ratified, a treaty becomes the supreme law of the land. No longer would Obama need to worry about the “essential constraints” that relegate our fundamental law to “a charter of negative liberties.” Federal judges would now be unleashed to direct the redistributions necessary to ensure a “living wage” and the ICESCR’s remaining laundry list of economic rights. Congressional Democrats, egged on by ACORN and its hard Left allies, would craft legislation to further codify, explain and expand on them.
Change will have arrived. At long last we’ll have realized Obama’s ideal of economic justice. But freedom, the ideal that makes America America, will have perished.
Obama bill: $845 billion more for 'global poverty'
The bill, called the Global Poverty Act, is the type of legislation, 'We can – and must – make … a priority,' said Obama, a co-sponsor.
It would demand that the president develop 'and implement' a policy to 'cut global poverty in half by 2015 through aid, trade, debt relief' and other programs.
While the Global Poverty Act sounds nice, the adoption could 'result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States' and would make levels 'of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations.'
He said the legislation, if approved, dedicates 0.7 percent of the U.S. gross national product to foreign aid, which over 13 years he said would amount to $845 billion 'over and above what the U.S. already spends.'
The plan passed the House in 2007 'because most members didn't realize what was in it,' Kincaid reported. 'Congressional sponsors have been careful not to calculate the amount of foreign aid spending that it would require.'
A statement from Obama's office:
'With billions of people living on just dollars a day around the world, global poverty remains one of the greatest challenges and tragedies the international community faces,' Obama said. 'It must be a priority of American foreign policy to commit to eliminating extreme poverty and ensuring every child has food, shelter, and clean drinking water. As we strive to rebuild America's standing in the world, this important bill will demonstrate our promise and commitment to those in the developing world.
The bill institutes the United Nations Millennium Summit goals as the benchmarks for U.S. spending. 'It is time the United States makes it a priority of our foreign policy to meet this goal and help those who are struggling day to day,' a statement issued by supporters, including Obama, said.
Specifically, it would 'declare' that the official U.S. policy is to eliminate global poverty, that the president is 'required' to 'develop and implement' a strategy to reach that goal and requires that the U.S. efforts be 'specific and measurable.'
After cutting through all of the honorable-sounding goals in the plan, the bottom line is that the legislation would mandate the 0.7 percent of the U.S. GNP as 'official development assistance.'
'In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that (U.N.) declaration commits nations to banning 'small arms and light weapons' and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention of Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention of the Rights of the Child,' he said.
Those U.N. protocols would make U.S. law on issues ranging from the 2nd Amendment to energy usage and parental rights all subservient to United Nations whims. A U.N. plan to force the U.S. to pay 0.7 percent of GNP would add about $65 billion a year to what the U.S. already donates.
It further requires the president not only to accomplish that goal but, 'not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this act,' to submit a report to the UN on 'the contributions provided by the United States' toward poverty reduction.
Obama's campaign program last night was a true winner. Now McCain is back with his constant attack ads. He projects an image of an old cranky, smart-ass, and Palin is hardly worth commenting on as she becomes more and more distant from McCain. I imagine he's really kicking himself and the GOP for deciding on this bimbo more and more as time goes on.
'Obama's campaign program last night was a true winner.'
'Campaign program?' It was a TV commercial.
Can't you look farther than the sales pitch?
By CALVIN WOODWARD
WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was less than upfront in his half-hour commercial Wednesday night about the costs of his programs and the crushing budget pressures he would face in office.
Obama's assertion that 'I've offered spending cuts above and beyond' the expense of his promises is accepted only by his partisans. His vow to save money by 'eliminating programs that don't work' masks his failure throughout the campaign to specify what those programs are - beyond the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
A sampling of what voters heard in the ad, and what he didn't tell them:
THE SPIN: 'That's why my health care plan includes improving information technology, requires coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions and lowers health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year.'
THE FACTS: His plan does not lower premiums by $2,500, or any set amount. Obama hopes that by spending $50 billion over five years on electronic medical records and by improving access to proven disease management programs, among other steps, consumers will end up saving money. He uses an optimistic analysis to suggest cost reductions in national health care spending could amount to the equivalent of $2,500 for a family of four. Many economists are skeptical those savings can be achieved, but even if they are, it's not a certainty that every dollar would be passed on to consumers in the form of lower premiums.
---
THE SPIN: 'I've offered spending cuts above and beyond their cost.'
THE FACTS: Independent analysts say both Obama and Republican John McCain would deepen the deficit. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates Obama's policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years - and that analysis accepts the savings he claims from spending cuts. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, whose other findings have been quoted approvingly by the Obama campaign, says: 'Both John McCain and Barack Obama have proposed tax plans that would substantially increase the national debt over the next 10 years.' The analysis goes on to say: 'Neither candidate's plan would significantly increase economic growth unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases that the campaigns have not specified.'
---
THE SPIN: 'Here's what I'll do. Cut taxes for every working family making less than $200,000 a year. Give businesses a tax credit for every new employee that they hire right here in the U.S. over the next two years and eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Help homeowners who are making a good faith effort to pay their mortgages, by freezing foreclosures for 90 days. And just like after 9-11, we'll provide low-cost loans to help small businesses pay their workers and keep their doors open. '
THE FACTS: His proposals - the tax cuts, the low-cost loans, the $15 billion a year he promises for alternative energy, and more - cost money, and the country could be facing a record $1 trillion deficit next year. Indeed, Obama recently acknowledged - although not in his commercial - that: 'The next president will have to scale back his agenda and some of his proposals.'
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THE SPIN: 'I also believe every American has a right to affordable health care.'
THE FACTS: That belief should not be confused with a guarantee of health coverage for all. He makes no such promise. Obama hinted as much in the ad when he said about the problem of the uninsured: 'I want to start doing something about it.' He would mandate coverage for children but not adults. His program is aimed at making insurance more affordable by offering the choice of government-subsidized coverage similar to that in a plan for federal employees and other steps, including requiring larger employers to share costs of insuring workers.
---
THE SPIN: 'We are currently spending $10 billion a month in Iraq, when they have a $79 billion surplus. It seems to me that if we're going to be strong at home as well as strong abroad that we've got to look at bringing that war to a close.' These lines in the ad were taken from a debate with McCain.
THE FACTS: Obama was once and very often definitive about getting combat troops out in 16 months (At times during the primaries, he promised to do so within a year). More recently, without backing away explicitly from the 16-month withdrawal pledge, he has talked of the need for flexibility. In the primaries, it would have been a jarring departure for him to have said merely that 'we've got to look at' ending the war. As for Iraq's surplus, it's true that Iraq could end up with a surplus that large, but that hasn't happened yet.
I can easily prove that all the above posts are lies,it does not take pages.
Will somebody from the GOP please explain why it takes spending as much on weapons as the rest of the world put together to defeat a bunch of terrorists?The total sum spend on arms by the USA is complete madness,out of proportions and a waste of money.
The military industrial complex Eisenhower has warned against has taken complete control of your country,that is why.
They have their own genda and that is transferring the wealth of your nation into their bank accounts,deficit spending,no bid contracts,the Ephraim Diveroli case,Haliburton,KBR,Blackwater,and lots and lots of republican sponsored 'defense contractors' thank you for your money.McCain has promised to raise their income and reduce their taxes.
Vote for McCain if you want this to happen.He'll present you with the bill afterwards.
'I can easily prove that all the above posts are lies,it does not take pages.'
Bull. You are a liar. Prove me wrong.
'Will somebody from the GOP please explain why it takes spending as much on weapons as the rest of the world put together to defeat a bunch of terrorists?'
Is that all we do?
One post (which will likely be removed) says:'REDISTRIBUTIVE CHANGE: THE DEATH OF FREEDOM'
This is typical GOP CRAP. This is just the old create FEAR tactic favored by the Repubs. It is the only tactic they have. There is one thing to be concerned about and is 4 years from now. Palin will have had time to have her past cleansed, image remade, had plastic surgery to move her anus to where her brain should be and be repackaged as the next Repub candidate for President. The scarey thing is not Palin, but the party, she's nothing but a shell, a shill. Neoconsism is basically dead. What isn't dead, but very much alive and deadly is Theoconism. The Theological Conservatives, and Palin is one of those. These Fundamentalist fruitcakes are the real danger to the country. Afterall, God is on their side. Only their side has the Divine plan. Therefore, if Mr.Obama does get elected, it will not be God's Will. If it's not God's Will, then it can only be the profane Will of the devil.
Religion has NO PLACE in politics, anywhere.
'Bull. You are a liar. Prove me wrong.'
Seeing as how you are making the allegation that Tonny is a liar, the onus is upon you to back up your position and prove him wrong. He does not have to prove that your allegation is wrong. Try it again, and see if you can do it intelligently.
'Seeing as how you are making the allegation that Tonny is a liar, the onus is upon you to back up your position and prove him wrong. '
No. I posted that in response to:
'I can easily prove that all the above posts are lies,it does not take pages.''
Had you bothered to read or had you not been too stupid to understand what was written you would have understood that the onus is upon her to back up HER position and prove ME wrong.
'He does not have to prove that your allegation is wrong.'
It can't.
Seeing as how you are making the allegation that Tonny is a liar, the onus is upon you to back up your position and prove him wrong. Try it again, and see if you can do it intelligently.
How can anyone not see that Mr. Obama is one of the GREATEST USED CAR SALESMEN around. All the commercial he has running is ridiculous and I find myself switching TV channels to avoid them........Give us a break! Surely people aren't REALLY buying into his sales pitches.
The word you want is 'butt.'
This being a free forum, any comment made by anybody is open to comment on. If you want to have a private conversation with someone, go elsewhere, Butt-head.
'One post (which will likely be removed)'
Really feeling some power because you had a couple of posts censored, eh? Well done, it sure beats having anything intelligent to say in rebuttal. Stupidity like yours is an embarrassment to upright humans.
'This is typical GOP CRAP. '
How so???? Gee, you can't say, can you? Why not? Your 'education' left you incapable of thinking for yourself. You can only fling your cr*p like an angry monkey when you see something you don't like. Yet you think you can lecture the world like a braying, pompous ass... You are just regurgitating your programming, you stupid thing.
'This is just the old create FEAR tactic favored by the Repubs.'
HOW SO, WHAT WAS INCORRECT ABOUT THE POST? YOU IDIOT, WHAT WAS NOT TRUE, WRONG OR INACCURATE?
You just can't do it, can you?
Seeing as how you are making the allegation that Tonny is a liar, the onus is upon you to back up your position and prove him wrong. Try it again, and see if you can do it intelligently.
Lets try this again:
No. I posted that in response to:
'I can easily prove that all the above posts are lies,it does not take pages.''
Had you bothered to read or had you not been too stupid to understand what was written you would have understood that the onus is upon her to back up HER position and prove ME wrong.
'He does not have to prove that your allegation is wrong.'
It can't.
Got it yet? Of course not.
“The word you want is 'butt.'”
The thing you want is “a life”.
“This being a free forum, any comment made by anybody is open to comment on.”
The only way you can get some of that sweet, sweet attention, eh?
“If you want to have a private conversation with someone, go elsewhere,”
I would invite you to do the same, “butt” we both know that no one wants to talk to you. Just go elsewhere.
Why Democrats Will Target the Investor Class in 2009
There are at least two pretty effective ways to turn someone into a Republican: (1) get them married with kids and (2) get them to invest in the stock market. So, if I were a highly paid Democratic political strategist, I would make sure to spend a few minutes every day thinking of ways to get Americans out of the stock market—the faster, the better. And that's why if Barack Obama is elected president next week, 2009 may well bring a concerted and all-out effort by the Obama administration and a Democratically dominated Congress to turn the generally pro-Republican Investor Class into an endangered class by, among other tactics, raising investment taxes and ending the tax preferences for 401(k)'s, IRAs, and other retirement accounts. Here is the emerging battle plan for Operation Investor Class Rollback:
1) Hike Investment Taxes. Obama wants to raise capital gains taxes even though he has kinda, sorta admitted that it might be bad for the economy and might actually decrease tax revenue to the government. For now, he's talking about raising the highest cap gains rate by one third to 20 percent, though earlier in the campaign, he floated pushing it as high as 28 percent, a near doubling. (Recall that Democratic presidential contender John Edwards wanted to raise it as high as 40 percent, a move that was applauded by liberals who want investment income to be taxed as onerously as labor income.) With the next administration facing a trillion dollar budget deficit—maybe more—there will certainly be pressure to raise taxes to higher levels than now being suggested.
2) Eliminate 401(k)'s, IRAs, and other retirement plans. Democrats in the House are now talking openly about the longtime liberal dream of repealing the tax advantages of putting money into a 401(k) plan or other tax-advantaged retirement account. 'The savings rate isn't going up for the investment of $80 billion [in 401(k) tax breaks], we have to start to think about whether or not we want to continue to invest that $80 billion for a policy that's not generating what we now say it should,' said Rep. Jim McDermott, a Democrat from Washington at a recent hearing, according to an industry trade paper.
Indeed, House Democrats recently invited Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor at the New School of Social Research, to testify before a subcommittee on her idea to eliminate the preferential tax treatment of the popular retirement plans. In place of 401(k) plans, she would have workers transfer their dough into government-created 'guaranteed retirement accounts' with a 3 percent real return.
Not only would removing the preferential tax treatment of these vehicles raise investment taxes by $100 billion a year and affect Americans making less than $100,000, it would surely prompt many Americans, already shell-shocked by the market's recent losses, to flee stocks. All this ignores the fact that there are trillions of dollars in American retirement accounts, and abandoning the higher-returning stock market at a probable bottom is classic financial foolishness. If you believe long term in the American economy, then you have to believe in the stock market. If you don't, then you have to admit the government won't be able to afford its promises anyway.
3) Replace private capital with public capital. But wouldn't a weak stock market hurt the economy by making it tougher to raise investment capital and lessen the return on risk? Surely, it would. But Obama is planning hundreds of billions of dollars of government 'investment' in cutting-edge technology, particularly in the energy and healthcare sectors. One specific example: Obama wants to create something called a 'Clean Technologies Venture Capital Fund' and invest $10 billion a year in emerging energy technologies. Now, the private VC industry is already pouring billions into alternative energy, but Obama thinks that's not enough and wants Uncle Sam to get in on the action at taxpayer expense. Interestingly, a new study by the University of British Columbia looked at the performance of the Canadian government's venture capital efforts. It found that government venture capital isn't nearly as successful as private venture capital.
Bottom line: All this makes smart political sense for Democrats. See, since the mid-1960s, stock ownership in the United States has risen from 10 percent of households to around 50 percent. And that growing Investor Class, a term coined and popularized by CNBC commentator and host Lawrence Kudlow, has helped nudge America evermore to the right. It sure helped George W. Bush get elected twice to the White House, voting for him by wide margins against John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000. And it was those results that have helped ensure Democrats will fight to the death to prevent Social Security from being reimagined into a system of personal and high-return investment accounts. Privatization? Given its potential effect on voting patterns, Uncle Sam might as well send every American household a copy of Milton Friedman's Free to Choose on DVD.
But now if the Democrats control both the White House and Capitol Hill, look for them to move hard in the other direction, from an Ownership Society to a Government Owns It Society that would perhaps nudge America back to the left.
I do hope those two cells occupying the space between yours ears grow into an organ called a brain.
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