A week or so ago I decided to prepare for the political debate season by doing a bit of research. I have no idea who I’m going to vote for in this year’s election so I’ve been waiting for the debates to make up my mind. While I was reading through Obama’s tax plan I was intrigued, but had a question. A fairly simple question in the grand scheme of things, but a question that wasn’t answered on the website. So I did what any person would do (well, maybe not any person but people like me) and clicked “Contact Us.” The question I asked was similar to this:
The tax plan you are putting out is very interesting. Cutting taxes for people with income under $200,000 is certainly a good thing. However, how does this effect sub-chapter S corporations which file business taxes with their income taxes? If their business makes more than the $200,000 cut off, their taxes will increase. If their taxes increase it will be more difficult to employ people and continue running the business. I’m curious how this factors in.
-An Undecided Registered Independent from the State of Florida
Yeah, I laid it on pretty thick with the closing in the hopes that someone would actually read it.
Shortly after clicking send on the email form I received a canned response email, much like you would see from any corporation saying something similar to this:
Thank you for your interest into Barack Obama. Due to the very high volume of email we regret that we cannot reply to your message. We encourage you to read Barack Obama’s plan for our nation by visiting… blah blah blah.
Basically thanks but we don’t do email. Which I found very odd considering Obama being considered the more technologically advanced candidate. Either way I felt like my question would go unanswered. A few people suggested I contact the local campaign office but I figured they wouldn’t be able to tell me anything other than what was on their talking points. I basically forgot about it.
What did happen, which I wasn’t exactly happy with, was that I got automatically subscribed to Obama’s various email lists. I got an email from him thanking me for my support — which I thought was tacky considering I asked a question trying to make a decision and instead got added to a list. I also got an email from his wife encouraging me to get involved in some for of campaigning, again, tacky. On Twitter I called this a “courtesy fail.” Needless to say I unsubscribed pretty quickly.
With the idea of fairness I sent John McCain an email asking a question about something in his economic policy just to see what happened. Even stranger than the Obama response, I got nothing. Not a canned “thanks for your interest” email, not a “we don’t respond to email” email, nothing. Basically I figured despite being 2008, neither campaign had figured out how to directly interact with email questions. So I forgot about the whole thing.
Then just before noon on Friday, the day of the debate, I got a response to my Obama email — sort of. What I got was a five paragraph email response detailing a bit more of Obama’s tax plan with links to a few fact sheets hosted on the Obama website. The email was addressed Dear Friend and was signed Sincerely Barack Obama. Now chances are this was not written by Barack Obama, but the fact that I got a somewhat thought out response at all is somewhat impressive considering the first response basically said they don’t do responses.
Did the email answer my question. Not specifically, no. The fact sheets that were linked to talked more about specific cuts that would actually benefit sub-chapter S corporations, but did not address the issue of the $200,000 income tax cut off. It’s not a perfect answer but I guess it’s an answer.
So what does all this mean? I don’t really know. I still haven’t made up my mind. I’m not exactly keen on either candidate right now. There are things I like about both of them and things that I have issues with for both of them. What I do like, is that despite saying they don’t respond to email, someone actually took a few minutes to — at the very least — compile a few pre-written paragraphs and send it out. If I ever get a response from McCain’s people, I’ll be sure to update this post.