Web App Tells if Obama or Romney Better for Voters' Bottom Line

Which presidential candidate will help your personal pocketbook -- and your entire ZIP code as a whole? A Berkeley-based Web application aims to tell you just that.

 

Users of Politify.com can input their age, tax status and location and be told exactly how much the tax plans of President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney will help -- or hurt, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

 

Nikita Bier, 23, of Berkeley, built the Web site to use Census and IRS data to determine exactly how much "increase or decrease in specific government services a household would receive," the newspaper reported. 

 

"Most ZIP codes in the U.S. tend to vote against their self-interest," said Bier, noting that the site plans to release a "heat map" that will show areas shaded in by color, depending on the impact of either candidates' policies.

 

The app uses Obama's 2013 budget proposal and Romney's publicly-available jobs and tax plan to calculate its figures, the newspaper reported. Research on those plans was "cross-referenced" with the Tax Policy Center, which is associated with the Brookings Institution.