sanford to the feds: no thanks

I love this guy. Send him to D.C.

Governor Sanford says — we don’t want your money, feds:

In 2008 bailouts became the first resort. Over the past year the federal government has committed itself to $2.3 trillion (including the tax rebate “stimulus” checks of last February) to “improve” the economy. I don’t see how another $150 billion now will make a difference in a global slowdown. We’ve already unloaded truckloads of sugar in a vain attempt to sweeten a lake. Tossing in a Twinkie will not make the difference.

However, there is something Congress can do: free states from federal mandates. South Carolina will spend about $425 million next year meeting federal unfunded mandates. The increase in the minimum wage alone will cost the state $2.6 million and meeting Homeland Security’s REAL ID requirements will cost $8.9 million.

Based on what I saw in Washington, the bailout train is being loaded up. Taxpayers will have to speak up now to change its freight, tab or departure.

Everybody wants a free lunch.  It’s hard for governors to turn down money from the feds, especially because, as Governor Sanford says, there are plenty of federal mandates that state governments are responsible for implementing even if they have to pay for them out of their own state budgets.   I applaud Sanford for continuing to do the right thing, and for standing up for the taxpayers of this state.  We need more Republicans like him at the federal level.  I suspect this will be a tough goal to reach, because the Democrats will be given another chance to prove that this Congress will not be as worthless as the last one was.  The national Republican party has some work to do to regain the trust of the country, and it can start with its own membership.

As long as Republicans refuse to learn from 2006 and 2008,  continue to bury their heads in the sand, and continue to reshuffle the deck chairs of the SS GOP to put the same people who gave us John McCain in charge of our next election campaign, WE WILL CONTINUE TO LOSE ELECTIONS.

More on this in a future post…

making stuff up

You know that story about Sarah Palin not knowing that Africa is a continent?  Total fabrication.  Even the New York Times admits it.  Credit the New York Times for finally reporting the correct story, but the damage has already been done.  The truth doesn’t matter when the media has a reputation to destroy, and they have done their worst to Sarah Palin.  While my fellow conservatives have sometimes overemphasized the liberal slant of news coverage, during this election the media did choose sides, and their side won.  Can’t these guys enjoy the victory for awhile and attempt this “post-partisan” love-in we were all promised by President-elect Obama?  The election is over.  Let’s move on from the Sarah Palin wars and talk about this great new President-elect, ok?

As always…it’s too much to ask of them.

aftermath

The time has already come for assessing blame and naming those at fault for the McCain loss.  It didn’t take long for anonymous McCain staffers to trash Sarah Palin (without having the guts to put their names on the allegations).  That takes real courage, doesn’t it?  The debate isn’t over Sarah Palin’s qualifications or knowledge of foreign affairs.  That one’s been lost, because even though most of us like her, we know her limitations as a VP candidate.  This is about these anonymous McCain people blaming her for their failures.

I want to know who these people are and how much influence they had in whatever vetting process took place before Palin’s selection.  If they were involved in her selection, believing that she wasn’t ready for the job, and yet telling McCain to pick her anyway, that’s political malpractice.  It could just be that McCain ignored those people to pick Sarah, and they don’t want to be blamed for what many people see as a bad choice by McCain.   Whatever scenario you want to believe, it doesn’t reflect the McCain campaign in a positive light.

One mistake that was made in the Palin selection was that the McCain campaign had to spend valuable campaign time defending Sarah’s record and qualifications  — time that could have been spent defining McCain’s own message. The goal was to make the case for himself and explain why Barack Obama would be a risky choice for America.  Even with the pick of Governor Palin, and the diversion it may have caused in the campaign, there were clear opportunities for John McCain to make that case, and he wasn’t able to do it.  That’s not Sarah Palin’s fault.

It was going to be an uphill battle against Barack Obama, even if Republicans had a candidate a majority of us could support.  The results shouldn’t surprise anybody, taking into account the current President’s unpopularity and the damaged Republican brand over the past 8 years.  But it would have been a worse loss without Governor Palin on the ticket.  She energized the base and got McCain more Republican votes than he would have gotten with any other pick.  She deserves credit for that, and most of the blame for a mismanaged McCain effort should go to his campaign team, not to her.

parker, palin, and our flawed republican nominee

If you’re wondering why more conservative Republican women aren’t volunteering to run for higher office, or even for state races, witness the attempted destruction of Sarah Palin.  How many other women could handle such abuse with the grace and class that Sarah has shown throughout this process?  There are fair criticisms of her resume, just as there are legitimate concerns about some of the items on Barack Obama’s resume — like the time spent as a community organizer — but no public figure deserves the treatment she has received, even by some columnists most would consider conservative-friendly.

That leads me to National Review columnist Kathleen Parker.  She had previously written a rather unflattering piece on National Review Online about Palin questioning McCain’s judgment in picking her, and she received a lot of negative feedback for writing that column, including a few death threats.  I don’t believe in censoring opinions I disagree with, and I certainly condemn those loons who actually threatened Parker’s life.  There’s no excuse for such a violent reaction.  In addition to that, I think Parker raises a valid concern about Palin’s readiness for the national stage in that first article (written before the VP debate).  I’m sympathetic to that original argument.

What I don’t understand is the motivation behind her current article suggesting that McCain picked Sarah Palin because he had some kind of crush on her.  What would possess her to write something like that?  I have no idea.  I guess being a member of the conservative pundit class allows you to get stupid stuff like this published in National Review.    If McCain loses, all Republicans will be looking for someone to blame for it, and I get the frustration many of us feel because McCain and his campaign staff have missed many great opportunities to make the case for him and against Obama.  It would be easy and convenient for us to blame the Palin choice as the reason for a McCain loss.  It’s not the reason, and we should find another scapegoat…someone who looks an awful lot like John McCain.

Conservatives warned that John McCain was a very flawed candidate, but the party leadership, in keeping with current tradition, was more interested in the opinions of those indies and moderates than it was with our opinions.  We have what we have.  As for me, I will join fellow conservatives and other Republicans on November 4th and vote for John McCain.  Abandoning him now ensures the election of Barack Obama, and I refuse to have that on my conscience.  There are also local and state Republicans who have races to win on November 4th. Sitting this election out is not an option. It’s crunch time.  We can still fight on until Election Day and see what happens.  We are assured of a loss if we give up.  I’m not giving up until we count the votes.  Who’s with me?

vote for fred

If only Fred Thompson had decided to make a serious effort to run for President at the beginning, we might not be stuck with McCain now.  So thanks Fred.

Now that Fred has zero chance of being President himself, he tries his best to inspire the people for McCain and to make the argument McCain has thus far failed to make against Barack Obama.

Here’s a part of it:

Obama and the Democrats believe that Americans in a time of crisis will be willing to sacrifice their freedoms, abandon their founding principles and common sense and ease into the mediocrity of the warm embrace of the Washington papa bear who will take care of all of our problems for us.

These are not the ideals of the America that drew brave men and women from all over the world to our shores.  In most cases, they were fleeing nations with the heavy hand of government, intolerance and class warfare.  They risked everything to experience our Founding Fathers’ notion of a limited government with powers that were delineated, checked and balanced, in a land where they could live and prosper in a free, dynamic, upwardly mobile society – the kind that existed no where else in the world. But Obama and his liberal friends don’t see things that way.

The liberal agenda is based upon the belief that there are elites among us who know more and know better than the rest of us.  And that with the application of their intellect and power … and our money … they can impose regulations and establish programs, bureaus and agencies that will solve all the problems of the masses’.

Senator Obama and his supporters essentially see society not as dynamic and changing or full of opportunity.  They see one that is divided by economic classes into which every one of us is permanently assigned.  In their worldview, those in a lesser economic class are presumably resentful and envious.  So it’s the government’s job to level things out … or as Senator Obama would say “spread the wealth around.”  It’s about dividing the pie among static classes, not trying to make the pie bigger for everyone or creating opportunity in an upwardly mobile society.

This is the reason why they do not understand Joe the Plumber.  Because he doesn’t have a higher income today they assume that he never will and that he believes he never will. They expect him to resent anyone whose doing better than he is, instead of planning to do better himself. They don’t understand the Joes of the world.  Never have.  Never will.

Read more here.

For all his flaws, Fred Thompson is something John McCain will never be to conservatives — a true believer.  He’s able to make the conservative case and the argument against Barack Obama because at his core he buys into the philosophy.  Of course there were a few areas where Fred agreed with McCain (campaign finance reform is one example), but on most of the important stuff, Fred was solidly conservative.  The same is true of Sarah Palin.  I hope that this temporary alliance with McCain won’t make her more moderate. The Republican party doesn’t have a deep bench full of conservative women who, with a little more experience and knowledge of national and foreign affairs, could be great leaders for the Republican party.  Our party needs her, but as a true maverick, not the McCain version of the term.

the debate

The McCain campaign has to be pleased with the way Sarah Palin performed in the debate Thursday night. She went toe-to-toe with a Senate lifer. She was able to recover from those unflattering interviews, and she was also able to get a couple good shots in at Joe Biden in the process. She did benefit from low expectations, and I take that into account when evaluating the results, but she easily cleared that bar. Those who loved Sarah before the debate were validated, and those who thought she wasn’t the best choice for a VP have some ammo to make that case after watching the debate.

Sarah was great in that she spoke directly to the American people. She can connect with her audience in a way that Obama cannot. On style, Sarah easily wins this debate. But when Americans evaluate the two candidates as potential vice presidents, Biden makes the sale. Senator Biden is wrong on a great many things, but as a skilled debater, he was able to fool people into believing that he understands foreign policy and the Constitutional role of the Vice President. He gave specific policy positions on issues, and the average viewer won’t bother to check to see whether he accurately represents McCain’s positions or his (Biden’s) own. Governor Palin’s lack of specifics on policy issues hurt her case, but as she said, she has only been prepping on this for 5 weeks, so no one should have expected that she could cram 20-30 years of knowledge into her head in that short time.

Governor Palin did not change any minds by her performance Thursday night. Those who came in voting McCain will still vote for him, and those supporting Obama will still vote for Obama. There is more work to do for McCain. This election isn’t lost yet, and McCain must have a better response to the country’s economic concerns and must learn how to sell his healthcare plan. The economy is the key issue, and there must be separation from the Bush administration if McCain really wants to win this election. Sometimes we just don’t get that impression.

kill the pig, rescue the taxpayer

Those who are still pushing this absolutely-must-have-right-now-or-the-world-will-explode “emergency rescue plan” aren’t all that concerned with sticking to the $700 billion price tag.  Is it too much to ask from this Congress that we have a straight up-and-down vote on whether we should bail out private industry?  Why yes it is.   They just couldn’t resist adding pork to a bill that they believe will eventually pass.

Here are some of the “incentives“:

  • Sec. 105. Energy credit for geothermal heat pump systems.
  • Sec. 111. Expansion and modification of advanced coal project investment credit.
  • Sec. 113. Temporary increase in coal excise tax; funding of Black Lung Disability Trust Fund.
  • Sec. 115. Tax credit for carbon dioxide sequestration.
  • Sec. 205. Credit for new qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicles.
  • Sec. 405. Increase and extension of Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund tax.
  • Sec. 309. Extension of economic development credit for American Samoa.
  • Sec. 317. Seven-year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility.
  • Sec. 501. $8,500 income threshold used to calculate refundable portion of child tax credit.
  • Sec. 503 Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children.

Wooden arrows?  Cost recovery for a motorsports racing track facility?  All hail to our bipartisan overlords.  We might very well get stuck with the bill for all this, and this is a very high price to pay for opening the eyes of many Americans to the failure of both parties to get our fiscal house in order.

debating biden and palin

Apparently Gwen Ifill’s writing a very complimentary book about our Democratic nominee for President, Barack Obama.  No bias here. Move along citizen.  Why in the world didn’t the McCain campaign know about this?  Are they all fast asleep over there?  With all the credit we can give that campaign for some of those clever web ads, the McCain team hasn’t been earning their paychecks in the last 2 weeks.  There are many things we can point to as far as mistakes they have made so far — the rollout of Sarah Palin, the fumbling around on the economy, the failure (until recently) to attack Barack on the issues that matter in this election — to name a few.  But even if they failed to “vet” Ifill and whether she could possibly be objective moderating this debate,  McCain is handling this correctly.

Making a big deal about this only hurts McCain.  They can’t pull Sarah from this debate, no matter what legitimate concerns they may have (internally) about this.  There are no unbiased moderators left in this country, so that’s not an reasonable option.  Sarah Palin needs to show up, tweak the media and the Democrats,  promote her candidate, and survive the gentle pokes by Joe Biden.  She can do this.  If it goes badly for her, the campaign will continue to push the extensive media bias theme, and it only advances their point on that.  Of course, if Palin does not do well here, McCain has bigger problems than a biased media.

more reservations

There’s now a possibility that our Congress may pass a slightly modified version of Bush’s socialist bailout.  I guess we should be grateful that the House Republicans were allowed some input in the current draft, because it could be much worse than it is.  However, it’s not clear that the House Republicans got enough of what they wanted in this bill.  Mike Pence is still opposed to it, which prompts serious doubt in my mind that this is the best compromise we can come up with to “save” the economy.  Minority Leader Boehner calls this plan a “crap sandwich” but still plans to vote for it.  What awesome leadership by our minority leader.   Really inspires confidence in the folks we put in charge of the Washington Republicans.

Freedom Works has also weighed in with their opposition to the current bailout legislation (h/t: Michelle Malkin).  Here’s what they had to say:

Ten Reasons to Oppose the Wall Street Bailout

1. NO REFORM: The plan attempts to mask, rather than reform, imbalances in credit markets and in U.S. economic public policy. The plan props up reckless and failed banks by buying “troubled assets” instead of focusing on real reforms that go after government sponsored culprits Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and sustainable policies that will increase the availability of private capital and expanded economic growth.

2. TREASURY POWER GRAB: The plan raises Constitutional concerns by dramatically expanding the power of the current and future Treasury Secretaries, giving the government agency power to directly purchase assets from for-profit financial and non-financial firms.

3. STUNNING PRICE TAG: The $700 billion bailout figure is as much money as the combined annual budgets of the Departments of Defense, Education and Health and Human Services. It amounts to $2,300 for every man, woman, and child in America.

4. INCREASES NATIONAL DEBT: Instead of cutting spending elsewhere, Congress will borrow all $700 billion on global capital markets, and the bill raises the national debt ceiling to a staggering $11.3 trillion.

5. GLOBAL BAILOUT: The plan includes taxpayer purchases of distressed assets from foreign banks.

6. HURTS RESPONSIBLE AMERICAN BANKS: The plan punishes responsible U.S. banks by keeping reckless, insolvent investment banks in business. As BB&T CEO John Allison wrote in a letter to Congress on Sept. 23rd, “….this is primarily a bailout of poorly run financial institutions…. Corrections are not all bad. The market correction process eliminates irrational competitors.”

7. FLAWED PROCESS: Members of Congress and the public will have less than 24 hours and no hearings to discuss and understand the impact of this sweeping plan. This rush to pass a wildly unpopular plan without benefit of significant public debate and input will also undermine its legitimacy and effectiveness.

8. BY WALL STREET, FOR WALL STREET: Treasury Secretary Paulson, the architect of the plan, was formerly the head of Goldman Sachs, one of the firms responsible for the mess and a direct beneficiary of the bailout. Further, the advisers managing the bailout auctions and assets will be Wall Street firms and will likely receive billions of tax dollars in fees.

9. OTHER OPTIONS NOT EXHAUSTED: The idea that taxpayers will make money on the bailout is not credible. There are ready buyers for these “troubled assets” — Merrill Lynch sold its entire portfolio of mortgage backed securities in July– provided the price is low enough. If a profit was possible, private speculators would readily buy these troubled assets.

10. MORALLY OFFENSIVE: The plan violates basic principles of American capitalism and honest governance by creating a system of “private profits, socialized losses” that transfers money from taxpayers directly to Wall Street investment banks. Free market capitalism only functions if individuals and firms are held accountable and are allowed to both succeed and profit, and also to sustain losses and even fail.

I echo these sentiments.  This current bailout bill (pdf here) isn’t good enough.  Go back to the drawing board and fix some of these flaws before the vote if we absolutely must have a government intervention of this type.  I’m not convinced that we need something this massive.  We can do better than this, and we must.   Like the Freedom Works quote says, “Free market capitalism only functions if individuals and firms are held accountable and are allowed to both succeed and profit, and also to sustain losses and fail.”   The solutions we are seeing from this Congress don’t solve the problem and could add trillions to the national debt.  There’s nothing fiscally conservative about that.

If we don’t come up with a more responsible solution to our economic problems, then President Bush becomes the new FDR.  Well-intentioned socialism is still socialism.  In the beginning, our president seemed to be supportive of free markets and capitalism, as well as those popular tax cuts, but we didn’t elect him because we thought he had a strong fiscally conservative record.  It was because of national security and judges.  That doesn’t keep me from being disappointed that he feels he needs to support something like this.  While I realize that many of the root causes of this current crisis lie with our friends on the other side of the aisle, a large chunk of the blame for the current mismanagement of it should be with Paulson and the Bush administration.

I’m not sure if there is anything we can do to stop the worst from happening if Minority Leader Boehner has already caved and is trying to convince others to go along with the Democrats on this bailout plan.  I just hope that when this process is over, there will have been enough Republicans with the guts to say —  if this is what we must do,  let’s get this right before voting on it.

conservatives and the mccain/palin ticket

There are two main issues that Christian conservatives consider important enough to threaten withholding votes from any politician who doesn’t perfectly toe the line — abortion and same-sex marriage.   When evangelicals and others hold the line on principle and refuse to endorse a candidate who doesn’t agree with them on these issues, they are called single-issue voters and derided for standing on those principles.  These issues are important to me as well, but sometimes we don’t think about the consequences of withholding support from perfectly good and qualified candidates who might be a better bet to win an election. Every one of our divided conservative groups picked a different horse, and McCain got his independents and moderates — at least in the primary. That’s how we ended up with a candidate in McCain that we are still unhappy with, despite the Palin bounce.

I agree with those who say that we should stop trying to make the experience argument for Sarah Palin, even though it doesn’t seem to bother the Obama sheep that their man hasn’t closed the deal with the American people in that category.   Her appeal is a broad appeal that has very little to do with her knowledge of foreign policy or her deep conversations with world leaders.   It’s all about her personal story — moose hunting, fishing, the NRA membership, her Down’s Syndrome son.  She’s a very sympathetic figure, and she is a happy warrior, zinging Obama and the Democrats with a smile on her face. (She does need some more variations in her scripted lines, but other than that, I have no complaints.)

While she has requested and received some earmarks, it is evident that she has made some significant changes in the way Alaska does business.  She deserves credit for that.  With an sky-high approval rating in Alaska, she must have done something right in her short tenure there.  I still think that Palin can learn what she does not know,  but unless the Democrats know something we don’t know about McCain’s mortality– McCain will be President on day one, not his VP.  Why are the Democrats even worried about Palin’s readiness anyway?  All they have to do is make sure Barack overcomes his struggles and wins the election. Not that difficult, right? 🙂

Then the 80% wrong Joe Biden can run his foreign policy.  Yikes.  This can’t be what the Democrats really want.