8 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

where we stand

A couple thoughts on the debate — the format was awful, but I expected more of Tom Brokaw.   We didn’t get any new information out of this debate (other than McCain’s call for more bailouts, but I’ll get to that).  Neither candidate was able to challenge his opponent’s comments in any depth, and this worked great for Obama.  It drives me nuts every time I hear Obama’s claim that 95% of the people will get a tax cut under his tax plan.   As we all know,  a much lower percentage of Americans actually pay taxes.  He is never challenged on this claim.  Since we know the economy will continue to struggle for a while, it makes sense to force the government to sacrifice some of its largesse for the good of all Americans.   That’s why I believe John McCain was on the right track when he proposed a spending freeze (with a few obvious exceptions).   If we are forced to make tough budgetary choices in our own lives, then the government must make some spending cuts as well.

While I have serious doubts about many of Barack Obama’s spending proposals,  John McCain insists on proposing to spend $300 billion more taxpayer dollars on buying up mortgages.  Can’t we start this election over with two different candidates?  If there’s any other candidate who is more tone-deaf to conservatives than John McCain, I have yet to see one.  As a candidate of reform, he should have fought the bailout and the pork added to it, as well as casting a vote against it.  This bailout was eventually going to pass, so there would have been no political risk to McCain if he made a real maverick choice for once.  He also should have promised to review the bailout deal after becoming president to see if that deal is producing the desired results.  This would have put him in a much stronger position on the economy, since there was and is much public opposition to the bailout deal. 

It’s because of my opposition to Barack Obama and his plans for this country and for our economy that I am supporting John McCain and encouraging others to do the same.  One thing’s for sure…no matter who wins this election, it won’t be a fun 4 years.

1 Comment Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

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.

Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

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.

1 Comment Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

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.

Posted on Democrats, George W. Bush, Republicans

more on the “rescue plan”

One day after the House Republicans, with the help of a significant number of Democrats, stopped this disaster of a federal bailout, the world hasn’t collapsed.  The Dow rebounded a little today after its terrible day yesterday.  I still think those who voted against this bill did the right thing.  I am, however, unsympathetic to the Republicans complaining about Pelosi’s partisan speech, and making that a reason to oppose the bailout.  The bailout should be opposed on its lack of merit, and its expansion of government welfare to those who acted irresponsibly.  Republicans haven’t been making this case, and that’s why Democrats could still win the PR war.

Some of my fellow conservatives are trying to tell us the sky is falling and that we must pass Bush’s plan NOW.  Not so fast.  A federal takeover of this kind must be carefully studied and discussed, and alternatives must be presented.  Any acceptable plan must attempt to correct past errors as well as to hold those responsible for this mess accountable for their actions.  We aren’t there yet.

To the Democrats still willing to support their Speaker, I would ask them: Doesn’t it concern you that the Bush administration wants to expand the reach of the federal government to take over a large section of our economy?  I thought you all were against more power for the federal government under George Bush.  Why all of a sudden do you believe the Bush administration and Secretary Paulson when they insist that the only way to save the economy is through a federal takeover?  If this bill passes in its current form, then Democrats will share the blame with our President when it fails to achieve its objectives.  Hope you all are ok with that.  Looks like a no-win to me.

There are a few economists who are opposed to this bailout, and I would take their opinions over those of some of the know-nothings in Congress.

Here’s part of what one of them, Jeffrey Miron (day job- Harvard), had to say:

So what should the government do? Eliminate those policies that generated the current mess. This means, at a general level, abandoning the goal of home ownership independent of ability to pay. This means, in particular, getting rid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with policies like the Community Reinvestment Act that pressure banks into subprime lending.

The right view of the financial mess is that an enormous fraction of subprime lending should never have occurred in the first place. Someone has to pay for that. That someone should not be, and does not need to be, the U.S. taxpayer.

Read the whole thing.

Posted on Conservatives, Democrats, George W. Bush, Republicans

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.

2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

draw

That’s what I thought about the McCain-Obama debate. McCain had a few good lines, but Obama did not do any obvious damage to himself when discussing foreign policy — at least not that any casual observer would notice. I don’t think either of them changed any minds tonight. I missed the part where they discussed the economy, but it probably wouldn’t have changed my opinion of this debate. McCain needed to knock out Obama, and he did not. This raises the stakes for the next two debates for John McCain, and this is a debate I believe McCain should have won because it’s an area of strength for him.

Minor point — there’s not much difference between preconditions and preparations, and Barack Obama’s explanation of this is just silly. But Barack did what he needed to do in this debate. Even though I absolutely disagree with about 95% of what Barack wants to do on foreign policy and the economy, I realize that the average American does not follow politics as closely as the bloggers and other assorted political junkies. So it’s possible that someone more detached from this than I am could see a clear winner between McCain and Obama. I didn’t.

Not surprisingly for those on the opposite side of the political debate — McCain is winning the FNC text poll 82 to 16. It was a lot closer than that.

Posted on Baseball

go cubs

As a Mets fan, I am ashamed, appalled and embarrassed by the shaky performance of my baseball team down the stretch, and I am tired of watching their bullpen and their lack of timely hits choke away our chances at postseason play.  So I’m done with them for this year.  They may still surprise us all and hold off Milwaukee, but there’s no way this team goes anywhere in the playoffs.  Think first-round exit.  Anybody still watching this team knows that any optimism left is misplaced.

Once the postseason begins, I will be cheering for the Cubs.  The Mets haven’t proved they deserve my support, and it would be great for baseball if the Cubs won the World Series.  That’s all I have to say on that.

More on the bailout when Congress finally gets something in writing.

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

just say no

Senator DeMint gives the Paulson bailout plan a very emphatic thumbs down.

From his Senate website:

After reviewing the Administration’s proposed bailout plan, I believe it is completely unacceptable. This plan does nothing to address the misguided government policies that created this mess and it could make matters much worse by socializing an entire sector of the U.S. economy. This plan fails to oversee or regulate the government failures that led to this crisis. Instead it greatly increases the role for Secretary Paulson whose market predictions have been consistently wrong in the last year, and provides corporate welfare for investment firms on Wall Street that don’t want to disclose their assets and sell them to private investors for market rates. Most Americans are paying their bills on time and investing responsibly and should not be forced to pay for the reckless actions of some on Wall Street, especially when no one can guarantee this will solve our current problems.

This plan will not only cause our nation to fall off the debt cliff, it could send the value of the dollar into a free-fall as investors around the world question our ability to repay our debts. It’s also very likely that this plan will extend the cycle of bailouts, encouraging other companies to behave in reckless ways that create the need for even more bailouts, triggering an endless run on our treasury. This plan may make things look better for Wall Street in the next couple months, but the long-term consequences to our economy could be disastrous.

There are much better ways of dealing with this problem than forcing American taxpayers to pay for every asset some investor doesn’t want anymore. We should start by reforming government policies and programs that created this mess, including the Federal Reserve’s easy money policy, the congressional charters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Community Reinvestment Act. Then Congress should pass a number of permanent and proven pro-growth reforms to encourage capital formation and boost asset values. We need to make permanent reductions in the corporate tax and the capital gains tax rates. We have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world, which encourages companies to take jobs and investment overseas.

It’s a sad fact, but Americans can no longer trust the economic information they are getting from this Administration. The Administration said the bailout of Bear Stearns would stop the bleeding and solve the problem, but they were wrong. They said $150 billion in new government spending using rebate checks would solve the problem, but they were wrong again. They said new authority to bailout Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would solve the problem without being used, but they were wrong again. Now they want us to trust them to spend nearly a trillion dollars on more government bailouts. It’s completely irresponsible and I cannot support it.

My Senator has the right idea here. This $700 billion bailout doesn’t provide any accountability or address any of the problems that got our economy where it is today.  It will, as others have said, give Secretary Paulson a virtual blank check without any promise of results.  It is irresponsible, and the Bush administration should go back to the drawing board, knowing that many Republicans will not support this.  If John McCain has any maverick tendencies left after he finishes ripping greedy people and Wall Street fat cats –neither of which have primary responsibility for the mortgage mess we find ourselves in– he should seriously consider showing up and voting against this bailout.  Republicans will follow McCain in opposing this, but he needs to take the lead in fighting for the taxpayers.

8 Comments Posted on Democrats, Liberals

re: remove all doubt

Interesting that my buddy Chris is willing to link to Fox News, since it’s such an unreliable source. 😉 I’m not sure why he wants to classify Fox News as part of the MSM, except that a lot more people watch FNC for their news than MSLSD or CNN.  But ok…Fox News is now part of the hypocritical double standard where the MSM doesn’t call Iraq and Afghanistan socialistic enterprises, but it criticizes Obama for wanting to spend US taxpayer dollars on solving global poverty.  One of these should be under the umbrella of necessary foreign policy, and one of them should not be.  We disagree on whether the US role in rebuilding Iraq is a good investment in a positive outcome for Iraq or whether it’s just government wasting our money on useless nation-building — and thus no more useful than Obama’s efforts to finance the end of world poverty.

I’m not missing any such point.  If the MSM sees a difference between our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and what Obama is proposing with the Global Poverty Act,  it’s probably because there is one.  If your intention is to shoot a specific messenger, you might want to get a more accurate gun.  If Barack is being misrepresented, that’s not my fault.  That’s not the fault of the MSM or Fox News.  That’s his campaign’s fault.  But I’m getting off of the subject here…

I called the bailouts socialism, while acknowledging my lack of expertise on the subject of the financial markets.  You can choose to see this as a cop-out, or as an excuse for me not to be too hard on President Bush.  That’s your opinion, and you are welcome to it.  You can spin all you want to, but even you do not know what Barack Obama will do once he’s President.  He could decide to keep troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Thus the war funding would continue.  

But let’s say you’re right — that we suddenly have all the Iraq and Afghanistan money to play with.

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