Change We Can Ruin the Country With

Like I was sayin… change isn’t always good.  Senator Obama has an ambitious plan to bring change to America.  However, several of those changes will make things much worse.

One of the keys to understand how America will suffer under an Obama administration coupled with a Dem congress is to look back to the debates.  Obama was asked if he supported the raising of the capital gains tax even though raising the tax would bring in less revenue to the government.  He indicated that it was the right thing to do if you look at it through the lens of fairness.  What he is really advocating is that we should take more money away from “rich people” even if it means the government takes in less money.  Apparently it is better for some people to have less even if it means nobody benefits.  This is some sort of insane leftist thinking that will raise taxes to the point that the government takes in less money and sees that as being a good thing.

He is also on record as advocating raising taxes on the evil oil companies.  Many people who are sick of paying “too much” for gasoline nod their heads like lemmings.  Many people don’t understand that there isn’t really any such thing as corporate income tax.  All business taxes are passed on to the consumer.  If you raise taxes on oil companies, you either get higher prices or less oil (and then higher prices).

Obama also likes to push ending the Bush tax cuts (which is really just raising taxes).  One of the things the Bush tax cuts did was to increase the child credit by $500.  I am amazed at the people that support ending the tax cuts, but don’t realize it means they will pay an extra $500 a year per child in taxes.

With the rest of the world getting ready to pass America by, we as Americans need to wake up and become competative in the world.

First, we need an energy policy that makes sense.  America gets around 20% of its energy from nuclear energy.  This ranks America 19th in the world behind the UK, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, and France to name a few.  We haven’t build a nuclear plant in years and we are beginning to lag behind the rest of the world.

We also have our oil policy totally wrong.  America has enough known oil supplies in the ground to run America for over 60 years without using any foreign sources of oil.  We also haven’t added any new refineries in years.  It has gotten to the point that other countries have started drilling off our coasts to get oil that we refuse to get.  Oil isn’t the solution in the long term, but we need to reduce our dependence on countries that do not support America or worse support those that would do America harm.

America is the greatest country on earth, but will soon find itself somewhere in the top 10 if we do not wake up and start making common sense actions rather than pursue populist policies that do not address short or long term issues.

Yes America needs change, but the change candidate isn’t bringing the change that would build America up, but rather would continue to push America toward its eventual ruin.

McCain Calls for Tax Holiday

(April 15, 2008 ) – Like I was sayin… I can use a few more holidays.  GOP presidential candidate John McCain is calling on congress to have a gasoline tax holiday from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

The proposal would eliminate the 18.4 cent per gallon federal tax on gasoline and the 24.4 cent per gallon on diesel fuel.  He also called to release oil from the strategic Petroleum Reserve to further ease gas prices.  The democrat party will most likely be against it either because they will call it reckless or they will say it doesn’t go far enough (you heard it hear first…).

Note also that the democrats also have outlined a proposal to increase the gasoline tax by 50 cents.  However, they won’t push for it until after the elections.

The announcement came as part of McCain’s detailing some of his economic plan.  Some of the other details are as follows:

–Raise the tax exemption for each dependent child from $3,500 to $7,000.

–Require more affluent people — couples making more than $160,000 — enrolled in Medicare to pay a higher premium for their prescription drugs than less-wealthy people.

–Offer people the option of choosing a simpler tax system with two tax rates and a standard deduction instead of sticking with the current system.

–Suspend for one year all increases in discretionary spending for agencies other than those that cover the military and veterans while launching an expansive review of the effectiveness of federal program.

Note that both Senators Clinton and Obama are for reducing the child tax credit from $3,500 to $3000 as part of their massive tax increase they refer to as “elimininating the Bush tax cuts”.

Voters need to keep in mind that the economic plans of the candidates impact them by either lowering their tax bill or increasing it.

It will be interesting to see how many people come out against lowering gas prices by eliminating the tax temporarily.

Rockefeller Apologizes to McCain

(April 8, 2008) – Like I was sayin… some people will say anything.  Sen. Rockefeller (D, WV)  apologized to Sen. McCain for saying that he doesn’t care about the lives of people caught in the wars he champions.

Sen. Rockefeller made his remarks in the Charleston Gazette.

“McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit.

“What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn’t know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues.”

There is so much wrong with these statements, you have to wonder what is wrong with Sen. Rockefeller.

First off, in Vietnam, the fighter pilots didn’t drop bombs from 35,000 feet nor did they have laser guided bombs.  The fact that Sen. Rockefeller doesn’t even know what he is talking about should cause anybody to wonder why they should vote for him in the next election.

Secondly, and even more troubling, what message does this send to the men and women who are currently or have served our country in the military.  Are they not fit to be the president because they launched missiles or dropped bombs?  If that is his opinion, then he should come out and say it and not just take cheap shots and McCain.

So not only is Rockefeller clueless as to how wars are fought, but his character comes into question if he doesn’t believe that pilots don’t care about people and therefore can’t be the president.  If that isn’t his opinion, then he is just another politician that is willing to say anything to get elected.

Being the man of conviction that he is, on Tuesday Rockefeller issued an apology:

“I have deep respect for John McCain’s honorable and noble service to our country. I made an inaccurate and wrong analogy and I have extended my sincere apology to him.

“While we differ a great deal on policy issues, I profoundly respect and appreciate his dedication to our country, and I regret my very poor choice of words,” he said.

Notice that he didn’t say that McCain does indeed care for people caught in war, but that he merely used a bad analogy and a poor choice of words.

I can’t imagine that anybody in the military would even think of voting for Rockefeller.

Clinton and Obama spar over Sub-Prime Donations

(March 28, 2008) – Like I was sayin… the devil is in the details.  Yesterday, Hillary Clinton accused Barack Obama of taking more cash from the companies involved in the current sub-prime mess.

 However, it depends on how you slice the list of donors.  Here is a great article from the WSJ that breaks it down.  Apparently, if you limit the list to the top 10 issuers of sub-prime mortgages on different dates, either Clinton or Obama received the most.

The problem that the Clinton Campaign overlooked is that over all, Clinton has received slightly more money from the sub-prime industry with $2.8 million for Clinton and $2.67 million for Obama.  On a side note, John McCain only received $1.28 million.

It is almost unbelievable that the Clinton Machine would make such a mistake by trying to point this out.  Firstly, they have received more money from sub-prime players than Obama.  Do they really still believe that people will just take what Clinton says as the truth without checking it out?  In the past this may have been the case, but will the popularity of Obama, the Clintons can no longer rely on the MSM to push the Clinton agenda across the board.

Secondly, with either Obama or Clinton facing McCain in November, this is a gift to McCain as if taking donations from companies that make bad financial decisions is wrong, McCain comes out the best.

This just seems to be another miscalculation by the Clinton Campaign that will hurt them in the end.  It will also end up hurting the eventual Dem nominee.  Clinton has been accused of being willing to do anything to win and this seems to be the case even if it drags down her party.

Pork Spending to Continue

(March 14, 2008) – Like I was sayin… they love to spend our money.

For years, presidential candidate John McCain has been against pork barrel spending in congress.  Pork spending is when a senator attaches an amendment to a spending bill to pay for pet projects.  Yesterday, John McCain voted for a 1 year moratorium on pork spending which failed to pass.  Obama and Clinton also voted for the bill even though they had over $390 million of earmarks in fiscal year 2008.

The issue that most Americans have with the practice is that the spending is attached to defence and other spending bills without debate.  There is also a lack of accountability of who benefits the most from the pork spending.  For instance, if my construction company donates or raises 100k for a political campaign and a pork item spends 10 million on a new cancer care wing of a hospital that my company builds, it pretty much is a payback at the expense of the American tax payer.

Citizens Against Government Waste, a non-partisan watch dog group, 71 senetors voted against the measure to stop pork spending for 1 year.  From the site, you can contact your senator and let them know what you think.

Romney for VP?

(March 12, 2008) – Like I was sayin… if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.  I saw articles this morning indicating that Romney was open to being on a McCain Romney ticket.

In an interview yesterday, Romney indicated that he would do anything to help McCain become president including running as the VP.

I believe this would help and hurt McCain.  Romney would add the conservative values item to the ticket as well as his speaking/debating skills.  He has also done the health-care thing in his state without having the government run it.

Negatives would the “guy most likely to lay you off” tag that dems will try to hang on him.  There will also be attempts to bring up the Mormon thing.

I would also like to see McCain wait until there is a dem candidate.  Depending upon the winner in that contest, the obvious choices could change.  I would imagine that if Obama wins, there will be a push to add an African American to the ticket and likewise a woman if Hillary wins.

I don’t think that adding an African American will help much as they will be most likely branded as not “black” enough since they would be a republican.  But, it would take some of the vote of people who would vote for Obama just because he is African American (not that he doesn’t deserve their votes, just that some people in both parties don’t look too deep when selecting a candidate to vote for).

In any case, McCain will need to add somebody that would help fire up the conservative base who might otherwise sit this one out.  It should be an interesting 6 months.