Closing Thoughts on the Presidential Election

Tomorrow, Americans will head to the polls and cast their votes for one of two viable candidates: John McCain or Barack Obama.

John McCain is not my ideal candidate, but represents an agenda I think all moderate and conservative voters should be much more interested in.

Barack Obama - by measure of his associations, his voting record, or his proposed policies - would be the most liberal president we've ever had. Some of you may read that and think I'm exaggerating or using hyperbole. I am not. Barack Obama is an excellent politician who has done a tremendous job during the campaign convincing Americans he is moderate and reasonable. But he is not.


On social policy, the issue most important to me is abortion, because literally at stake is life and death. I believe any rational person should be able to discern the scientific case that life begins at conception.

Even if you aren't pro-life, most moderate voters want abortion to at least have some restrictions, like parental notification. But Obama has pledged that "the first thing I would do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act." The FOCA would remove all restrictions on abortion, from parental notification to re-legalizing so called "partial birth abortion" which is much more accurately described as infanticide.

Obama's ultra-liberal dedication to abortion even includes his vote against a bill in the Illinois Senate that would have required doctors to provide medical care for babies that survived botched abortions.


On foreign policy, we are now winning in Iraq thanks to the The Surge, a strategy McCain advocated at great risk to his political career. Had we followed Obama's plan we would have begun a withdrawal of troops prior to even attempting The Surge and Iraq would be in shambles, with Al-Qaeda strengthened. Senator Obama has next to no foreign policy, military, or executive experience. Making him president while engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seems downright dangerous.


On economic policy - the area that seems to be ruling the day, we have Obama proposing a redistributionist tax policy that would literally cut checks to "working families" while ramping up hundreds of billions of dollars of new spending to be paid for exclusively by the top 5% of income earners (or, if you go with this cut off of "$250,000" - the top 1.5% of income earners.) The top 5% of income earners, today, already pay 60% of the personal income tax burden (while making only 20% of the country's income - a disparity of 3:1). Does that seem fair to you?

By contrast, John McCain wants to lower taxes across the board and reduce government spending - starting with reforming earmarks.

Analysis by economists indicates that Obama's policies will actually slow the economy, while McCain's will help it grow. This is probably best demonstrated by the following chart which I'm stealing from here:



From the study from which that chart is generated:

When fully phased in, and all economic adjustments are made, the McCain tax plan would increase the private sector portion of GDP relative to the baseline by about 2.7 percent, and the Obama tax plan would reduce private sector GDP by about 3.5 percent, a significant 6.2 percent difference in output and income between the two plans. (See Chart 1.) The difference in private sector capital accumulation would be 15.8 percent or $4.1 trillion in favor of McCain. Hourly wages before-tax would be up 2.2 percent under McCain, down 2.6 percent under Obama, a 4.8 percent difference. Hours worked would be 0.5 percent higher under McCain, and 1 percent lower under Obama.

I do not want to see this recession continue for four years, do you?

Eric Massa

Up until I last year I lived in New York congressional district 29. Two years ago, the contest was between Republican Randy Kuhl (incumbent) and Democrat Eric Massa. This year's election reprises that contest.

In 2006, the Iraq War was "pre-surge," still making daily newspaper headlines, and deeply unpopular. Massa's campaigned tried to seize on the unpopularity of the war and ran on a "I served in the military, and I'm against the war" platform. The race was within a couple points and it took a couple days after the election to figure out exactly who won.

My favorite moment of the entire campaign was getting a voicemail message on my cell from a Massa supporter who wanted me to vote for Massa because Kuhl voted in favor of "CAFTA: The Columbian Free Trade Agreement" which would "ship our jobs to Columbia".

Not being utterly ignorant, I knew the bill was the Central America Free Trade Agreement (or, actually - the Dominican Republic – Central America Free Trade Agreement). And having a basic grasp of simple economics, such as the principle of comparative advantage, I'm also not ignorant enough to think free trade is a raw deal. For those and a number of other reasons, I voted Kuhl.

Kuhl is nothing to write home about. He resembles everything I hate about the Republican party. In a debate this past week on a local Rochester TV station, Kuhl basically refused to admit that all the pork he's brought back to the district is, in fact, pork. And, as of tonight, doing a Google search on "Kuhl" and "pork" turns up a post on my blog as the top hit (in which I take Kuhl to task for his porking).

And yet, somehow, Massa winds up being even worse than Kuhl in my book.

Let me see if I can explain using this handy diagram of Massa's campaign (click for a larger version):



At some point, Eric Massa got a hold of a picture of Randy Kuhl and President Bush smiling in the back seat of a limo together. Massa uses this image in several of his TV ads and apparently, has a giant wall sized poster of it that he takes around with him.

Apparently, he thinks the good people of NY-29 can be swayed over like a bunch of 4 year olds using the juvenile logic of "see! see! see! Bush is like soooo evil, and Kuhl is like Bush and so Kuhl is evil. Look, look! They were even in a limo together! And they're smiling!!!!!!"

Those of us that aren't 4 years old say "Wow. Two politicians of the same political party were in a car together. And, what's the big deal again?"

Massa also continues to be anti-war and anti-trade. Given our success in Iraq but the trouble in our economy, I find the anti-trade position to be the more concerning of the two. A few weeks ago I responded on YouTube to his anti-trade ad with the following that I'll quote here:

In 1930, in an attempt to help a troubled economy, the government followed the advice Eric Masssa is advocating in this ad: to move away from free trade towards protectionism.

The result was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, one of the central causes of the Great Depression.

By contrast, the United States saw great economic gains from NAFTA, a policy established under President Clinton!

Our current economic issues come from HUD, Freddie, and Fannie pushing subprime loans, NOT free trade.

I'll at least give Massa the benefit that he allows comments on his videos.

Perhaps the most concerning thing about Massa though, beyond his juvenile "Bush = Kuhl" rhetoric and stance on free trade, is that in his ads he promotes himself as an "independent voice" but he'd be nothing of the sort.

Massa's campaign is being supported by groups that are left-wing (like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) and far-left-wing (like the Daily Kos). These groups aren't giving Massa massive amounts of campaign cash to be "an independent voice."

They want him to be their voice and give left-wing Democrats even further control over the Congress. Or, as Daily Kos founder, Markos Moulitsas, puts it:

We have an imperative to take advantage of a historic opportunity to break the conservative movement's backs and crush their spirits. In the White House, that means getting Obama a broad popular and geographic mandate for change. In the House, that means annihilating the Republican caucus and working toward a 100-seat Democratic majority. In the Senate it means getting to a 60-seat filibuster proof majority.

Any typically Republican voters considering "going Democrat" this cycle may want to think about if they really want to see a filibuster-proof majority of Democrats in Congress under the control of Nancy "you have to rip their face off" Pelosi and Harry "this war is lost, and the surge is not accomplishing anything" Reid.

Finally, I'll leave you with a YouTube video I put together of Massa flatly lying about the Bush record on taxes. I did feel a little out of place putting together something that's an awful lot like an attack ad, but I'm so sick of hearing liberal politicians slander the "Bush tax cuts" as tax cuts that were only for the "super rich" that I thought it important to call one of them out on this:

Dear Mr. Obama

Some background on this video here.

Demand A Higher Level of Discourse

So, the website for Emily's List (the group that aims to support candidates that are Democrats, pro-abortion, and women), has this bold headline calling for you to "Demand a higher level of discourse!" which, in the deepest of ironies, is situated next to a banner ad for their smear-McCain page, on which, rather than promoting "a higher level of discourse", the people over at Emily's List are happy to repeat the false assertion that McCain wants to extend combat in Iraq for 100 years:





Well, in an effort to promote discourse (to a "higher level!"), let me just go ahead and add to the collection of blog entries putting McCain's comments in context.

Here's his actual quote:

Maybe a hundred. ... We’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me, as long as Americans, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. It’s fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world.

What does Emily's List have against 100 years of Americans "not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed" exactly?

Of course, Emily's List is simply putting the out of context quote on their website, and that isn't nearly as bad as the DNC's ad misquoting McCain and Howard Dean's refusal to admit the ad took McCain out of context, as he did on Meet the Press and Fox News Sunday. Or MoveOn.org's "Candles" ad. Or MoveOn.org's new "Not Alex" ad.

Or, perhaps most bothersome of all, Obama's echoing of the same un-true smear.

More Good News From Iraq

Unlikely to be seen on the front page of a paper near you ... more positive signs of progress in Iraq.

Civilian Casualties? Let's go the graph.



Other notables? Electricity generation up. Crude oil production way up. Oil revenues, also way up. Political progress. Al Qaeda in retreat. Al Sadr laying low.

Link Roundup - 1/20/08

• More good news about Iraq. Complete with pictures. Keywords: progress and impressive.
  
  
• The Bush stimulus program is an awful idea. Romney's also weighed in with his proposed plan. I wish he'd back up his tax cut proposals with spending cut proposals, but I do welcome this difference between his and Bush's:
  

  
  [Romney's plan] centered on several permanent tax cuts…permanently reducing the rate for the lowest income tax bracket to 7.5 percent from 10 percent, retroactive to 2007. He also wants to eliminate Social Security payroll taxes for workers over 65 and eliminate capital gains and dividend taxes on households earning less than $200,000 a year. He also would permanently reduce the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent over two years and allow businesses to depreciate the value of new equipment purchases faster.
  

  
  versus:
  

  
  President George W. Bush earlier on Friday called on Congress to enact a package of temporary tax cuts and other measures estimated to cost up to $150 billion.
  

  
  
  
• Do Democrats really want to return to the Cinton era? I can't even imagine what would happen if papers surfaced documenting the Bush administration had intent to "expose lifestyles, tactics and motives of [opponent] lobbyists" and "track personal information about interest group leaders, such as their home phone numbers, addresses, 'biographies, analysis of credibility in the media, and known relationships with Congresspeople.'"
  
  
• Meanwhile, Grassley's investigation continues to give me the heebeegeebees. I loathe the prosperity gospel movement. I think the prosperity gospel's message is wrong and that its theology is dangerous. But, these people pushing the prosperity gospel are still religious institutions that Congress has no business investigating.
  
  
• Finally, Iran: Still a threat.

Some Good News

As best I can tell, this hasn't gotten much mainstream coverage (but I just railed against the mainstream news media, so I'll drop this rant here...)

Anyway: Good News!

Violence in Iraq at Lowest Level Since 2004

Update: And this is why it's important that we are making progress in Iraq:

Another gruesome and disgusting find in Iraq, as the depths of Al Qaeda’s depravity are revealed once again: Torture chamber found in Iraq.

Read the rest over at Little Green Footballs.

MoveOn.org betrays US

This. Is. Shameful.



Despite what a very small fringe of the very far right might claim, wanting an (even immediate) end to the Iraq war does not make you unpatriotic. But running ads making a groundless claim that a U.S. General is treasonous does. MoveOn.org and the New York Times should be ashamed.

Bruce McQuain of QandO writes:

There are few times in my life that I've seen anything this deliberately despicable and vile put out by a political organization. Words simply fail me.

The perpetrators of this execrable ad should be ashamed of themselves. The depth of hate necessary to attempt this sort of character assassination is both irrational and toxic. The organization which put this together deserves only derision and scorn. And they should understand that I do question their patriotism. This is way over the line and is anti-American by any measure or metric.

Amen.

The fact they ran this ad even before Petraeus actually testified only adds shame on their heads.

John Kerry and other congressional Democrats are distancing themselves from the ad, and I applaud them for doing so. MoveOn.org "[stands] by the ad completely" however.

This war deserves new and continued debate. Third grade name calling that calls a general a traitor adds nothing to that debate.

Al Gore - Promoting Discourse

This is the third post of my three-part series on "Promoting Discourse". (The second was my my previous post, about Thank You For Smoking; the first was about Charlie Rose).

Perhaps you are surprised, given my political leanings to the right, that I'm writing a complementary post about Al Gore of all people. I'm a bit surprised as well. But discourse is about bringing opinions from all sides (and hopefully facts to back them up) out into the open in a healthy and productive way. No political party or group of people sharing a political philosophy have a monopoly on valid input about political discourse.

And Al Gore brings such input to the table. His new book, The Assault on Reason is precisely about the need for good public discourse.

A number of media outlets have spun the book to be something more sexy than I think it was intended to be. ABC News ran an article "Gore's 'Assault on Reason' an Assault on Bush", for instance. I'm sure feuding political figures makes a more attention grabbing story than "our public discourse system is broken."

Now, in fairness, I haven't read the book. I've read what excerpts I can find and listened through two interviews with Gore about it though. (One was, if you've been paying attention you can probably guess this..., with Charlie Rose. :D .)

Based on those interview and excepts, I think Gore's central message is summarized nicely in this excerpt of an excerpt from the book:

Why has America's public discourse become less focused and clear, less reasoned? Faith in the power of reason—the belief that free citizens can govern themselves wisely and fairly by resorting to logical debate on the basis of the best evidence available, instead of raw power—remains the central premise of American democracy. This premise is now under assault.

American democracy is now in danger—not from any one set of ideas, but from unprecedented changes in the environment within which ideas either live and spread, or wither and die. I do not mean the physical environment; I mean what is called the public sphere, or the marketplace of ideas.

In that much, allow me to strongly concur with Mr. Gore.

Rather disappointingly (and ironically), the two interviews I listened to about Gore's book (or at least, that was their intended topic), turned into good examples of what's wrong with current public discourse. (By the way, the second interview was on The News Hour, moderated by Gwen Ifill.) (Brief aside ... I used to be an avid watcher of the Gwen Ifill-moderated Washington Week program, until she tried to make Bill Bennett out as a racist over the whole Freakonomics thing. Talk about bad discourse... Now I'm perhaps overly critical of anything Ifill does.)

Anyway. The Rose and Ifill interviews of Al Gore on "The Assault on Reason" themselves assaulted reason. Neither interviewer could resist devolving into questions about political "horse racing." The question of "Will you run in '08" made up a good bulk of both interviews that should have gone to discussing his book further. In the Rose interview, Gore answered with good humor that he was "worried about being repetitious" with his answer. (In 2000, of course, Gore was chided for being too repetitious.)

Both interviewers also tried to goad Gore into small minded partisan bickering. Ifill wanted Gore to endorse impeaching Bush. Rose wanted Gore to call Bush a "liar." I applaud Gore for overcoming both lines of questioning.

People generally blame political parties for driving issues to extremes, but in this case both interviewers were the ones abetting the political culture of "wedge issues."

I can forgive Charlie Rose (to some degree; and even to the degree I don't, I still think he's the television interviewer most positively impacting public discourse) for his questions because they were taken from a pool of questions provided by the live auditorium audience in front of whom he was interviewing. The whole series of impeachment questions Ifill asked were downright ridiculous, irrelevant, and outrageous though. Partisan fueled impeachment is perhaps the antithesis of good public discourse and the reign of reason. The series of questions should have had no place in the interview.

Getting back to Gore's book, I should point out that I emphatically support his main message - that public discourse and reason is desperately missing from today's political landscape. In his book though, Gore takes this premise to the next step with an argument I don't buy. He uses actions of the Bush Administration as his "proof" that reason and discourse have gone out the window.

Gore makes the assertion that anyone that is rational would have never gone into Iraq. I share Gore's outcry that so little discourse occurred prior to the invasion. But I disagree with the assertion that had all the available intelligence been put out for review in a public forum, it would have been impossible for someone to have arrived at the conclusion to invade.

Gore includes a statistic that "three-quarters of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on Sept. 11" in 2001. That's a huge failure in public discourse, but I never believed that and it didn't factor into my judgment, at the time, that going into Iraq was the right choice. (My judgment was primarily influenced by Iraq's failure to comply with U.N. Resolutions 678, 687, and 1441. I am continually baffled as to why Iraq didn't comply with them given the fact they apparently didn't actually have WMD... ("We aren't developing or hiding weapons, so we must interfere with your weapons inspectors!" is a huge non sequitur.))

On the whole though, I'm glad Gore is putting his influence behind fixing our use of "the marketplace of ideas." If he can gain nearly as much traction on this issue as he did on "climate change," the American people will be much better off.

Iraq War Supplemental

Well, if my math is correct, it took 119 days since President Bush requested it, but the Congress finally approved the Iraq War Supplemental.

I'd like to thank Democrats for coming to their senses, Republicans for not caving in, and Bush for holding strong for a no-strings-attached bill.

Personally, I'm starting to want to see us get out of Iraq, but withholding troop funding while we are in the field is flat out dishonorable, and adding strings to restrict the flexibility of commanders likewise doesn't make sense to me. And, timetables really do let your enemy just wait you out. I also want to see how the surge goes, and pulling the rug from out of it in the middle is yet another that doesn't make any sense to me.

With the signing of the supplemental, Bush and the Congress also managed to piss off Cindy Sheehan (x2!), Castro and MoveOn.org. From where I stand, that tends to indicate a "job well done."

Of course, in two short months - July - the whole funding debate will be again...

Update: Well, (especially per the upcoming July debate), at least Boehner gets it...

Calling a Disgrace a Disgrace

Well said: Senator Graham on yesterday's House vote for the emergency appropriations bill (my emphasis added):

The vote in the House of Representatives was a disgrace.

The House put more than $20 billion in spending -- completely unrelated to the war -- in the bill. Putting pet projects into an emergency spending bill funding our troops fighting a war is one of the low points of my time in Congress. The Democratic House also put conditions on how to operate in Iraq that will undermine our efforts to secure victory. They set deadlines for withdrawal that will empower our enemies.

In the Senate, I will do everything in my power to strike the provisions of this bill that undercut our troops' ability to win this war. Congress is not the Commander-in-Chief and should not micromanage the war. It's incredibly disappointing to see House Democrats put our troops at risk for short term political gain. The Democratic leadership in the House is like the cavalry in reverse. They're coming over the hill, but instead of helping, you know they are just going to make the problem worse.

The President is right to threaten a veto of this legislation. If this bill ever makes it to his desk, he won't have a shortage of pens available to sign a presidential veto. If necessary, I will be more than happy to bring one for him to use.