Category: Politics

First thoughts on the day after election

First thoughts on the day after election

The massive mid-term election of 2010 is now over. My phone won’t ring 25 times today with some computer imploring me to vote for one candidate over another. The signs that are all along the streets in my town can come down (hopefully the candidates come out and clean up their mess). Life can now go back to some sort of normal.

The Republicans evidently picked up approximately 60 seats in the House of Representatives. They also made major increases in the Senate and that house appears to be split nearly 50/50 (the exact count probably won’t be known for a couple days as Alaska will probably take a while to count due to the write-in candidate).

What does this election mean? Does it mean that the 2-year era of liberalism is over? Does it mean that conservatism is the rule of the day? Does it mean that Barack Hussein Obama will lose in 2 years? Does it mean that the Republicans have a mandate to go ultra-conservative? Does it mean that the poor and down-trodden will need to look for their medicine in the trash cans of the homes of the wealthy? Does it mean that I have to give up drinking coffee and now drink tea?

What I am 100% confident in is that it doesn’t mean any of the above! It doesn’t mean that BHO is done. It doesn’t mean that all of healthcare should just go to the wealthiest. It doesn’t mean that we should now savage the environment.

I don’t think that the newly elected Republicans have a mandate at all except for the mandate to do a good job and figure out the best way to solve each individual problem regardless of party direction.

I think it means that Americans want a government that works. We want it to work rather slowly and deliberately. We want politicians that don’t act like politicians but rather act like leaders. We want compromise to be the rule of the day. We want our leaders to read, understand, and thoughtfully debate the bills that are before them. We don’t want to find out about what is in the bill after it is turned into law – we want our leaders to know what is in the bill before they make it a law.

We don’t want stagnation. If Boehner drives the government to a stall the way that Gingrich did, that would be a mistake.

Most of all, I think Americans don’t want to deal with the federal government. We don’t want our lives to be tied up with governing. Life is hard enough with births, jobs, bills, lousy bosses, teenagers, sickness, and death – we don’t want to worry about the feds as well. I think most Americans would be perfectly happy if government would just get out of our lives with the exception of keeping us safe, making sure the infrastructure works, and helping out with the truly disadvantaged. We will pay a reasonable tax for that as long as we think it is well managed.

I raise my coffee cup in a salute to the Tea Party activists for energizing America in making their point. That point, I believe, is that we want our legislators to pay attention to us, don’t tax us to death, and spend what you need but make sure what you buy is needed. 2 years ago, pundits were saying that the Republican party was dead, now the pundits need to say, “Listen to your constituents if you want to keep your job.” 

There is no such thing as a mandate to do radical things. Extremism is a bad position no matter which side of the scale you are on.

If the grown men and women in the federal government can’t get along better than a bunch of nursery school kids, then we will take away their ball and send a new bunch of children to Washington in 2 years.

Uganda’s treatment of gays is reprehensible

Uganda’s treatment of gays is reprehensible

I once again find that I am commenting on the laws of another nation where I am not a citizen. I recently read a story that Uganda has publicly “outed” 100 gays. Not only did the paper publicize the names of the homosexuals but placed a banner on the newspaper saying “Hang Them”. At the time of the article in The Washington Post, at least 4 men on the list have been attacked.

This is reprehensible conduct. What is worse is our support of a society that allows this. The US will give approximately $400M to Uganda in aid in 2010. We need to put strings on this money. It doesn’t come free. The recipients of this aid must not have laws that will cause more hardship to some of its citizens. We can enhance the benefit of that aid to more than just children that need medicine by requiring these countries to adopt standards that approximate the realities of human rights in the 21st century.

I understand that withholding aid to countries with low human rights ratings will hurt the most disadvantaged in that country. But, by providing aid to those that are disadvantaged we are also propping up and supporting the government of the country. We should not be friends with countries that have a low level of human rights standards.

What is even more disgusting is that it appears that some of this hatred was seeded by people from the US that say that they are Christians. This is not Christian behavior! I would write about these groups that instigated this behavior if I could find their names but the article only mentions them in one paragraph and then doesn’t delve into them in more detail.

A few paragraphs from the Washington Post:

The front-page newspaper story featured a list of Uganda’s 100 “top” homosexuals, with a bright yellow banner across it that read: “Hang Them.” Alongside their photos were the men’s names and addresses.

In the days since it was published, at least four gay Ugandans on the list have been attacked and many others are in hiding, according to rights activist Julian Onziema. One person named in the story had stones thrown at his house by neighbors.

A lawmaker in this conservative African country introduced a bill a year ago that would have imposed the death penalty for some homosexual acts and life in prison for others. An international uproar ensued, and the bill was quietly shelved.

But gays in Uganda say they have faced a year of harassment and attacks since the bill’s introduction.

The legislation was drawn up following a visit by leaders of U.S. conservative Christian ministries that promote therapy they say allows gays to become heterosexual.

She wouldn’t have my vote

She wouldn’t have my vote

I earlier wrote that I didn’t have an opinion regarding the Senatorial race in Delaware.

After seeing Ms. O’Donnell screw up the conversation regarding the separation of church and state in the debate with her opponent, I must conclude that she does not currently have the required skills to be a US Senator.

I encourage you to view this video from CNN if you are a citizen of Delaware. If the video doesn’t play below (CNN’s embed technique is not up to par), you can jump over to CNN and watch it directly: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2010/10/20/ac.odonnell.constitution.gaffe.cnn?hpt=C2

Delaware Senate race

Delaware Senate race

I don’t live in Delaware so I don’t have a dog in this hunt. I think it is amusing the amazing heat that Christine O’Donnell is taking from everyone outside of the state of Delaware.

Maybe it is the fact that I really don’t like Bill Maher. I think he is not funny and an idiot. Whenever I watch his show, I am absolutely amazed at the stupid things that he says. When he is trying to be funny, I rarely crack a smile. When the audience laughs at his monologue I keep wondering if there is some big, mean-looking guy standing beside the “LAUGH” sign with a baseball bat ready to bash anyone that can think an intellectual thought.

So when Bill Maher, another non-resident of Delaware, goes on the rampage against Ms. O’Donnell, it makes me kind of like her. If nothing else, I feel sorry for her because Bill can get himself onto a lot of TV. Bill acts like he is smart (when what he says is often foolishness) and Bill acts like he is funny (when he couldn’t do a stand-up routine any better than I can).

I am not sure what Ms. O’Donnell stands for.  As I said, I am not from the state and therefore don’t have a dog in the hunt. I am not endorsing her here although I would never endorse her opponent. If I was a registered voter in Delaware, I would spend a lot of time getting to know Ms. O’Donnell since there is no way I would ever vote for Chris Coons, her opponent. My vote, if I were a resident, would either be a vote for O’Donnell or, if I thought she was an idiot, I would leave that contest blank and abstain.

If Ms. O’Donnell really does keep her promise, as she says in this ad, of not doing back room deals for votes, then she just might be right for the job. This promise alone, if kept, would likely make her better than most of the other 99 Senators that she will serve with in that august house. Besides, what other Senator would want to get anywhere close to her – she just might turn her foes into toads!

Tax plan just doesn’t seem to be fair

Tax plan just doesn’t seem to be fair

President Barack Hussein Obama has been talking about his new plan to invigorate the economy and move us out of a double-dip or very long recession. I have to admit that I am confused by his logic.

First, a bit about myself. I hate taxes. I know that I need to pay them. I know that I make a good living (not from this blog mind you) and I need to pay into the system more than some others that don’t work as hard as I work. I get all of that.

In general though, I don’t want to pay taxes and I definitely don’t want to pay MORE taxes. I would much prefer that the federal, state, and local governments do a better job of using my money wisely. I would also appreciate that my money is not transferred to someone that won’t work (strong distinction from “can’t work” and “can’t find work”). In fact, if an adult WON’T work then I am perfectly comfortable with that adult starving to death and dying. Probably my only regret in that scenario is that my tax dollars will likely have to go to bury his sorry body. I realize that this isn’t a very Christian attitude but, frankly, God gave that adult man or woman 2 legs, 2 arms and a brain to use to work – not to live off of the generosity of others.

Now, back to the President’s proposals. I just don’t get it. Something doesn’t make sense. According to CBS News:

President Barack Obama will call on Congress to pass new tax breaks that would allow businesses to write off 100 percent of their new capital investments through 2011, the latest in a series of proposals the White House is rolling out in hopes of jump-starting economic growth ahead of the November elections.

An administration official said the tax breaks would save businesses $200 billion over two years, allowing companies to have more cash on hand. The president will outline the proposal during a speech on the economy in Cleveland, Ohio, on Wednesday.

I understand that part on a simplistic level. It makes perfect sense to me that if businesses don’t have to pay taxes on capital investments, they will be able to justify more money (the original money plus the tax money they didn’t have to spend) on capital investments. They might even spend more money on that as the internal return on that investment would be a little bit better without the tax overhead. This would potentially mean more purchases of goods by businesses which, in theory, would spark more jobs to be created.

However, according to the Washinton Post:

Corporate America is hoarding a massive pile of cash. It just doesn’t want to spend it hiring anyone.

Nonfinancial companies are sitting on $1.8 trillion in cash, roughly one-quarter more than at the beginning of the recession. And as several major firms report impressive earnings this week, the money continues to flow into firms’ coffers.

This means that the businesses are doing well, even if people are not doing well. So the President’s message is that we need to give these rich businesses an incentive to have them spend the money and that incentive will be taxes. I guess that makes sense. How about doing the reverse though? Why not tax them on the cash that they leave laying around and don’t invest? That way the US coffers don’t go down but actually might go up if they don’t spend it AND we get the benefit of increasing capital expenditures.  In fact, we might get MORE business spending with my plan. Why not heavily tax any cash that is in excess of last year’s cash reserves for the company.

It gets a bit more confusing. When it comes to people, the President feels the exact opposite as he does on businesses. He is fully okay with taxing a person more if they make more money. He wants to increase taxes on those that make a certain amount ($250K seems to be the magic number right now). This is exactly the opposite of what he is doing for businesses. For people he isn’t incenting them to spend more money to jumpstart the economy, he is simply taxing them for making more money. 

If a person last year made $220K and then had a great year and made $275K, the President wants to sock it to that enterprising citizen. He wants to charge him more for the right to be a US citizen and live in this great land. That 25% increase is going to drive that individual to pay a much higher rate of income tax. But not the company that is in the same city as the individual. That company has increased its cash by 25% (according to the article cited above) and it is receiving a tax break, not a tax bill.

How about a similar offer to people, Mr. President? How about you say that you don’t have to pay taxes on anything that you buy that generates manufacturing jobs in the US.  Buy a car – get a tax write-off for your down payment.  Buy a house – get a tax write-off for your down payment. Replace the windows in your house – no taxes on that money.  Buy a pizza – that isn’t taxable either. Even your latte at Starbuck’s should have no taxes if you treated people like you treat corporations. Buy a TV or computer manufactured in China though and you pay income taxes. Sorry Best Buy and Apple – you get screwed in my plan but not really since it just remains status quo for you. The people that benefit are the people that live within the borders of the land of the free and the brave.

Like I said above, I don’t like taxes. I know that there has to be some taxes because I want to have those brave soldiers that rescue ships that are attacked by pirates. But how about a little common sense and fair play when it comes to the tax burden.

I thought he could do more than one thing at a time

I thought he could do more than one thing at a time

I am perplexed by President Obama’s speech last night. He spoke to the American people from his Oval Office to announce the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom. While that declaration is not confusing, this paragraph is:

And so at this moment, as we wind down the war in Iraq, we must tackle those challenges at home with as much energy, and grit, and sense of common purpose as our men and women in uniform who have served abroad. They have met every test that they faced. Now, it is our turn. Now, it is our responsibility to honor them by coming together, all of us, and working to secure the dream that so many generations have fought for — the dream that a better life awaits anyone who is willing to work for it and reach for it. (taken from the transcripts on CNN)

It almost seems like he couldn’t work on the economy because of the distractions of the war. Surely this is not so. He repeatedly spoke in the election that a President (or at least him as President) can do more than one thing at once. Maybe, he found out he can’t do it all.