Curt's Politics

(My awesome, hunky husband wanted to contribute to the family blog... of course it's politics, but hey at least it's something... and you would NEVER read a political post from me! Love you Curty!)

This is Curt...and I just have to wonder if others are thinking the same way I am about this election.  There seems to be a lot of mud slinging and smear tactics from both sides.  Here’s how I think…that stuff is only entertainment and good tv, to me.  Yeah, it matters that Obama has very questionable associations whether political, business, or personal.  And yeah, it matters that McCain may have been involved in some scandal called the Keating 5.  Yes, those things matter to me.  But not as much as other issues like National Security and Economic Policies.  I’m not going to hide it…I’m conservative, a registered Republican, and a John McCain supporter.  But I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the things Obama is claiming to do, like cut spending to help pay for all of his promises and increase the tax on businesses and individuals earning over $250k a year.  But has anyone else read about where he plans to cut spending?  Or has anyone thought about that tax policy?  I’m pretty analytical and understand economics to some degree, though not an expert in any sense of the word.  I also like to think that I’m pretty logical when my mind starts to run.  In fact, Jen would say I try to solve too many things with logic.  Anyway…here’s my logic on these two issues…Barack Obama plans to cut spending on missile defense programs and other defense spending.  Does anyone NOT see a problem with this?  When there are countries out there trying to arm themselves, Obama wants to cut our defense spending.  I think his intentions are good, because that will help funnel more money into developing green technologies, re-focusing our military effort on Afghanistan, and other great ideas.  But we have gone just over 7 years without any terrorist attacks on US Soil.  Iran, in my opinion, is planning on developing a nuclear weapon.  When that happens, Israel will have one…Russia already has one.  And our front-running candidate for POTUS is someone who thinks we can cut spending on developing missile defense systems?  This boggles my mind.  Yes, I know we’re spending $10 billion a month in Iraqand they have a surplus.  By the way, did you know that several US oil companies were poised to gain valuable contracts with Iraq for oil.  Instead, John Kerry and others lobbied against these contracts and they went to China.  So now, China is profiting from Iraqi oil.  Anyway, that’s an entire different blog post.  For this one, I’m staying on National Security and Economic Policy.  I remember some of the talks that led up to the Iraq war.  Lots of people like to call it Bush’s war, and a war of lies.  Did we forget that it was Saddam Hussein that LIED and told the U.N. he had all these weapons of mass destruction.  It was during a cease fire in Desert Storm that Saddam agreed to U.N. officials to list all of his WMD’s.  AND HE DID.  I don’t remember what year it was, but it was years before 9/11.  During those years there were MULTIPLE U.N. resolutions and diplomacy acts to get U.N. inspectors into Iraq to inspect the progress of Saddam’s performance on his promise to get rid of his WMD’s.  Remember…it was Saddam’s leadership that kept forcing the inspectors out or blocking their entry.  Before 9/11 happened, Saddam was issued ONE LAST resolution by the U.N. to let in the UN inspectors.  And he agreed.  They went in and were kicked out after a few days.  They found no WMD’s.  But remember…it was Saddam who said he had them and refused to let the UN verify, despite agreeing to multiple UN resolutions.  Then the WTC is destroyed.  Al Qaida claimed responsibility.  We knew that Saddam wasn’t behind it.  However, there was a deadline that the UN agreed on, and it was broken.  There was a UNANIMOUS vote by the UN to invade Iraq.  My point is, the Iraq war would have happened regardless of 9/11 because it didn’t have much to do with Al Qaida.  It had to do w/ Saddam, a ruthless tyrant who was committing acts of genocide on his citizens, who would not follow through on promises to verify he had rid his country of WMD’s.  Yes, the war has been terribly mismanaged.  But it’s going much better since Patreus took over and the troop surge.  These same principles will help us get Bin Laden inAfghanistan or Pakistan, where ever he is.  Anyway, this is my VIEW on the war.  I’m sure I’ve left some details out, and I’m sure there have been lots of lies about it since it started.  But I think it’s important to understand the events that led up to it.  Obama wants to leave in 16 months.  Again, great intentions, sounds good to me, and it sounds great to a lot of Americans.  Because that means in 16 months, during an Obama administration, we’d have $10 billion more per month in saved costs on war.  HOWEVER…here’s the problem I see.  Obama says we’re going to have that extra money to be re-routed into the economy.  But then on the other hand he says we need to get out of Iraq responsibly so that we can focus our troops and our MONEY on Afghanistan.  We’ll still be spending $10 billion a month on war and that money would not be used for developing alternative energy.  My opinion.  Now…where does the money come from to pay for Obama’s plans…increased taxes on the wealthy.  As Joe Biden said, we need to make the wealthy Americans more patriotic.  I think his words were something like “it’s time to step up and be more patriotic…” speaking of taxing the wealthy.  They want to give 90% of Americans a tax break.  I’ve looked at that…because I’d love a tax break.  But my tax break isn’t going to be much.  It’s not going to be enough to help me afford gas, it’s not going to be enough to stave off the cost of healthcare, it’s just not enough to make a difference.  Now consider this…only 70% of Americans even pay any taxes, and this includes wealthy folks.  So one of two things is going to happen…either people who don’t pay any taxes are going to get money they didn’t earn (which is re-distribution of wealth, Robin Hood Socialism as I call it), OR the number is distorted as to how many will actually get a tax break.  On a national scale, those making less than $200k ONLY pay 2.9% of the income tax revenue.  So, my feeling is that this group of people isn’t paying much in taxes anyway, do they need a break on taxes?  No…they need a break on gas prices, they need a break on affording alternative fuel cars, they need a break on their heating bill, they need a break on their grocery bill.  In fact, my grocery bill is higher than my tax bill…is yours?  So here’s some logic…US Auto companies like GM and Ford aren’t making any money…so no tax increases for them.  But what if Obama’s policies work and save the world including the auto industry?  When GM and Ford start making profits, their income taxes are going up.  Since they’re struggling, they’ll have to pass the increase onto the consumers in order to stay profitable…this does not give us a break on buying flex fuel or hybrid vehicles, which are already expensive.  How about airline industries…many of them are still earning a profit.  So let’s tax their profits 50% more.  You saw what happened when fuel costs went up, it was passed on to consumers.  We can bet that increased taxes on airline revenues will increase the cost of a flight dollar for dollar.  Here’s one that hits close to home…I work in the steel industry where jobs are constantly being moved overseas.  Well many steel mills in the US are struggling, but still turning a profit…so let’s increase their tax bill by up to 50%.  This will FORCE them to look overseas even more just to stay in business.  And how about those ruthless, evil oil companies?  They MUST be taxed, because their 5% profit margin is way too high!  So, let’s not only eliminate the tax breaks they get now (which are contributing to their staggering 5% profit margin), let’s increase their taxes, let’s tax their outrageous windfall 5% profits and give it to us poor Americans.  If you can’t tell…I’m being very sarcastic here.  A tax increase on profitable business will RUIN our economy.  It will prevent companies like Exxon from investing in alternative fuels which they do currently.  It will increase the cost of groceries.  BUT…it will give you an extra $500 or so per year on your tax refund, maybe $1,000.  I like McCain’s proposal of doubling the child exemption, increasing the child tax credit, AND providing a $5,000 tax credit to purchase health insurance.  Sure, I’ll get taxed on the $5,000 as income…but so what?!  I don’t tell my employer “no, don’t give me a bonus this month because I don’t want to pay any taxes on the bonus!”  Would any of you turn down a raise at work because it would be taxed?  NO!!  So why would we be opposed to a McCain administration giving us a $5,000 tax CREDIT to purchase insurance just because he wants to tax it as income?  Ridiculous.  More logic…we have the 2^nd highest business income tax in the WORLD.  We’re struggling right now.  Does anyone really think that if we become the 1^st largest taxing country in the world we’ll somehow come out of a serious economic crisis?  Let’s shoot straight…Bush’s policies, doctrines, tax cuts, etc don’t have anything to do with our economy.  Our economy is this way because the democrats and some republicans wanted to make mortgages and home ownership available to people who could not afford it.  A noble proposal, with great intentions…but at the end of the day, if you’re spending more than you make…the program will fail miserably, which it has.  Our economic crisis is caused COMPLETELY because of the housing crisis, which is caused by the mortgage crisis, which was caused by people softening mortgage requirements and offering them to people who could not afford to pay.  The softening of mortgage qualifications came during the Clinton administration.  EVEN Bill Clinton is able to admit the cause of the crisis.  But Obama and his people think they can blame it on 8 years of failed Bush policies, which there are failed Bush policies.  But those failed policies didn’t affect the economy.  They affected the failure of other things, such as alternative fuel development (which McCain supported, Bush did not), education, war management (which McCain helped to fix), and some other things, but not the economy.  Until the mortgage crisis caught up with us, unemployment was decreasing, the economy was growing, businesses were growing.  Now businesses have a hard time getting loans to make payroll.  So my conclusion is that a vote for McCain will NOT be a vote for George Bush.  McCain is more to the center on most issues.  A vote for Obama will in fact be a vote for change…just not the kind of change my company can handle…let alone many of the companies out there that earn more than $250k per year in business income.  This is just my logical opinion.  If you agree or disagree, feel free to comment.  I like to hear different points of views.  I have a few liberal friends at work that are fun to talk to.