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| Executive Summary |
| The political parties "educate" their followers through slogans. This total disregard of our intelligence leads to the Republicans claiming they are for "state's rights" at the same time they propose the solution to the healthcare crises is to "allow insurance companies to sell insurance across state lines". The body of the article speaks only to Republicans. I added a paragraph for Democrats at the end. |
Let me start by explaining my example above. When you hear a Republican say they want people to be able to buy health insurance across state lines what they are saying is they want to take away the state's right to define the rules under which insurance companies operate within their boarders. Currently, it is the state legislatures that make up the laws that govern the conduct of health insurance companies. Republicans are hoping to convince you that the Federal government should be able to force Ohio to accept the rules made by New York or California or Alaska or North Dakota or any of the other states.
Let me get a little winded here. I chose to run in the primary this past May. I ran as a Republican because I am more aligned with the expressed overall position of that party. I believe small government is better. In general low taxes provide a better economic environment. Regulations can be a cumbersome annoyance. The budget deficit is a major threat. The problem is that's all the deeper our regular politicians want the populace to think. Both parties are out there trying to fire up their constituencies to take the hard-line no compromise approach but then they only offer slogans like "State's rights" and have to hope that populace doesn't know what that means.
The more important issue where the hypocrisy of the Republican party is killing us is the one I am most concern; fiscal responsibility. We have to get our budget in order. First off let me say that it is wrong to think cutting tax rates always leads to enough economic growth so that amount of tax revenue grows. It may make sense that cutting the upper tax rate from 91% as it was in the 1950's to the 39% rate it was in the 1990's could lead to economic expansion which turns into greater tax receipts. But how would it affect tax revenue if we lowered tax rates from 39% to 0%. Obviously, there is an optimum rate somewhere between 91% and 0%. This idea we should cut for cutting sake is detrimental to our other expressed goal of balancing the budget. By promoting a lower and lower top tax rate we endanger the country's financial survival by abandoning our commitment to a balanced budget in favor of a philosophical preference for lower taxes. We also compound the problem by saying the things important to us are off limits when we go to look at budget savings. It seems we're willing to throw the other guy under the bus but don't talk military or senior spending because our pot of money is sacrosanct. This leads to the obvious question: is it really possible for hypocrites to consider anything as sacrosanct?
Read my article: "Have you considered voting Libertarian?"
Your congressional candidates are listed in the table found in my article "
Now is the time to think about the election"Post Script 26 Sept 10. I was listening to Steny Hoyer on Fox News Sunday. Most of the interview was fine and appeared frank. Then he ruined it at the end when on his own he brought up the Republican's Pledge to America so that he could get his talking points in. Getting closer to a hypocritical example last week there were newspaper articles that told us that 14% of the population falls below the poverty line. Then many of the reports leave out that this is true only if you don't count the government assistance that many of these people receive. The American people can be generous but the working population is getting frustrated with people pretending to be worse off than they really are just so they can get sympathy and more government relief. The Democrats don't get this when they support creating programs that give non-working people $40,000 a year in benefits (welfare, food stamps, Medicare, daycare, heat assistance, college tuition, etc) and then ask the Wal-Mart cashier to pay for them. I think the Democrats would do a lot better if they realized that most of the American people envy school teacher's work schedule and would love to have their pay, benefits and pensions.
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