Monday, October 20, 2008

I've Had Enough Defeatism....


I refuse to hear any more whining, defeatism or pessimism in this election cycle.

Nada.

None.

Nichevo.

We are faced here with a clash of ideas, and fighting the worst sort of thuggish politics.We may be outgunned and outspent, but we are not defeated, not yet anyway.

Not only hasn't the fat lady sung yet, she hasn't even finished warming up for her big aria.

Most of us had a pretty good idea going in that John McCain was not going to be the greatest candidate to advance our ideas, although even I didn't realize exactly how lousy a campaign he was going to run. Face it..the man, whatever virtues he possesses has been swimming in the swamp of 'bi-partisanship' for so long he might as well have fins, and he's never evidenced any particular love for the Conservative base of the GOP.If he hadn't picked Sarah Palin for his running mate and energized that base, the race wouldn't even be as close as it is, something idiots like Chris Buckley and Peggy Noonan haven't a clue about because they simply are out of touch with heartland American.

John McCain is so invested in his image as a 'maverick' that he flat out refused to go after the obvious targets in this election - the most dysfunctional Congress in recent history and the appalling leadership coming from the current occupant of the White House.It's taken McCain, what, three or four months to make the point in a clear way that he's not George Bush?

With all the shenanigans going on with ACORN registering every corpse, felon, illegal alien and transient, with the huge amount of money Obama has to spend, with the dinosaur media not merely biased but actually campaigning for the one, things look grim - but this is no time to bend over and quit.

For all McCain's faults,comparing him with a freshman senator with Obama's kind of radical allies, lack of resume and socialist views makes it a no brainer.

It amazes me to see people who I normally consider to have good common sense willing to vote for Obama because they're willing to gamble that he doesn’t mean what he says and will end up governing as some kind of pragmatic centerist.Just the thought of the Supreme Court judges the One and Biden would put on the bench is enough to show what a sucker bet that is.

It's a gamble I don't think we can afford...so we had better be prepared to man up unless we want our chips riding on a number somebody else picked for us.

The election is still close,once you examine the internals of the various polls.Rasmussen, the most reliable makes it pretty obvious that Obama's lead is shrinking as election day approaches and people begin to think about what they're doing.

At this point, it's all about the game on the ground, also known as turnout. So, instead of bitching about how hopeless it all is,do something positive. Go to your local McCain office and work the phone banks and do the canvassing, even if you live somewhere like Massachusetts or California. It will help, and divert money and attention Obama could spend in Colorado or Florida.

Volunteer to help get people to the polls, and make sure you vote yourself.

If you can, donate your time and a few bucks to help decent congressmen get elected...here's a link to some worthy ones.

If you can do so without going insane, talk to your friends, your neighbors and your family. Remind them that a tax cut on 95% of Americans is nothing more than a con and a welfare scam when 40% of Americans don't pay taxes, and that Obama's policies to raise payroll taxes, capital gains taxes and corporate taxes are just a transfer of wealth guaranteed to cut jobs and investments while raising prices on all Americans at a time we can ill afford it.

Help them recall that the reason prices are out of sight at the pump is because Obama and the Democrats have opposed any domestic energy creation or even building a refineries in this country.

Help them see that an Obama administration would be Jimmy Carter's second term.

Bring to their attention the connection between Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the subprime mess and the campaign cash Obama and his pals got to look the other way.

And most importantly, don't give up. We can still win this one.

Fight on.











6 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, FF:

According to your mathematical logic, if "40%" of all Americans don't pay any taxes, that means "60%" do. 95% of 60% equals, 57%.

Ergo, if 57% of Americans would recieve a tax CUT, how, according to the standard tax-cut, supply-side philosophy can that be a bad thing?

Thanks,

Orwell Rolls in his Grave
Cleveland, OH

Anonymous said...

I agree whole heartedly. We should never give up. Even the latest Zogby poll I've seen indicates Obama has only about 2.9% lead. The odds are long but McCain still win.

Clearly the voters are somewhat uncomfortable with Obama. Given the poor performance in general of Republicans and the fact that the voters are generally fed up with all things Republican, Obama should have a thirty to forty point lead right now yet the polls indictate he only has a lead ranging from 3 to 7 points. A thirty point lead would be all but insurmountable right now. A three to seven point lead is not.

McCain can still pull this out. The pick of Sarah Palin was brilliant. She has the instincts to be one of the best leaders in the history of the Republic. Unfortunately team McCain seems to have tightly controlled her for the most part. To alot of people, the pick of Ms. Palin looks like a gimic. To prove he is sincere, Mr. McCain himself should do more to reach out to political Conservatives specifficaly to the so called religous right. If he can do this, he may still be able to pull this out and win the Presidency.

Freedom Fighter said...

Hello, and thanks for dropping by.

What you're unfortunately doing is changing what the Chosen One said to suit your own purposes.

He said ( and his ads have repeated ad Nauseum) that `95% of Americans will get a tax cut.'

That's a lie on several levels. For one thing, if he increases payroll taxes, NO W-2 EMPLOYEE WILL BE GETTING ANY TYPE OF TAX CUT.

Not only that, but the tax increases Obama wants oncapital gains and businesses will result in higher prices for goods and services, which will more than cancel out any supposed `tax cut'. Not to mention a rise in unemployment. You also aren't figuring how many of the 57% you mention own small businesses and will be getting a TAX INCREASE, no matter how much they make.

You're also not realizing that a lot of the 40% fall in two catagories: (a) low income working people and/or illegal aliens who have bogus SS#s but a legitimate EIN# who file for the earned income credit ( a welfare payment by another name) or (b)retired people who live on investments.

Category (b) will be getting a tax INCREASE. Category (a) will be victimized by higher payroll taxes and increased costs for goods and services, as will most people.

Then, we could also discuss the One's plans to socialize healthcare and dole out other goodies..an estimated two trillion dollars in new spending to provide the gimmees Obama has promised to his base.

If you think that this money can be found by taxing 'the rich', I have a bridge I want to sell you.

Here's a basic fact class warfare types never understand, usually because they lack the requisite experience - businesses don't pay taxes. They pass them on to their customers in the form of increased prices. An dthey cut overhead, by eliminating jobs and expansion.

That,by the way, is why socialism ala' Obama has never worked anywhere it's been tried.

Bottom line: nobody is getting a tax cut, and Obamanomics will do a great deal to deepen and prolong any recession. And, as Arthur Laffer and others have clearly shown, we'll end up with a net decrease in tax revenues.

Thanks for dropping by.

ff

Anonymous said...

FF,

Thanks for answering so fast. So, couple of questions.

1) How do you define "small business"?

2) How do U square your analysis of this tax-cut debate with the findings of numerous non-partisan tax policy organizations that agree that Obama's plan does in fact deliever a tax cut for a majority of Americans?

3) Lastly, are you arguing that with the current state of the economy -- 720,000 job losses this year alone, a credit crisis, $10 trillion in nat'l debt and growing -- while we are still fighting two wars -- that under these extraordinary conditions -- keeping the current tax policies in place will end our dangerous "borrow & steal from the future" policy of banking with our rivals and enemies among the communist Chinese is wise and patriotic?

Thanks,

Orwell Rolls in his Grave

Freedom Fighter said...

Hello Orwell,
I define a small business the same way the government does...one with 15 employees or less. And frankly it doesn't matter, since all businesses ( and by extension, there employees and customers) will be affected by the vastly increased taxation Obama wants.

To put it another way, payroll, investment and business taxes are going up on the guy who owns a hamburger stand and employs three people and on GM.

The dollar amount for GM will obviously be more and have a greater effect. Hamburger guy may lay off one person or cut hours, and maybe have to raise th ecost of his hamburgers and fries. GM may close entire divisions, outsource more production to maquilladora factories and raise prices on their cars. Same difference.

And speaking of cars, another thing Obama wants to do is to eliminate the secret ballot by which workers currently decide whether they want a union to represent them. BMW, Mazda, Toyota, Mitsubishi and other foreign manufacturers that build cars here in America and are currently non-Union. Watch how quickly they relocate if Obama's `card check' proposal becomes a reality.

2) You mention certain 'non-partisan tax policy organizations.' I have no idea whom they might be, but I guarantee that one of them isn't the Heritage Foundation...not that it matters. Since I understand how business and taxation work and how the idea of increased taxation affects ordinary Americans, I'm capable of doing my own analysis, thank you.

Also, I can add, and there is no way that Obama's proposals deliver a net tax cut to 95% of all Americans.

Obama's party is not noted for it's embrace of small government and lower taxation, or of efficienct it what government spends. An example is the 'outrageous profits' made by oil companies of an average 8.5 cents per gallon..as opposed to a government take of almost 80 cents per gallon in taxes.

You also assume that I wish to keep current tax and spending policies in place. Au contraire.

I opposed the bail out which was unnecessary and a looting of the Federal treasury to protect Congresses' cronies on Wall Street.

What we need are sound fiscal policy, massive cuts in unneccessary spending, lower taxes to increase investment and business expansion,an energy policy that allows America to utilize its resources ( including coal) and legislation that effectively alows private investors to deal withthe real estate downturn instead of foisting it on the taxpayers.

As for the credit crunch, it was largely artificial.. credit worthy borrowers wer still able to get loans. In any event, I would have solved that by taking $100 billion or so and loaning it to credit worthy customers and small and medium busnesses at market rates, and I guarantee you it would have taken about three weeks for the rest of the sharks to jump back into the pool and start lending again.

As for China, I think perhaps you don't see the relationship between demographics and capital markets. younger populations borrow, and older populations invest for their retirement.

East Asia and Europe have aging populations and lack the capital markets necessary to absorb their savings ( or the tax structure that rewards investment)..so there was a huge demand for a place to invest their surplus funds.The same is true of Arab petro dollars, although a portion was able to be invested in infrastructure in places like Dubai.

As the demand for US investment vehicles kept increasing, a lot of really undesireable and riskier investment vehicles came into play..(kind of like a kids baseball game where the best players get picked first) which will explain to you why the Euro and East Asian markets plummetted far more than ours did.

Underlying th4e whole mess was th e garbage peddled by Fannie and Freddie, which had the aura of being 'US government backed'and wer used to securitize a bunch of even riskier derivitives and investments.

Freddie and Fannie were protected in this endeavor by Obam an dhis democrat cohorts, who recieved campaign cash for looking the other way and protecting Fannie an dFreddie from government oversight for years. Even President Clinton admitted that much.

It's not a question of 'borrow and steal' as much as it is a question of selling a product, i.e investment opportunities that is badly needed to a willing customer.

Much of the money that flows to china and the Middle East ends up right back here, invested in America.

And by th eway, Obama's taxation and trade cap policies would destroy that market, to everybody's detriment.

That was one of th eunderlying causes of the Depression and WWII.

Regards,
ff

Anonymous said...

I think that McCain's problem with going after the corrupt, dysfunctional Congress is not limited to him.

I suggest that we *never* support a Senator's run for the Presidency unless he (or she) renounces his Senate seat, agreeing to not run for it again.

The collegiality of the Senate does not allow such a candidate to effectively attack the problem, IF that candidate can return to the Senate after a failed Presidential run.

We must *never again* support a Senator for President unless he or she promises to give up that seat.

- Mike Devx