It's Time

Taxes, Taxes, Taxes

   

                I recently read a commentary by Paul Krugman, an economist and N.Y Times columnist.  Please go on the net and read the column; it was a real eye opener. He discussed the Bush tax cuts and calls them a “poison pill” that will cripple the economic policies of the next administration, whoever that may be.

The Bush tax policies have been the major policy that has kept the conservatives in line with Bush. As Bush has dropped taxes on the rich, and spent money on a unpopular war, he has raised deficits that, according to the policy, should be covered by the increased taxes raised because of economic activity. The only problem is that, the economic productivity is going downhill due to housing and energy problems. So the economy goes down, taxes go down, the deficit goes up, which scares the financial markets, which drives the stock market down, which drives down the economy, which, well you get the idea.

McCain is walking a fine line, trying to keep conservatives in line, while at the same time, courting the middle and the environmentalists on the left. This is a very dangerous track to run. By keeping the tax cuts permanent, he is hoping to keep the Republican base happy and in his camp. As the tax cuts are helping that base McCain is hoping that they may cut him some slack on other issues.  According to the Tax Policy Center, McCain’s economic policy will cost $600 billion in tax revenues. We’re already carrying a massive deficit. And apparently this policy is going to add to, rather than deplete, the deficit.

OBama’s policies, again according to the Tax Policy Center, will raise $700 billion in revenue. Of course OBama has plans to spend that amount, and even more, with Universal healthcare and other government entitlements. OBama’s tax policies go after the very rich and will probably raise incomes for the bottom 80% of the populace. OBama also wants to bring in a payroll tax surcharge on people making more than $250,000 a year. This would raise $629 billion over the next decade, which OBama wants to put in to Social Security. The question is, how much money is necessary for the Social Security trust fund?  According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Trust Fund is solvent until 2046.  If we have all these issues to address, should that money go there? I realize that saving Social Security is popular, but is it necessary today?

Let’s face the facts, we’ve all become used to tax cuts, but we all want the government to do more to help us in everyday life. These two philosophies seem to be at odds. Someone, somewhere down the road, will need to pay these bills that we’re piling up today. Do we really care? If so, it seems it’s time that we begin to face up to our responsibilities and ask our leaders to make decisions that will pave the way for a better future.

GOOD LUCK

Wal Mart has rights too

          It’s time to stop picking on Wal-Mart. Let me explain first, that I worked for this company for 5 years in the early 90’s. I left their employ because I didn’t like the pay and benefits. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t support their right to do business in America.

                The first point appears to be that once a city or county comes up with a general plan and zoning ordinances, the rules are in place and companies then have to play that game.  How can you decide to change the rules, just because you don’t like the company? Make the rules and then treat everyone equally.

                So you don’t like the way the company treats their employees? Then don’t go to work there!  If Wal-Mart couldn’t hire all the people that they needed, they would have to raise their pay scales and/or change their benefit packages. Companies such as Wal-Mart do wage and benefit surveys every year.  They know what the market is and set their programs accordingly. As I said, I didn’t like the program, so I left. Anyone else can do that, too.

                You don’t want to see Wal-Mart in your neighborhood? How about not shopping there and talking all of your friends into not supporting Wal-Mart?  If people don’t show up and shop, Wal-Mart will close and move on.  They work with small margins and they can’t afford to stay where they cannot make money.

                You don’t like the fact that they don’t buy American?  Then don’t buy foreign made products. While I was with the company, they were feeling the pressure from their customers.  They went out and developed partnerships with American merchants and factories and then proudly displayed these partnerships at all the stores.

                I’m really getting concerned about the American consumer.  We say we don’t want to buy foreign merchandise, but we don’t want to pay the prices that our manufacturers need to make the products in the U.S.  Yes, there are a number of reasons for the price differences; material costs, government costs, and wages, for example.  So we need to sit down and decide how these things can be changed.   If we don’t do this, retailers will continue to go on the world market and use their buying power to make the best deal possible.  If they don’t, they’ll be looking at shelves full of product with no consumers. We need to live our beliefs as American consumers.

                As I said, it’s time to make a plan and live with it. Municipalities have budgets and they need revenue.  One way or another, something will go into that empty space.  Supercenters have shown that they bring in a huge tax base.  But if they aren’t allowed in, something else (usually bringing in less revenue) will go in.  It all works out.

Good luck!

Let The Fun Begin

It’s time to let the campaign begin. The combatants are now in the center ring and all pretenders have left the ring. The seconds, the VP candidates, will join in once they’ve been called forward. Let the fun begin.

Both candidates say it will be a civil discourse. Let’s hope so! It would be great to see the two sides stick to the issues and not get into personal attacks. It seems that their differences in vision for the future should be so polar opposite and so defined, that the debate should be spirited. It will also be dangerous for either candidate to go negative.  How could you personally attack a war hero or the first African American Presidential candidate in modern history? It’s clear that Conservative Talk Show hosts would love to have a mud wrestling match as it would give them fodder for the summer. Obviously, whoever is the first to do that will pay a heavy price. Of course, outside groups on both sides will be more than willing to do the dirty work for the campaigns and will be willing to take the dressing down they will receive from the candidates for doing the job they were asked to do.

McCain has suggested a string of town meetings between here and the conventions. Everyone says this will be his strong suit, but I really believe Obama can more than hold his own in that format. These town meetings will be just the candidates, no moderators, with questions from an audience vetted by both candidates’ camps. They are calling them modern Lincoln/Douglas debates.  (The public should only be so lucky). Of course, it may not be so great if the candidates drone on for hours and the audience needs to bring a picnic lunch (which by all accounts, was the way the first debates were run). I really hope that this is an opportunity for the public to hear exactly what the candidates think on issues and how they will change the future.  Wouldn’t that be great?

We can all hope that both candidates have gotten the message that the public is tired of business as usual and that they take this opportunity seriously. Let’s hope they actually run a new style campaign.  Both these guys say they are ready for a new world- let’s hope they really mean it.

Good Luck

Happy Father's Day

Most Father’s Day articles are an essay, telling the story of how a father has sacrificed for the good of his children, and how, now that the person has grown up, they realize how great their father was. I want to approach Father’s Day from the other side of the coin.

                I want to thank my three children for making me the person that I am today.  I want to thank my oldest for teaching me to love movies and to be able to look at them critically in order to enjoy the art of filmmaking. I also want to thank him for introducing me to the world of water polo and swimming. I remember the day that he came home and asked to join the water polo team, I had no idea what the game was, or how it was played. Over the next 11 years, I learned to appreciate the game, and became friends with a number of kids as they went through the program. It was an experience I loved. My oldest is right.  I have lived vicariously through him, I have traveled the world through his pictures and descriptions of his travels, and it has been great.

                I want to thank my middle child for teaching me to be competitive. He followed his brother in to water polo and swimming, but unlike his brother, he always needed to be the best at his sport, and he was totally devastated when they didn’t happen. I would sit with him on the pool deck, and try to explain that you couldn’t always be the best, and he would explain how that wasn’t true. Hopefully, he has learned to be a little more excepting of his talents, because he taught me to expect the best of myself. He is also the reason I am writing these blogs. He graduated from school, with a degree in geology, and decided that he wanted to be a sports journalist.  He is writing a blog on the Daily Republic site, to help advance that agenda, and as always he has set high standards, and is working to reach them. He challenged me to begin writing my ideas

                My daughter, the baby, taught me to enjoy live theatre and reading. She loves theatre and as her Dad, I got dragged to every performance, complaining at first, but growing to love theatre, and being extremely proud of her performance. During her time on the pool deck, I learned to enjoy the sport and the friendships that are made there. She would defend her friends and her team to the bitter end and get out of the pool, win or lose, proud of their performance. I found this amazing. As she has entered college she has become interested in politics and women’s issues.  She has forced me to question my beliefs and defend those beliefs as she debates with me. I believe that she’s going to be a great attorney.

                My children led me to becoming involved in their education. They came home and told me of the failings of their schools.  This led both my wife and I to go to the schools with offers to help, and also to challenge the staffs to do a better job. This led to meeting a number of likeminded people who have become lifelong friends.  They also led me to learn teamwork as I worked on numerous committees in support of the things that they were involved with.

                Last but not least, I want to thank them for showing me what a strong, loving, thoughtful person I married. Without our children, I might never learned the depth of caring and responsibility of the lady I love. She shares her love and her beliefs with us all every day. We have been part of starting three great people on the road of life, and it has been a great journey for us as well.

                On my own Dad, of course, I feel that he was wonderful. We had a great relationship and I learned a number of life lessons from him. We lost him 10 years ago, and I miss him every day.

                I want to thank my children, and everyone that has helped us to where we are today. I look upon Father’s Day as a day of Thanksgiving. I am giving thanks for the Dad who raised me, and also the three kids, who have raised me as I have been trying to raise them.

Good Luck

It's Time for the Clinton's to go home.

It’s Time

            It’s time for the Clinton machine to realize that their years of control of the Democratic Party are over. No doubt the Clinton’s have been the leaders of the Democratic Party since they assumed the throne in the early 90’s. The King and Queen are dead, long live the King.

            The Clintons apparently went in to this cycle of primaries thinking that they controlled the party and the process. They seemed to feel that they were owed a win, and they had enough in the bank to make it happen. Even after Obama’s win in Iowa, they still felt that they were in control of the situation. They realized he had snuck one by them, but the system would still save them.

            As time went on, they realized they had underestimated the challenge, and began to take the challenge seriously. They didn’t have a message, because they never thought that they would need one. They kept changing messages and testing new talking points, hoping to find something that would work. As Obama said, they threw the kitchen sink at him, and waited to see what would stick. Nothing that happened from within the campaign, or from without was able to stop Obama, though they did slow his momentum down quite a lot.

            Bill was becoming increasingly frustrated, as his control over the party was falling apart. He began to make silly statements that showed this, and he began to pressure the party leaders to fall in to line, but, with Obama’s showing they had an excuse to not fall in to line. There seemed to be a feeling that many in the Party were looking for a way exercise their power against the Clinton machine. The machine had run over these people during the last 16 years, and now was a chance to hit back. We saw one after another crawl out from under the Clinton tent, and in to the Obama side.

            Once the tide had turned and it was clear Obama was in control, the Clintons still weren’t willing to give up. They told the public that they wanted everyone to get a chance to vote, but in reality, with the Super delegate program, I believe they felt that another Obama bomb might drop and scare the Party regulars enough that they would come back to the Clintons to save the Party nomination. I think that this is why Clinton is suspending and not closing her campaign, she still hopes, against hope, that the bomb will drop, and Obama will become so toxic that the Party will come back to her. As has been said many times, they feel they are due this one, and they are giving the party every chance to give it them.

            The message of change is ringing across the country, and even McCain is starting to voice that message. The Clinton’s certainly don’t appear to be change agents, no matter how hard they try, but if something bad happens to Obama, they’ll still be there waiting to assume the crown.

It's Time to Think About the Political Parties In America

It’s Time

                It may be time to look at a third and fourth political party. The Democratic candidates have gone with programs that are classic big government liberal ideals. The only problem, with these plans, is that with the current deficit and the current economy, how are they going to fund all of this largesse? It appears that we have already ladled huge costs on the future generations, and we certainly can’t add o these costs without being totally irresponsible.

                On the Republican side, they have a candidate who is trying to be maverick, and not follow the conservative party line; this is causing the conservatives, who have been in a leadership role in the party, since the days of Reagan, to have a fit. They don’t want to support McCain, but they have no choice, at this point. If it wasn’t so late in the process, they would love to get a new candidate up in front of the party.

                The large number of people who have registered and voted in the primary show that people have become very interested in the political process, and as you look at the approval ratings of Congress and the President, as well as the ground swell for Obama, it’s clear these people aren’t happy with business as usual. They definitely want things to be changed, and they want it now.

                Because of the “silent majority” of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s have lead to the political parties being ruled by activist, extremists. The money that is the mother’s milk of politics has come from people with an agenda that demand a very liberal or very conservative candidate. The parties follow the money and the policies have to please these people, and so it goes. This leads to the positions that lead to no compromise, and no motion to solve the problems. The public is tires of this, and it needs to change.                       It looks to me that there will have to be a Democratic subset that follows the old Dixiecrat mentality. This is a more conservative brand of Democratic politics, and there is a place for this program. A great many of the public would buy in to this. I think this would make a lot more sense to the general public.

                If McCain continues to lead the Republican Party, the Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingram Republicans, will end up walking away and forming a splinter group. Mc Cain’s brand of politics will never satisfy them, and they will never be able to stomach a Republican Party that follows these precepts. They will have to form up a party in opposition to fight against this. You are already starting to hear the beginnings of this, if you listen to Conservative radio.

                This will lead to splintered elections with the largest minority leading the government, and probably lead to coalition governments between the parties, much as some foreign governments already have.

                It’s time to get ready for the future, begin to think where you will fall in the new system of politics.

Good Luck.