It is true...the banner reads "Libertarian Conservative." But, in wake of this important election, I cannot vote for Bobb Barr, the Libertarian candidate for President, who was a former Republican. I am voting for John McCain (yes I have and still do and will refer to him as "Juan McAmnesty-McCain", due to his "crim-aliens" (kudos to Jay Severin) policy, for the following reasons:
Taxes: Mr. Obama wants to make the nation's progressive tax system more progressive by cutting taxes for most while raising taxes on the top earners. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center has even commented that "unemployment compensation, retirement savings, taxation of capital gains, and job creation....the proposals would provide some benefit, they have significant shortcomings."
Obama would "allow penalty-free withdrawals of up to 15 percent (but no more than $10,000) from retirement accounts. Withdrawals would still be subject to income tax.
Any relaxation of rules that enables people to use retirement funds during their working years jeopardizes the availability of those resources in retirement. It is also not entirely clear why policymakers should encourage people to sell assets when the market may be temporarily depressed.
Provide a refundable $3,000 per employee credit for increases in employment for firms with growing employment. The proposal is similar to a proposal enacted under the Carter Administration in 1977 and then converted to a much more limited credit for disadvantaged workers in 1978. (The Carter credit was non-refundable and applied to changes in payroll costs, not number of employees.) It aims to subsidize increases in employment without paying firms a credit for workers they already employ. The basic problem is that the base number of workers who would otherwise be employed by a firm is unobservable and the previous year’s employment is a poor proxy for what firms would otherwise do. The new credit would favor firms in expanding industries over those experiencing a reduction in demand and only provide an incentive for expanding firms, without discouraging other firms from laying off more workers. That is, it would help the firms that least need assistance while doing nothing for those that are in distress. In addition to numerous equity issues, designing such a proposal would pose many practical and administrative issues. Legislation would have to specify how long a worker has to remain employed to count because without a minimum employment period, firms could churn workers to collect multiple credits. There would be demands to adjust baseline payroll for distressed industries and Congress would need to weigh those claims against revenue costs and enforcement issues. In general, the more stringent the definition of additional workers, the fewer firms would qualify for the credit, but easing law requirements would allow more firms to game the system to maximize their tax gains without raising employment."
Economic Crisis: In 1999 the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which was passed in 1999 and repealed portions of the Glass-Steagall Act, a piece of legislation from the era of the Great Depression that imposed a number of regulations on financial institutions.
what became law was a widely accepted bipartisan compromise. The measure passed the House 362 - 57, with 155 Democrats voting for the bill. The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 90 - 8. Among the Democrats voting for the bill: Obama's running mate, Joe Biden. The bill was signed into law by President Clinton, a Democrat. If this bill really had "stripped the safeguards that would have protected us," then both parties share the blame, not just "John McCain's friend"--Gramm.
The truth is the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act had little if anything to do with the current crisis. In fact, economists on both sides of the fence have suggested that the act has probably made the crisis less severe than it might otherwise have been.
(using FactCheck.org as a reference)
Last year liberal columnist Robert Kuttner wrote in a piece in "The American Prospect" argued that "this old-fashioned panic is a child of deregulation." But even Kuttner didn't lay the blame primarily on Gramm-Leach-Bliley. Instead, he described "serial bouts of financial deregulation" going back to the 1970s. And he laid blame on policies of the Federal Reserve Board under Alan Greenspan, saying "the Fed has become the chief enabler of a dangerously speculative economy." I note in his appearance at a recent hearing how he just shrugged his shoulders and kind of said oops I made a mistake.
What the Gramm-Leach-Bliley did was to allow commercial banks to get into investment banking. Commercial banks normally just accept deposits and make loans such as mortgages; investment banks accept money for investment into stocks and commodities. In 1998, regulators had allowed Citicorp, a commercial bank, to acquire Traveler's Group, an insurance company that was partly involved in investment banking, to form Citigroup. That was seen as a "signal that Glass-Steagall was a dead letter as a practical matter, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley made its repeal formal. But it had little to do with mortgages." (FactCheck.org)
In actuality, those deregulated banks were not the major culprits in the current mess. Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan Chase have done ok in the financial mess and are in pretty good shape, while Bear Stearns collapsed and Lehman Brothers has entered bankruptcy, to name but two of the investment banks which had remained independent despite the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
"Observers as diverse as former Clinton Treasury official and current Berkeley economist Brad DeLong and George Mason University's Tyler Cowen, a libertarian, have praised Gramm-Leach-Bliley has having softened the crisis. The deregulation allowed Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase to acquire Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns. And Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have now converted themselves into unified banks to better ride out the storm. That idea is also endorsed by former President Clinton himself, who, in an interview with Maria Bartiromo published in the Sept. 24 issue of Business Week, said he had no regrets about signing the repeal of Glass-Steagall:
Bill Clinton (Sept. 24): Indeed, one of the things that has helped stabilize the current situation as much as it has is the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, which was much smoother than it would have been if I hadn't signed that bill. ...You know, Phil Gramm and I disagreed on a lot of things, but he can't possibly be wrong about everything. On the Glass-Steagall thing, like I said, if you could demonstrate to me that it was a mistake, I'd be glad to look at the evidence. But I can't blame [the Republicans]. This wasn't something they forced me into."
(FactCheck.org)
"Washington failed to rein in" (Washington Post) the two government-sponsored entities, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), both of which ran into deep trouble by underwriting too many risky home mortgages to buyers who have been unable to repay them. Key Democrats opposed the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, which would have established a single, independent regulatory body with jurisdiction over Fannie and Freddie – a move that the Government Accountability Office had recommended in a 2004 report. Current House Banking Committee chairman Barney Frank (of Massachusetts...a little background on Mr. Frank..In 1990, the House voted to reprimand him when it was revealed that Steve Gobie, a male escort whom Frank had befriended after hiring him through a personal advertisement, claimed to have conducted an escort service from Frank's apartment when he was not at home. Frank fired Gobie earlier in 1990 and reported the incident to the House Ethics Committee after learning of Gobie's activities. The committee recommended that Frank receive a formal reprimand for his relationship with a prostitute.) Back to the blog..Frank had opposed legislation to reorganize oversight in 2000 (when Clinton was still president), and in 2003 and 2004, saying that the 2000 legislation that concern about Fannie and Freddie was "overblown." (you can insert you own joke here after reading about his prostitute activity..) Just last summer, Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd called a Bush proposal for an independent agency to regulate the two entities "ill-advised." (A little background on Mr. Dodd...The Center for Public Integrity has criticized Dodd for "being the leading advocate in the Senate on behalf of the accounting industry." Former Clinton, as in Bill, political consultant and now FOX News commentator and author Dick Morris recently wrote that Dodd had received more from the accounting firm Arthur Andersen than any other Democrat and bore responsibility for trying to shield accounting firms from investor fraud liability in cases such as the Enron scandal.)
So, according to FactCheck.org...a partial list of who is to blame...
# The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.
# Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.
# Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses. (Even though the Republicans controlled Congress up to 2006, the last two years of Democratic control has yielded no "change.")
# Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.
# The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.
# Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.
# Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.
# Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.
# The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.
# An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.
# Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.
Health Care: Mr. Obama claims that Mr. McCain's health care plan contains the "largest middle-class tax increase in history." While I believe it to be true that McCain's plan would, for the first time ever, require workers to pay federal income tax on the value of their employer-provided health insurance, it would be offset by the tax credits that he would provide of up to $2,500 per individual and $5,000 per couple or family – and most people would come out ahead in the long run.
Energy: Mr. Obama has stated he wants to "fast track alternatives" to imported oil.
In actuality, he has offered a 10 year "research and development" fund. That is not fast at all. Mr. Obama states that Mr. McCain would give $4B in tax breaks to oil companies. These tax breaks are a result of an across the board increase in corporate taxes which would be benefiting those companies that provide alternative energy.
Social Security: Mr. McCain does not want to cut benefits in half. McCain did support Bush's Social Security plan. "But that plan would not have cut benefits at all. Everybody who gets a check now, or who is nearing retirement, would have remained in the current system. For younger workers who retire in the future, Bush proposed to slow the rate at which benefits grow – keeping pace with the rise of prices but not with the faster rise in wages, as is now the case. Compared with what today's retirees get, that's a smaller increase, not a reduction.
Obama also claimed that if McCain had his way, "millions" who rely on Social Security would have seen their investments disappearing in the recent stock market turmoil. He referred to "elderly women" at risk of poverty and said families would be scrambling to support "grandmothers and grandfathers." Balderdash. The Bush plan, which McCain embraced, would not have allowed anybody born before 1950 to have private accounts, so nobody retired on Social Security today could possibly be relying on private accounts for even a small portion of his or her benefit check. For younger workers, the accounts would have been voluntary anyway." FactCheck.org
I am voting for John McCain as I am a pure and simple capitalist. Mr. Obama's socialist agenda is simply going against my grain. Mr. Obama's prior comments demonstrate his desire to create a socialist agenda, being soft on terrorism with comments like the one on July 24, 2007 in the CNN/YouTube debate when Obama said when asked whether he would meet with the leaders of nations that have been hostile to U.S. interests, "I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous." Even Mrs. Clinton responded by saying Mr. Obama's comments were "irresponsible and frankly naive." The question that ignited the controversy at the debate: Would the candidates for president be willing to meet, within their first year in office, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea? Clinton said "I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year. I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort, because I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are. I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don't want to make a situation even worse." ABC News claimed that this dispute "highlighted Clinton's vast experience and foreign-policy know-how — and Obama's naivete. Madeleine Albright, who served as secretary of state under Clinton's husband, called Clinton's answer "perfect" — and strongly implied that Obama was wrong to not recognize the importance of the "diplomatic spade work" that is best performed by lower-level personnel, not the president. "Having been involved in this myself, I think she showed a very sophisticated and nuanced view of what really happened, and for me, it shows the kind of experience she has," Albright said.
An Obama administration equals (besides higher taxes) racial preferences, (What if we took the black value system right from Obama's own church's website, which he attended for 20 years, and substituted the word "white" for "black"? You'd get some interesting results:
The God of our weary years" will give us the strength to give up prayerful passivism and become White Christian Activists, soldiers for White freedom and the dignity of all humankind.
The highest level of achievement for any White person must be a contribution of strength and continuity of the White Community.
Pledge Allegiance to All White Leadership Who Espouse and Embrace the White Value System.
Personal Commitment to Embracement of the White Value System. To measure the worth and validity of all activity in terms of positive contributions to the general welfare of the White Community and the Advancement of White People towards freedom.
(kudos to Michael Graham)
An Obama administration equals liberal judges, and the end of the American way of life. I can just picture Bill Clinton as a Supreme Court Justice. Yes, Bill the only impeached President of the United States.
An Obama adminstration equals a possible revocation of the Fairness Doctrine. "Barack Obama believes that the nation’s rules ensuring diversity of media ownership are critical to the public interest. Unfortunately, over the past several years, the Federal Communications Commission has promoted the concept of consolidation over diversity. As president, Obama will encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation’s spectrum." (BarackObama.com) Although I would love to hear Rush Limbaugh on NPR. (aka National Propaganda Radio)
Mr. Obama has opposed expansion of drilling (Obama says he’ll "think about it", McCain will push for it). Obama has a history of opposing nuclear energy, McCain a history of supporting it. Both have talked about other energy initiatives but the short term solution is lower oil prices through expanding our production and refining capacity. But it has been decades since we built either new refineries or nuclear facilities.
Recently..more reasons why I am voting for John McCain...
Mr. Obama’s Aunt Zeituni is in the U.S. illegally. She’s also on welfare, living in taxpayer-funded housing and working a part-time, taxpayer-funded job. Why? Because she’s broke and doesn’t seem to have any family members willing to help her out. That’s why WE get to pick up the tab. (Michael Graham)
Rashid Khalidi: Mr. Obama's good friend and political ally Rashid Khalidi a political ally of terrorist Yassir Arafat, "an American-educated Palestinian who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut and also works for the P.L.O.?" (according to the NY Times) Every Chicago politician who supported Palestinian terrorism also supported Mr. Obama. Some of them were at the tribute party to Mr. Khalidi listening to Mr. Obama praise him--on videotape that the LA Times won't let us see. Some pro-PLO folks attended Sen. Obama's church, and sat next to him as their anti-Semitic pastor denounced the "terrorist" nation of Israel and praised Louis Farrakhan. What should matter today is that Israel will be in far more danger tomorrow if Mr. Obama is elected president.
George Hussein Onyango Obama, Senator Barack Obama's long lost brother was tracked down living in a hut on the outskirts of Nairobi. Mr Obama, 26, the youngest of the presidential candidate's half-brothers, spoke for the first time about his life, which could not be more different than that of the Democratic contender. "No one knows who I am," he told the magazine, before claiming: "I live here on less than a dollar a month." According to Italy's Vanity Fair his two metre by three metre shack is decorated with football posters of the Italian football giants AC Milan and Inter, as well as a calendar showing exotic beaches of the world. Vanity Fair also noted that he had a front page newspaper picture of his famous brother - born of the same father as him, Barack Hussein Obama, but to a different mother, named only as Jael. He told the magazine: "I live like a recluse, no-one knows I exist."
Embarrassed by his penury, he said that he does not does not mention his famous half-brother in conversation. "If anyone says something about my surname, I say we are not related. I am ashamed," he said. For ten years George Obama lived rough. However he now hopes to try to sort his life out by starting a course at a local technical college. He has only met his famous older brother twice - once when he was just five and the last time in 2006 when Senator Obama was on a tour of East Africa and visited Nairobi. The Illinois senator mentions his brother in his autobiography, describing him in just one passing paragraph as a "beautiful boy with a rounded head". Of their second meeting, George Obama said: "It was very brief, we spoke for just a few minutes. It was like meeting a complete stranger." George added he was no longer in contact with his mother and said:"I have had to learn to live and take what I need. "Huruma is a tough place, last January during the elections there was rioting and six people were hacked to death. The police don't even arrest you they just shoot you. "I have seen two of my friends killed. I have scars from defending myself with my fists. I am good with my fists."
(Telegraph.co.uk)
And I am not even including issues involving the Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers and ACORN.
Perhaps more last minute goodies will come about. While there may be some questions about Mr. McCain, I don't think in wake of my case, made above, that there are any circumstances that can top the questionable character and beliefs of Mr. Obama.
This is why I am voting for John McCain.
