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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (7760)	3/16/2004 5:35:53 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

My most important issues? Good question. Not so easy to answer. First and foremost, I guess, I have a good life and don't want to lose it. There's not a whole lot the federal government can do to make my life better, and a lot they can do to make it worse. Probably my most general overriding issue is federalism. I think that in general the closer to home that issues are decided, the better. Not always, but generally. So, for example, I think the No child Left Behind program, which Bush proposed and Kerry voted for, is a disaster, and that the federal government should get out of the education business entirely and turn it back over to the states and local boards of education. (That's not specifically a major issue, but an example of one.) I think the federal government has way, way too much money. Money attracts corruption, and corruption attracts politicians like flies. I would love to see the federal budget cut by at least 25%, and preferably more, and the states able to pick up the taxes (not in block grants, which the feds always condition, but in direct taxes). Bush has been big disappointment here, but Kerry would be no better. I want security without sacrificing personal liberties. I do believe it can be done, but it isn't. One of the main issues here is protecting our borders. Again, Bush has been a huge disappointment, but again, Kerry doesn't seem to be any better. I would withdraw every one of our troops from Germany -- what the hell are they doing there, anyhow? -- and put to protecting our borders. I live on the border -- I can see Canada out my window -- and I can tell you, we do a lousy rotten terrible job of protecting our borders. It's time that changed. I want an end to the war ong drugs, one of the most wasteful and costly pieces of nonsense we have ever engaged in, and one that makes criminals of hundreds of thousands of people, turning them into criminals and destroying their live. Legalize and tax is the right answer here, and use part of the tax proceeds to provide treatment for those who want it. This would reduce crime dramatically, make our streets much safer, and provide a huge increase in tax dollars while cutting court and prison costs dramatically and freeing law enforcement to focus on what they should be focussing on -- public safety. Again, Bush has been terrible on it, but again, Kerry promises nothing better. And basic integrity is important to me. Bush, again, has failed us in this, though I happen to think he's essentially a decent man. But Kerry's flip-flops and his post-Vietnam war testimony and activities give me serious pause about his personal integrity, too. I wish there were a better choice. But it looks as though this choice is what we're stuck with. Pretty much a tossup, at the present, between two unfortunate options.

To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (7760)	3/16/2004 5:47:09 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 81568

Now that I've given you some broad scope, let's look at the specific post you cited to me. You outlined five points of Kerry's proposals. Given that Kerry has never been in charge of much of anything yet, we have little idea whether and if so how he will be able to implement these if he is elected, but let's look at them. What are Kerry's trade proposals? 1) rules requiring notice to employees before jobs are shifted overseas. That's fine, but doesn't help the jobs. And to some extent, it's something unions should have been negotiating all along. But if this is important to him, has he introduced legislation in congress to get this implemented? If not, why not? If so, what do we learn from the fact that he hasn't been able to get it passed as a Senator? 2) steps to close tax loopholes that encourage offshore operations. Nice in generality. But what loopholes? And again, what has he done in the past to get these loopholes closed, and how successful has he been? He's been a senator for what, 20 plus years? He probably voted a lot of these loopholes into existence! He certainly hasn't been known in the past for leading the fight to close them, has he? 3) more aggressive enforcement of existing trade agreements. Interesting that he's introduced much legislation to bypass trade agreements by waiving duties on certain products. But I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, if you can be specific about what needs more aggressive enforcement and how that will benefit the economy? In the past, many of our aggressive efforts have resulted in sanctions imposed by the WTO. 4) review trade agreements. What can one say about this? Nice words, no substance. 5) Provide retraining for Americans losing jobs. We have mny retraining programs already on the books, which don't seem to be helping much. I have a friend who runs one such program locally, and while she's very capable and enthusiastic, her ability to actually place workers and keep them in place has been pretty dismal. Just throwing more money at the problem isn't going to help. Does he have specific ideas that would make his retraining efforts better and more effective than the ones we have now? And it doesn't matter how much retraining you do if the jobs aren't there, does it? Basically, then, that seems to be a list of campaign promises that don't seem on their face to offer much hope of doing much productive. I would be most interested to know what steps he has actually taken in the past four years to try to address these problems -- what bills he's introduced and worked through the Congress. See my my next post for a further comment.

To: CalculatedRisk who wrote (7760)	3/16/2004 5:55:18 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 81568

Here's the further comment on yourlist of Kerry's proposed economic reforms. There are two options. Either the problems he wants to address existed nine months ago, which is about when he announced for the Presidency, or they are new since then. If they are new, we can hardly fault Bush for not having solved them, given the slow pace of government action in Washington. So let's assume they existed before he announced. Now we have two further options. Either he recognized them as problems, or he didn't. If he didn't, he's pretty unperceptive, which is not a good thing for a President to be. If he did, then what has he done about them? Where's the legislation he's introduced to address the problems? If he hasn't, then he is one who sees problems but doesn't act to solve them. Which also isn't much of a recommendation for a President. So if he truly is Presidential material, then I think he will have perceived the problems, investigated how to deal with them, and worked on crafting solutions to address them. In which case, he should be able to point us to those solutions, bills he's sponsored, and say "look here, see, I recognized this problem, I came up with a solution, and I tried to implement it into law. Here's the language of the bill I proposed or sponsored, and here's how it addressed the problem (if it got passed) or would have addressed the problem (if it didn't)." That's the sort of specific action that would, frankly, impress me a lot more than thousands of pages of campaign proposals or promises. In short, show me what he has done as a national leader -- as one of only 100 members of the most powerful deliberative body in the world. Or, as Eliza Dolittle (in My Fair Lady) says, "don't talk at all, show me!"