Lesser of two evils come November? I cant see it.

 

Is there a difference between Romney and Obama? I have been critical of both Mr Romney and President Obama for various reasons but both being so different in terms of background, surly they cant be that similar, right? When the subject comes up of differentiating between the two I find myself scratching my head. The same head scratching can be said for those folks who ask me my support for either two, and when I reveal my support of Ron Paul regardless if he’s third party or not, it’s often met with the same rebuttal: “it’s a waste of a vote, its better to pick the lesser of two evils”. However, I just can’t seem to grasp the difference between the two men as far as policy is concerned.  

  

Sure, Romney has the business experience, that is unquestionable a difference and he has balanced the budget as Governor in Massachusetts. Both of those are very big props for Romney in my book… but other than that, I looked and I can’t find a difference between the eventual nominee for the Republicans (Mittens) and the incumbent, President Obama (at least not in the pivotal positions).

- Obama has maintained the foreign policy of an empire, just as Romney would do (although Romney said he would actually increase spending on defense) not to mention he chastised the President for pulling out of Iraq. No savings there.    

- Obama has continued to support even more of an assault on our personal liberty’s extending the Patriot Act and signing NDAA, wouldn’t you know it - Romney supports both. Liberty trampled on again.

- Obama passed Universal Healthcare as did Romney. Romney even is proud of his healthcare bill, (‘I’m very proud of my health-care plan and think it should be a model for other states to adopt’) or at least he was before he was against it again.

What do we have left? Taxes. Yes, taxes, death and Mittens oh boy! This is the same guy who didn’t release his taxes because he didn’t wantto show he paid at or under the 15 percentile reserved for Capital gains (between 13.9-15%) on over 40 Million dollars of income. That would show he is using loopholes (although legal) just like many of our corporations do.

Romney said recently that Obama passed 19 tax increases under his terms as POTUS. Most people on the right would believe that to be true, he is said to be the most polarizing president in our history isn’t he? Although the validity to those tax hikes in question has been shaky and even a few of the 19 suspected raises have been actually proved false, Mitt continues his assault. For the record, the Obama tax increases were minimal in nominal terms considering (the large deficit) and directed at very specific small targets; not wide wielding swaths of people and demographics as Romney would have you believe.

The truth of the matter is Obama has cut taxes too. He did so in his 700+ Billion dollar stimulus (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) he then cut taxes in the ‘December 2010 tax deal’ that extended the Bush tax cuts. Those tax cuts were worth $654 Billion and if you factor in the 250+ Billion from the ARRA cuts in his 2009 Stimulus act, we are talking 900 Billion in Tax cuts through his administration. I think its safe to say he has cut more taxes than he has increased taxes by a large sum.

Look at the revenue or receipts our government is pulling in. If we were seeing tax increases, wouldn’t we also being seeing soaring revenue? We aren’t. We are in a massive economic quagmire and tax cuts will not get us out of it. And if we continue to cut taxes and keep the budget as is or increase it, we will only cause even more damage down the road. And that seems like the message from Newt, Obama or Mitt.  

While I agree with the Republican field running for the oval office about the over-regulation that we are seeing under this administration; it’s not what ails us either. What we have is a political atmosphere where nobody wants to make the touch decision and cut major aspects off our budget or raise taxes to pay for the bills we have. Obama or Romney will never do it; they lack the thick skin and willingness to lead by example despite the consequences. responsible debt is one thing, what these kooks are proposing is simply not feasible long term. 

Romney has no plan to cut government just spend an equal amount or more and lower taxes for the richest Americans. Obama seems to have no plan at all and while he lowered taxes he increased regulation and didn't do anything to make cuts. Gingrich? He thinks we can save 500 Billion annually on modernization, he’s also the same guy who said Fannie and Freddie hired him as a historian... not a lobbyist. He won’t be the nominee but it further drives home the point. The 900 lb gorilla in the room remains Keynesian economics. Until we face the reality of the magnitude that beast has in terms of influence and destruction we will be here every four years with the same logical outcome: vote for a Paul (Ron or Rand).

Lets play connect the dots...

From Barack Obama 7-16-2009:

“First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you.”

Ok, so your only really talking about the 40+ million of uninsured Americans getting on board with this plan then, right? I mean this has nothing to do with the majority of the population already happy with their healthcare, right? Something just doesnt sit right with this, lets think about this in broad terms.


According to Healthcarevoices.org:

U.S. employers have been shifting costs to workers: workers’ payments toward premiums have more than doubled since 2000. Or, the employers drop coverage altogether: the number of employers offering health insurance has dropped from 69 percent to 60 percent in the same eight-year period

Why the push the cost onto their employees?

The annual premium that a health insurer charges an employer for a health plan covering a family of four averaged $12,700 in 2008. Workers contributed nearly $3,400, or 12 percent more than they did in 2007.*Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

Now what can we expect in future costs? Here is the last four decades, as we can see, the industry cost wise is expanding and exploding exponentially.

According to The Congressional Budget Office:

Health care will grow from 16% of the country’s gross domestic product in 2007 to 25% in 2025, unless efforts are made to rein in cost growth.

So because the price of Healthcare is exploding exponentially and with the government now increasing the tax burden on business at a time where the economy is on the ropes, is there a better remedy then to have government come in and offer healthcare to all people, freeing business to turn those savings into capital? Of course not and if implemented, not so long after will you see American businesses stop offering healthcare thus pushing everyone on "Obamacare."

Broadly speaking, the difference between Socialism and Fascism are simply who owns the companies. Both are funded by the state, but in a fascist state we do still have private owners of businesses, so rest at ease...at least we wont be socialists.

Yes we can (but do we know we shouldnt?)

Its been just six months and socialized medicine is officially being introduced into the homes of every American as Universal Health care takes stage front and center as this years top priority for the Obama administration. Make no mistake, this is not just a Clintonian like mantra revived to just maintain some political capital leveraged during the ’08 election… this is on its way to becoming reality. The transformation to socialism started long ago, but it really came obvious last year with George W Bush and his corporate bailouts for Wall Street bets went wrong. That was then - this is now and now is seeping into the private lives of every Americans, no doubt a bold and drastic attempt not seen since the days of LBJ. Obamacare has kicked into full throttle as we embark on a descent into uncharted waters of organizational upheaval, encroachments into our private lives but above all: paralyzing debt like we have never seen before.

With the Democrats having carte blanche, everyone knew this type of scenario was possible but for some reason most just chalked it up as lip service. After all, how could we possibly entertain the idea of paying for such a monstrosity as Universal Health care when we already have an entitlement tsunami on the way? A tsunami so large that it threatens to wipe out the budget as we know it, so much so that its estimated by 2030 we could be seeing health care take up 80% of federal expenditures.

First of all the 1 Trillion or 500 billion, whatever the number the Senate decides on from week to week to fund Universal Health care initially will be funded by… your great grandchildren. That’s right, we are still running budget deficits, so therefore we have no money to expand the size and scope of government any more then we have. So what do we do? You borrow it. This means the needed funding will come from money that will be printed and borrowed at interest from the Federal Reserve. Change you can believe in? Hardly.

No doubt that is obviously not sustainable, so with Medicaid spiraling out of control and Social Security on the verge of going bankrupt Universal Health care not only just a bad idea, its not mathematically probable. You would think that with the quagmire we are facing, the federal government would not want to put itself into another situation where even more of your health care is primarily funded by the state. You would think that in an era of record budget deficits and in turn an escalating national debt that is nearing 100% of GDP we would just have to say…”No”.

However, this is not the case. Obviously the ramifications of this measure are monumental and monstrous. And we could beat this topic to death with its obvious encroachments on personal choice and the invasion of privacy with even more detail of the ridiculous cost. Above all this however, I want to focus on just one small problem that gives this idea legs. And that is the premise, laid out by this administration and the people that put him into power. The same people that put back into power one of the most inept congresses (according to polling) that we have ever seen.

Because when your entire platform and political prowess is built upon the phrase “Yes we Can” then you will naturally have a President, his allies and his supporters who will ignore the hurdles and reality of a situation and shoot for the moon. Sure, the idea sounds good, the idea that we can overcome anything we want because we are headstrong to do it. But this isn’t a sporting event. There is no level playing field.

We have bills and fighting fire with gasoline may be a great ‘Bowie hook but its not however a strategy to get out of this train wreck that we are indeed facing. Now here comes the rub. Sixty-six percent of voters that voted for Obama were under the age of 30. Two thirds of his voting bloc was an idealistic population that by nature is incapable of making any sound rational decisions because they for the most part are inexperienced and are disciples of the moment. This is the generation of downloads and hi-speed, the first generation that was born inside the spectacle that is the 24 hours news cycle. Thus the ability to look down the road isn’t something that most of these people are capable of.

It was this population that would elect a man that clearly saw government as the answer not the wild beast that it always becomes. No matter how many times you pat it on the head, government is a rabid infested dog lunging at your throat and in this case your pocketbook and your consciousness. Which, leads me to my point, and let me just say, that irony obviously has a sense of humor.

Its this pie in the sky, idealistic segmentation that was the driving force in getting BO elected who will one day have to deal with carnage and insolvency that is coming as entitlements old and new merge into one death blow that will bring this country to its knees. If things are left "as is" the pain will be great, as stated before. However, if you compound obligations the nightmare will only increase ten fold when we add even more government intervention and responsibility.

Time is ticking and dealing with the past obligations before we undertake new ones is not just good political clout its just common sense. Unfortunately, common sense doesn’t apply to idealism. In fact common sense doesn’t allow it. So, yes we can. We can make the choice, all beit not a sexy one and it wont impact your reelection but it is a choice that must be made because its looking into the future and getting your hands dirty now as opposed to when your sinking. That’s a thought, a government forward looking and not basing its politics on a four year election window? That would be change I could believe in.

The idealist is incorrigible: if he is thrown out of his heaven he makes an ideal of his hell: Friedrich Nietzsche