Romney

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Why Do Evangelical Christians Want Trump?


To those on the left, this would seem to be an anthema to the core beliefs on any Evangelical. But the answer to this seemingly atithetical question is not the easy. Let’s consider that you have grown up in Central Southern Ohio where rural farmlands abound as do Roman Catholic and Evangelical Churches. These people will tell you that their parents voted Republican, their grandparents voted Republican and everyone in the family has always voted Republican and it would go against their history to vote any other way. If, as in some states, their is a drawbar in the voting booths that allows a person to vote straight Republican or straight Democrat, they will always pull the straight Republican lever. And this is why it is difficult for those on the left to understand why people with staunch Christian values, or for that matter, Hasidic Jewish values, to vote for Trump.

Now you might ask, but what about all the outright lies Trump tells? As stated in the paragraph above, these people eat, sleep, and dream Republican. They also read and watch conservative radio and television. That simply means they are going to take all their news from Fox News, the 700 Club, and any other entity that serves the most basic beliefs politically. The will believe, for example, that the 2020 election was stolen not only because Fox News is still allowing people to say this on their platform, but because the U.S. Representative is also saying it. And so now things have been raised to a National level.

Let’s take one entire state that is almost entirely ruled by not just one party, but by one religion, Utah. You may have heard that just recently Senator Mitt Romney declaring he will not run for re-election this fall. Why is that significant. Senator Mitt Romney is a Mormon who lives in Utah. But at one time he was the governor of a decidedly blue state, Massachusetts. And he was a two term governor there as well. How did he do that and keep his faith? Quite simply, he used a very diplomatic route of being a middle of the road Republican. In truth, he was probably further to the right than he governed, but he did what was right for the people of his state and succeed. Now years later, he is in the state where his religion was formally founded, Utah. But he brought with him certain values he learned in the state of Massachusetts. That did not make him liberal in the least, but it an area that boasts the likes of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Brandeis University, and a host of other liberal bastions of thinking, he was forced into a position of having to listen to the liberal point of view and he learned how to succeed in”enemy” territory, as it is thoght of today. But Senator Romney, to his credit, and in my belief, saw a Republican Party that was abandoning its long held view in favor of a wannabe dictator. It is unlikely that people of the Mormon Religion will ever vote for a Democrat but for them and for Evangelicals and other, a non-vote for president, in this election, is like a vote for Biden. We will never know but I would guess that in November’s election, Romney will chose to not vote for either candidate, this saying that Trump survives the criminal court system.

To be sure, Romeny is far from the only Republican who will not vote for Trump; Mike Pence said as much on today’s (Sunday, March 17, 2024) CBS Face the Nation. And I doubt, given her part on the January 6 Committee, that Liz Cheney will vote for him either but again, she will not vote for President Biden either. Now, Liz Cheney is an excellent example for other very conservative Republicans because she is one herself. Liz Cheney’s religious beliefs are unknown although she was brought up in a Untied Methodist household.

Democrats can make inroads on the Evangelicals if President Biden will go into say rural Kentucky, Elizabethtown, near Fort Knox, would be a good place, tell the Evangelical Republicans there that he is a go to church on Sunday Catholic. That will put into the minds of these people he need only beg them to do “fact checking” on Donald Trump to get to the truth and remind them of the New Testament Scripture that says, “I am the truth and the salvation . . . ” to possibly move them away from Trump. And in finishing, he would say to them that he is not asking them to vote Democrat but to consider what the actual truth of Donald Trump is.

One of the tools at Biden’s command is to get Republicans not to vote Republican but just to not vote for either candidate this go around.

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Trump’s Latest Lie; Republican Sycophants Bow


Donald Trump declared that Facebook is hindering his First Amendment rights. That is an absolute lie. His right to free speech extends to what he writes, public speaking, except in fraud, libel, slander, child pornography, purgury, blackmail, incitement to lawless actions, true threats and solicitation to commit crimes. On privately owned platforms there is no First Amendment priveledge. Facebook, and other platforms, have the absolute right to control the type of speech on their platforms. One of the more infamous type of barred speech comes from insider trading on Wall Street where one party knows of something that is going to affect his company and tells outsides to buy or sell stocks based on that knowldge.

McCarthy and Cruz have blasted these platforms claiming they are part of a liberal bias against conservatives. Nothing could be further from the truth, and they know it however they are cowtowing to a still popular former president who has a large and loyal base. They are far more interested in the political funding they get from siding with Trump then speaking against him.

But there are two Republican centrists who advocate the truth, have spoken out against Trump’s lies and know are pariahs in their own party rather than be touted as heros of the party. They are Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney. McCarthy is so incensed with Cheney’s sticking to the truth that he has arbitrarily decided that she must be removed from power. He decided this without conferring with other members of his party. But he is probably on safe ground as a large portion of Republicans either agree with Trump or are too fearful to speak against him.

It would seem that Republicans themselves are more against free speech than they are in protecting it. They seem cowed by the lingering presence of an out-of-office president who is probably the most devisive personality since Andrew Johnson. I do hope that in the near future cooler heads will prevail, that truth will prevail and that Republicans will get their heads out of their butts and just do the right thing!

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Who Is to Blame For America’s Present Economonic Malaise?


If you listen to the Mitt Romney political ads it is entirely Barack Obama’s fault that we have not already seen a complete recovery.  And if you listen to Barack Obama political ads it is the failed policies of the Bush-era that are to blame.  Personally, I think there is more than enough blame to go around that neither party is any more guilty than the other.

But first, let’s look at the world economy.  To look only at the American economy is a mistake because we do not operate in a vacuum.  Independent of what has been happening in America, Europe has gone through its own economic travails chiefly on the shortcoming of the Euro and the countries who use it as their sole currency.  In particular, Greece, Italy, and Spain have had it the worst.  Right now, Spain is reporting an unemployment rate of 25% which is similar to the U.S. great depression of 1929 – 1934.  That the Greek government has not gone bankrupt is largely due to the banks of Germany insuring Greek debt.  But northern Europe is hardly exempt from this as the Bank of Scotland is on particularly shaky ground at this point.

What does all this have to do with the U.S. economy?  The Bank of Scotland owns Citizen’s Bank which is headquartered in Providence Rhode Island.  Similarly, U.S. corporations have investments in every country in Europe and are therefore affected by that economy.  If a large U.S. conglomerate, say Ford Motor, is experiencing the European downturn, as it is, then that necessary reflects upon its overall corporate earnings.  And, as we saw in the Wall Street melt-down of 2009, corporations like AIG have considerable overseas accounts where they are insuring debt and investments.  If Europeans companies are defaulting or failing to make payments on their debt, that too necessarily affects U.S. corporations.

President Obama’s $750 billion stimulus plan has been roundly criticised by the Republican party.  They are suggesting that it did not work.  If it had not worked unemployment would have continued to rise and that just did not happen.  It did not, unfortunately, have the hoped-for effect but that does not mean it was a failure.  Every single dollar of that money, at least initially, went into the U.S. economy.  There is no where else it could have gone.  Was it as effectively used at it could have been? No, and that is where Obama failed.

People love to look at two journalistic publications and quote them as being authoritative on economic, and other, topics, the conservative Wall St. Journal, and the liberal New York Times.  That fact is, neither is quite so authoritative as they would have to believe.  The WSJ has more weight in the field of finances because that is its entire focus.  Even so, the people who write such articles are journalists who have a vested interest in reporting in a manner pleasing to their readership.  Simply put, such articles are biased towards conservatives which means they will emphasise data that supports conservative ideals and give less weight to data that supports more liberal ideas.  The New York Times, of course, does exactly the same thing.

The real question that should be asked in this presidential elections is, how much effect can the government, and even more so, any single person, even the president, have in the nation’s economic affairs?  The government is, by definition, the guardian of the public trust.  In deriving its power from the people, it is supposed to act in the best interest of all people without favoring any single person or group of people.  In the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, people like Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, and a few others, were in virtual control of the U.S. economy.  Because of that, the Chicago fire of 1872 helped precipitate the economic crisis of 1873.  Wall Street and corporate America was entirely unregulated and did as it pleased.  Corporate trusts and monopolies were accepted practices.  The titans of business and finance had themselves so well insulated from all civil and criminal prosecution that they were able to act with impunity.  But then during the Populist era, McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson, laws like the Sherman Anti-trust Act were put in place to curb these excesses.  The public demanded that the government regulate and pass laws to reign in these men of great power and influence.  Corporate America was reigned in by 1920, and then after the collapse of Wall Street in 1929, the U.S. financial concerns were also reigned in.  In both cases the method of reigning in was the use of regulation and oversight.

Contrary to concerns raised by industrial giants and financial gurus of those early days, America boomed until 1974 when America was hit by an artificial oil shortage, the inception of the oil cartel, also known as OPEC.  Democrats, largely in power at the time, responded slowly and poorly.  But when Reagan took office in 1981 he decided, and sold a rather naive American public, on the idea that heavy government regulation was holding back the expansion of corporate America.  Had anyone at the time been versed in history they would have instantly known that nothing could have been further from the truth.  The truth was, corporate America, particularly in heavy industry, had not bothered to retool after World War II and were still using 1940 technology while rising industrial giants like Germany and Japan had entirely retooled and were on a firm footing to sell in a global economy.

The 1950s and 1960s American domination of the electronics market, for example, quickly gave way to the Japanese, and in time to Taiwan, Malaysia and other Asian countries.  America was importing cheaper steel from Germany, and then cheaper, and better made, Japanese cars.  It was not until the bailout of the American auto industry in 2009 that it became apparent to all that Detroit’s decision the all the status quo had been an abysmal failure, and only a government infusion of cash would save it.

When Reagan brought about the deregulation of corporate America he was effectively saying, “We trust that corporate America will behave itself and always work in the best interest of America.”  You would have to be a fool to believe such things.  Corporations, by their very nature, always and only serve in their own best interest.  And that is exactly as it should be!  They are not required hold sacred the public trust, that is the government’s role.  Good business practices dictate that you will always buy from the least expensive source.  If that source happens to be China then that is where you buy.  It is unreasonable to expect American businesses to act otherwise.

As to what the U.S. owes foreign governments the Romney’s campaign that Obama has borrow money from China is foolish!  Does the U.S. government owe China money?  Absolutely!  But that comes as a result of international commerce.  In an attempt to gain a foothold in mainland China, a number of large U.S. corporations have invested heavily in China.  In doing so they necessarily us U.S. dollars.  And what is a dollar but the federal government promising to pay.  It is a debt that says the federal government guarantees payment on each and every dollar proffered.  When China gets those dollars it can then put a demand for payment to our government.  One form of payment, of course, is gold.  But whatever form that payment takes it is always between governments and not individuals.

One thing every American needs to be aware of.  About every 25 years or so America goes through an economic downturn, some worse than others.  This is one of those.  Most such events happen as a result of what is called a “market correction.”  When stocks do not properly reflect their value of the company they represent, this overvaluation brings a downturn.  This time is was the real estate market that was way overvalued.  Part of it was over-investment, but another part, and more important, was a lacking in regulation and regulatory oversight that allowed speculators to reap huge profits where none should have existed.  This was the state of the “sub-prime” market.

American businesses resist regulation because they want as free a hand as possible in doing business.  But the truth is, regardless of the degree of regulation, they are going to continue to do business in a manner that reaps them the greatest profit possible.  And that is exactly as it should be.  But it is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the responsibility of the government to assure our economic success.  That is the responsibility of corporate American and there is one thing you can always be certain of, corporate America will bring about success regardless of anything and everything else.  That means that they were responsible for the malaise and they will be in line for the credit when things improve.

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Understanding Socialism


The Republican Party likes to demonize certain Democrat ideas of being socialist, the idea being a direct correlation between socialism and communism.  While socialism is certainly a hallmark of communism, it existed in certain forms long before communism.

In 17th Century Massachusetts the town of Dedham was founded as a utopian community.  In those days Dedham extend from what is now South Boston all the way to Plymouth.  Today’s Dedham is a smallish town not far from Boston.  The next utopian idea happen at what was called Brook Farm near Boston.  It too was a utopian/socialist attempt that failed.  But these were not isolated attempts.  Other attempts in states like New York happened throughout the 18th and 19th Century.  All, of course, failed, but none was ever condemned as they were mostly economic endeavours.

Socialism got its greatest traction in 19th century Europe.  It came as a result of the old feudal systems still in place in much of Eastern Europe, and to a lesser extent because of Western European monarchies and their tendencies towards excesses of self-enrichment.  It is no coincidence that Word War I put an end not just to the Russian monarchy but also the Italian, German, Prussian, Polish, Austrian, and numerous others.  The cost of waging war is so great that the armed populace that monarchies sent to the battlefields turned on their own governments.  The Czar was replaced by the Soviet, the Kaiser by a Chancellor, and so forth.  The people, impoverished by these monarchies, demanded a redistribution of wealth and the leaders of the various revolutions were only too willing to oblige, and in doing so, gain wide-spread support for their particular cause.

In the first half of the 20th century, socialist groups were not necessarily liberal or left-wing.  The formal name of the ultra-right wing Nazi party of Germany was the National Socialists.

The United States in the first 20 years of the 20th century had a number of socialist mayors, congressmen, and other elected officials.  And if you lived in the United States in 1936, 1937, and 1938, and understood the evil that Hitler was visiting on his people, you supported the German Communist party as it was the only opposition to Hitler at the time within Germany.  They were throughout World War 2 the underground in Germany.  Similarly, it was French Communists who were a large part of that underground.  All that, of course, changed when the war was over.

Socialism has existed in some form in most countries since World War 2.  By definition, socialism is any government-owned or administered production and distribution of goods.  By that definition socialism does not exist in the United States in any form, and is constitutionally prohibited from existing.   But as soon as you expand that definition to include services the waters become muddy.  Health care is by definition a service.  But so too is airport administration.  That means most U.S. airports are run, in a socialist manner, at some level of government.  Does that mean we should turn of administration of O’Hare Airport in Chicago to private enterprise?  I would hope not, and I doubt any Republican will ever support such a measure even if it does mean they must compromise on their definition of socialism.

If Republicans are truly anti-socialist, as many claim, they are going to have to turn over to private corporations all seaports, AMTRAK, the Tennessee Valley Authority, all state-run liquor stores, all state lotteries, all draw-bridge operations, all transportation authorities, all port authorities, all air traffic control, all public hospitals, and many other operations.  If you think about it, any and all of these functions could be run by privately owned corporations.  The only question is, in the desire to eliminate any possible socialist type government operations, are you willing to give up these?

If, for example, our airports were turned over to corporate America, I for one would stop flying.  I simply do not trust private enterprise to act in my best interests.  And therein lies the central concept of why we entrust certain parts of our existence to the government.  We quite simply have more trust in the government looking after our best interests than we do corporate America.  And to this end, health care, which corporate America has so totally failed to include all Americans, needs to have government participation at a greater level than previously experienced.  Here, in Massachusetts, the Mitt Romney inspired required health care coverage has been a huge success in spite of its critics.  If anything, corporate America has benefitted from the Massachusetts experience in health care.

The bottom line is this; when corporate America has not given a service through lack of desire, has abdicated responsibility for whatever reason, or has refused to offer essential services to all Americans, we expect our government to step in and either provide the service, such as most forms of surface transportation, or make a provision whereby corporate America is compelled to make their service available at a reasonable rate to all Americans, and this is the case of health care.

Most Republicans want to bring an end to AMTRAK and turn its operations over to corporate America.  I am guessing they have not bothered to read much history, because it was corporate America that begged out of the passenger rail industry in 1971, with but four exceptions, the Southern Railroad, the Boston & Maine Railroad, the Rock Island Railroad, and the Rio Grande Railroad.  All except the B&M gave in to government take over within a few years.  It is difficult to imagine that so much has changed, even in the densely populated northeast, that any private corporation on its own can turn a profit in the passenger rail business.  But do you want to imagine a US that does not have it?

Republicans are not being the least bit truthful about any government enterprise that they call “socialist.”  It is not socialism they fear, it is their loss of leverage at the corporate level they fear.  What will happen to corporate America if the government requires fairness, openness, and equal access?  The Reagan deregulation made certain that corporate America not be responsible to anyone but its board of directors as witness the blatant abuse of power and privilege during the Wall Street meltdown.  They will never admit to this being true but rest assured, it is!  But rest assured, socialism, even as it exists in democracies such as Canada and England, is not being suggested by anyone in the Democrat Party, or anyone else for that matter.  It is simply a Republican ploy to make undesireable something that will actually serve the good of all.

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Who Is the Real Mitt Romney?


Romney’s election committee was quick to distance their candidate from remarks made by Indiana US Senate candidate Richard Mourdock vis-a-vis rape and abortion.  Mourdock said such thing reflect “God’s will” and he opposes abortion even in such circumstances.  The Romney campaign quickly said that Mourdock’s views do not necessarily reflect his own.  There is just one problem with that statement, in this case they do.

You rightfully ask how I can possibly know that.   It is really quite simple.  Mitt Romney is a devout and practicing Mormon.  Mormons are a very conservative sect as religions go, and are known for that.  Mormons are known, and take pride in, their extremely conservative views, particularly those regarding abortion.  There is nothing wrong with such beliefs, and I am not trying to suggest there is, but for Romney to say he does not share Mourdock’s views is very disingenuous.

Mitt Romney is probably the most conservative candidate since Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, and even more so than either of them.  There is nothing wrong with being so conservative, of course, but I am more than a little surprised that the Obama campaign has failed to even suggest it.  Maybe they are afraid as coming across wrong in pointing out how conservative the average Mormon is.  But it is true, and what is wrong with telling the truth?

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The Truth About Political Debates


There was a time, long ago, when candidates were forced to go to open air venues to have their debates in public places so people could take their measure.  In the early 20th century, a man named James Michael Curley burst upon Massachusetts politics.  At the time, 1910, he was simply trying to become a U.S. Representative for the 10th district, a seat no Democrat in anyone’s memory had ever held, and no one expected that to change.  But the 10th district had a heavy Irish population and other new immigrant groups.  Curley was a charismatic Irishman who had grown up poor but had worked in the wards under the bosses of the day.  He was an excellent speaker, never at a loss for words.  Curley was anything but a household name but at those debates he skillfully used his opponents own words against him.  He could turn a phrase and get his audience to identify with him.

The Brahmins of Boston, the well-entrenced Republican establishment, were outraged.  In  a later election when Curley ran for mayor of Boston, he said that on his first day of office he would turn the Boston Common into a parking lot.  Of course this was only a slap at the landed gentry who still failed to recognize the trials of the working class.

But it was not until 1960 and the Kennedy – Nixon debate, sometimes referred to as “the checkers debate,” that politics embraced television, and it has been downhill ever since.  Political parties write the speeches, figure out how to portray political positions, and dictate how any given answer needs to be given.  These are not debates at all but well-scripted advertisement.

I have a pretty good sense of who Barack Obama is and who Mitt Romney is, having lived in Massachusetts during his governorship.  I also have a pretty good idea of who Scott Brown is but, sadly, I do not have much of an idea who Elizabeth Warren is.  Something that is very important to me, family, seems to have been avoided by Warren making me very suspicious of her, and pushing me, a Democrat, into the position of likely voting for her Republican opponent.

It was during their last so-called debate that I came to this decision.  I found both of them to be rather disingenuous.  Each seemed to be responding to questions with very well-scripted answers that seldom properly responded to the question on the floor.  Frequently each simply side-stepped the question and said whatever they felt was important rather than simply answer the question at hand.  But this is our present state of politics at the national level.

It is my firm belief that when these politicians speak we are not hearing what they really think but rather what their handlers, those nameless people behind the scenes, want us to hear and nothing more.  The question on every American’s mind when they hear a politician in one of these so-called debates say something that appears to exactly reflect their views, ask yourself if they are simply playing up to you and in reality have another agenda entirely.  I suspect, regardless of party affiliation, the latter is closer to the truth than the former.  We need to go back to the days when two guys would stand on a stage, say their peace without anyone prompting them as to what is proper and what is not.

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Is Massachusetts Turning Republican?


Twenty years ago such a question would be laughable.  Even today some might scoff at it considering the makeup of the Massachusetts legislature is overwhelmingly Democrat.  I am, and always have been, a registered Democrat.  But I suspect that like me, many of my fellow Democrats in this state are rather fed up with the arrogance shown by the state’s Democrats.

Massachusetts has elected the occasional Republican to state-wide and national office, Edward Brooke and William Weld in the more distant past.  But they were more the exception.  State politics has been large dominated by Democrats since the FDR administration, and to some degree prior to that with James Michael Curley.  But recent events where Democrats have been accused and convicted of felonious acts has given the state’s voters reason to question their elected leaders.  The worst thing they have done, which is not a crime but a betrayal of faith, has been the arrogance of the party leadership in the state.

Two national offices are being heavily contested in the state right now, that for a U.S. Senate seat, Brown vs. Warren, and US Representative seat, Tierney vs. Tisei.  And in some sense, Mitt Romney too, although I view him as truly a Michigan native rather than a Massachusetts resident.

In the case of Brown vs. Warren, we have a very affable Republican in Brown who is the state’s Republican US Senator being opposed by a very cerebral and professorial sounding Warren.  And that is her biggest problem.  She claims to come from blue-collar America but sounds anything but.  If anything, she comes across as preachy and professorial.  She is difficult to identify with at much of any level.  Brown, quite simply, comes across as entirely middle-class.  He is a middle-class veteran that I can more easily identify with than Warren’s academic persona.  If history teaches us anything, it is that people vote for who they best identify with which does not necessarily mean who is best qualified.  In this case, however, I cannot say that Brown is not best qualified to both serve and properly represent me.  That, it is my guess, is the question Warren needs to respond to more than any other and which, I doubt, the Democratic leadership of this state will come to terms with.  In the end, I expect Brown will be re-elected.  And even though I cannot say for certain right now, he may well get my vote.

Tierney is a case of absolute arrogance.  I do not, for a second, want Tisei to win this race however I feel he has an excellent chance of doing exactly that.  Not so many years Thomas Finneran had the same arrogance being displayed by Tierney.  As it turned out, Finneran was guilty of, at the very least, comprising the public trust for his own personal ends.  I think Tierney is guilty of the same thing.  It is difficult to believe that a man, as intelligent as he is, had no idea of his family’s involvement in illegal gambling activities long before it became public.  I have to admit that my distrust of Tierney pre-dates that.  It goes back to the mid-1990s when he was opposed by a man named Peter Torkilson, a Republican.  I voted for Torkilson back then on a gut feeling that he was simply the better man.  Unfortunately I am no longer in that district so I cannot have any say in that election.  I do not believe, however, that the state’s Democratic leadership has properly and fully addressed the charges leveled against Tierney by the Republican party.  It simply and arrogantly believes he will get re-elected because you have to go far before anyone’s memory to find a Republican being elected from that district.  The thing is, I know that district to be more conservative than party leaders tend to believe.  It would not take much for more conservative Democrats, like myself, to turn the present election in favor of Tisei.  And that is exactly what I believe is going to happen.

Right now probably few people in Massachusetts believe that Mitt Romney will carry his declared home-state in the presidential election.  The last time that happened was when Al Gore failed to carry his home state of Tennessee.  And as likely as it is that Obama will carry Massachusetts, it should not be taken for granted.  And yet that is exactly what Democratic leadership is doing.

In the latest round of political debates, Warren, Biden, and Obama each lost their respective debates.  Tierney and Tisei will not have any public debate forum although they should.  The point is, Democrats seem to be riding on their laurels thinking they have the upper hand.  They do not, by any stretch of the imagination.  Since those debates, each of the Democrats has lost their lead in the respective race to their Republican opponent.  That is extremely significant because it shows a reversal of fortunes.

I think most Americans find it difficult to believe much of anything politicians say, even those they vote for.  You frequently hear them state they are “voting for the lesser of two evils.”  How can that ever be a good thing?  I noted in the debates that when asked direct and simple questions, those question largely went unanswered.  The politician being asked did a tap dance around the truth, but seldom gave what was a clear and simple answer.  Would it not be refreshing to hear a candidate just once say, “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

I do not think Massachusetts is suddenly going to become a state in which Republicans rule the roost.  But I do believe, at least in the two contests mentioned, that Republican will prevail.  I think it good that Republican should have more of a say in this state’s politics.  It makes the Democrats more honest, or possibly honest in the first place.  But maybe, just maybe, it will knock some of the arrogance from the state’s Democrat Party.

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Taxing America — Killing the Sacred Cow


This year’s presidential campaign has had the candidates, and their respective party, sparring over taxes.  The thing is, each side is being disingenuous in dealing with the public.  Each side knows that the majority of Americans have no idea of how our tax system works.  They count on that so they can pressure Americans into thinking that their particular brand of taxing, or not taxing as you will, is absolutely the correct way to do business.

There is a New Hampshire PAC this year that is running an attack ad against a woman who is running for office.  They detail how she, when she held office, was responsible for raises taxes, fees, on New Hampshire’s citizens.  I am certain she did what they said she did but this group would like the public to believe that she was horribly wrong in doing so.  New Hampshire prides itself in having no personal income tax.  But New Hampshire, like all the other 49 states, needs a revenue stream to fund governmental activities that its citizens demand of it.

In this year’s presidential race, the Democrats are trying to make hay out of raising the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans.  Republican Ryan has countered that such a tax increase will fund America for about a day.  That is probably close to the truth but is it the point?  Obama asked why is it fair that Romney’s 14% overall tax burden just as fair as his secretary’s 20% percent tax rate, and that is the point, fairness.

As much as I like the idea a fairness, an idea, by the way, formulated by Ronald Reagan, it cannot be a prime motivation for any tax increase, or tax decrease for that matter.  Romney has claimed he will reduce taxes on middle-income America by 20%.  The question that has to be asked of that is, at what price?  That is, if you decrease you revenue, which a 20% decrease is obviously doing, what are you going to eliminate to fund it?  Romney is strangely quiet on that point.  The Democrats would be better served by promoting a complete tax code overhaul, rather than offering a single fix.  The tax code is so complex, so difficult, that probably few, if any, members of Congress can claim much of any expertise in it.  To wit, there are high-priced attorney’s whose only function is to be expert in the tax code.  No politician, regardless of how committed, can give such time to the tax code.

Government, at all levels, needs a source of revenue.  It cannot operate in such an absence.  There are two ways, and two ways only, to get such revenue, taxes and fees.  All Americans must understand that as a basic principle of government.  Republicans are fond of offering up the idea of running the government like a business.  But that in an impossibility.  But if the must, they need at least describe such a business as being a “not for profit” business which in essence is the only kind of business model any government is allowed to employ.  Those sort of businesses require benefactors, contributors, and maybe even gate receipts to survive.

In a recent debate between Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) and his challenger, Elizabeth Warren, the controversy over subsides being allow oil corporations was brought up by Warren, who, of course, wants them eliminated pointing out the hundreds of billions in profits the oil companies make.  In response, Brown pointed out, also correctly, that the loss of the subsidy would be passed on to the American public.  What neither of the chose to address is what that increase at the gas pumps would look like.  Why?  They do not know.  For a short while, to be sure, there would be a public outrage but that would die down quickly enough and another industry would be showing the public the actual cost of a gallon of gas, not the subsidised price.  Americans would be forced, God forbid, to recognize the real cost of motoring.

Neither party, Democrat nor Republican, has had the courage to tell Americans that government is an expensive thing.  They seem incapable to telling Americans that if they want to continue the level of governmental services they receive now, then they are going to have to pay for them.  That means there is no chance for a tax reduction but more likely, at least for a short while, a tax increase for everyone.

The only reasonable way to control taxes is to control expenditures.  Americans need to look long and hard at each and every government service out there.  They have to decide which to cut back on, which to eliminate.  They need to become more knowledgeable about how the government goes about its daily business, contracts, government employees, the relative necessity of the service provided.  It Americans truly want to get the cost of government under control, there can be no sacred cows.

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Obama Has Disappointed Me But Romney Scares Me


Most people, when they think of Massachusetts, would categorize it as a liberal bastion.  In one sense they are correct as the state house is dominated by Democrat senators and representatives.  But in another, they would be wrong.  For the past two years the state has had a Republican U.S. Senator, and over the past 20 plus years it has boasted more Republican governors than Democrat, Weld, Romney and Celucci among others.  The residents of Massachusetts are more centrist than most of the nation would believe, and I feel they prefer balance far more than one-sidedness.

I remember when Mitt Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts.  The state’s Democrat Party brought into question his legal residence, saying he actually lived in Vermont while maintaining property here in Massachusetts.  But through a legal technicality, the elections board was forced to allow his residency as meeting the standard.  It always bothers me when someone gets by on a legal technicality.  It makes me wonder about their ability to be entirely honest and forthright.  It makes me question their integrity.  Romney did an all right job as governor, not spectacular and not bad as his Republican predecessor Paul Celucci had done.  But it was obvious that he was only interested in placing himself of a national forum as he was a one-term governor who did not try to serve a second term.  Such action makes me question his commitment to the state he served as governor.

When Barak Obama came into office he made many promises, more than any politician should, and certainly more than even he knew he could keep.  Washington politics, being what it is, seldom allows any president to “rule the roost.”  FDR came the close to being able to do that and then Reagan pretty much had his way.  And so when Obama took office he said he was taking a page from FDR’s presidency when it came to helping the economy to recover.  Except for the government’s largess, his recovery program failed to come close to FDR’s vision.  FDR started named government programs, most famous being the FRA (Federal Recovery Act).  Others, the civil conservation corps (CCC) later declared unconstitutional, the Tennessee Valley Act, the Rural Electrification Act, and other programs put a name on his program and gave the general public something to look towards to measure success.  All the programs, even the CCC, were hugely successful.

FDR’s success came largely because he kept the Federal Government in charge of its investments with the states acting as expediters but not overseers.  Obama did the opposite.  He meted out the money to all the states, with certain provisions attached, but then mostly gave up federal government oversight.  The results were mixed at best.  Obama would have been better served, as FDR did, by saying a certain amount of money will go towards rebuilding America’s highways and roads, possibly naming it the Infrastructure Recovery Act, and then putting heavy requirements upon states as to how they used those dollars.  His focus on the use of the money should have been seeing that as much of the $780 billion went towards labor intensive work as possible.   Inner city revitalization would have been another opportunity, although this seems to have been missed entirely.  To be sure, America’s “Rust Belt” is no better off today than it was 4 years ago.

It is my belief that lack of federal oversight allowed too much of “Recovery Act” dollars to end up in the pockets of well-placed and highly influential individuals who did little to help America recover from its worst recession since the Eisenhower administration.  To his credit, Eisenhower did his part in putting America to work with his vision of the Interstate Highway system that he fathered.

What scares me the most about Mitt Romney are his very conservative religious views along with those of his running mate.  Let me be clear, when it comes to abortion, I am even more conservative than Romney as I do not believe in it regardless of the situation and have felt so since I was a teenager.  But, I also recognize that abortion is an issue of conscience and I have no right to  insert my beliefs as being superior to any other person’s beliefs.  And that is why I believe in the absolute right of each individual, in the case each woman, to make her own decision of conscience.  If I can influence her towards not having an abortion, great, otherwise I have no right to dictate to her what she should do.  This to me is purely a First Amendment issue, the part that refers to religion, and nothing more.

I do not like politics in the extreme, right or left.  I fear Romney is all about doing the bidding of the far right as that is where much of his campaign funding comes from.

American politics today, most unfortunately, seem to be like a scene from The Wizard of Oz.  We should all be wondering who the man behind the curtain is.  We have the man out front, Obama and Romney, but we must know who is pulling the strings behind the curtain.  Who is it exactly that most influences these men and what is their agenda?  More importantly, does their agenda align with the desires of 80% of the American public?  I fear the answer to this last question is a resounding “no!”  That is not just conservative politics,  but liberal as well.

I think it the job of every American voter to ask the candidates one simple but tough question.  Whenever one of them states that something is true, that their particular way of doing things is best, or any other boast, ask them to show definitive proof of their claim.  Ask for details, facts, and deny them elusive or vague rhetoric.