Reforming the Primary Season

I think the primary system needs reforming. Look at the lack of excellence in any candidate now selected. Obama and Hillary are still battling it out for the democrat nomination, but if those two are the best the democrats can do they don't have much going for them except a nice smile and smooth phraseology in Obama and ...hmmm... I'm not sure what they have going for them in Hillary. And if McCain is the best republicans can do, they're in deep trouble, too. McCain has no new ideas, he is (excuse the use of the word) *BORING* and a leaning liberal lefty dressed up in republican labels. I have no use for him. I can see how Hillary and Obama are the best the democrats have to offer, after all we can't expect the democrats to produce excellence, but shame on the republicans for not choosing more wisely. Here's my proposition to reform the primary season so that the candidates more accurately represent the party. Right now, momentum is the key word in the primary season. It starts out slowly in Iowa and then on to New Hampshire and a few other states before a massive Super Tuesday, followed by more isolated primaries. There are several ways to reform the system. One is to hold all primaries nation wide on the same day for democrats and republicans, which cuts out the momentum factor and gives a much better chance of having a brokered convention. Of course, under this system, the brokered convention could become a place of bribery and all sorts of shenanigans and chicanery. The second option for reform involves momentum. I'll use the republican race this year for illustration. John McCain is now the republican nominee. How did he do it? He got his huge delegate lead from *blue* states. These states are not going to vote republican, and yet they have a huge influence on who the republican nominee is because of their gigantic delegate allotments and because many of them are winner takes all states, which makes the delegate count go up even faster, and they have their primaries early in the season. That's how McCain did it. From my perspective, it's not right to allow blue states to dictate who the red states are going to vote for in November, so here's my plan to solve that problem. Primaries for the republicans should be held first in red states and then after all red state primaries, blue states could hold primaries. The momentum would then be a red state momentum. A primary season according to this system would yield a candidate more representative of those who will actually be voting for the candidate in November.

Campaign Finance Reform

Another interesting article about McCAIN. He likes to make the rules, but when it comes to following them, he doesn't like it so much.
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12803

Here's my solution to Campaign Finance Reform:
1. no candidate or campaign may borrow money
2. only individuals, no PACs or groups of any kind may contribute
3. all contributions must be disclosed within 48 hours
4. only individuals eligible to vote in the election may contribute
5. no individual may contribute more than $10,000 per election cycle to one candidate
6. a candidate may not contribute more to his/her campaign than $10,000
7. eliminate the federal matching funds program

This would eliminate the power of special interest groups, foreign funding, and the personal money-tied influence of people like George Soros, and force candidates to raise money from their supporters. It would also keep rich candidates from attempting to buy the election.

Wisconsin and Washington

We have results from Wisconsin and Washington. John Sydney McCain III and Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. are the "choices" we will be handed come November. But... there's still time to make a difference! Although it is little acknowledged anymore, there are still other people running for the presidential nominations of the republican and democrat parties. On the republican side, Dr. Ron Paul, a congressman from TX, a strict constitutionalist (that's a good thing, by the way, to be a strict constitutionalist) and Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas who, although he is not as much of a strict constitutionalist as Dr. Paul is, has some good qualities. Mr. Huckabee wants to put the IRS out of business and instead use the Fair Tax (a national sales tax) to collect revenue. Oh, and on the democrat side, Mike Gravel is also still running. He's also for eliminating the IRS and instead using the Fair Tax, but that's the only thing I could find on his issue positions that I agreed with. And then of course, Hillary Rodham Clinton is still in the race, and could still easily get the democrat nomination. But does anyone really want to listen to her strident voice screaming at us for four years?

McCain funded by George Soros

Why isn't somebody screaming bloody murder over this? It is really outrageous that this is allowed. This has been going on since 2001 and it needs to stop!! Read the article by clicking here. Why are we letting the democrats pick the republican nominee through funding? McCain is not a free man. He's sold himself to the liberals and George Soros has bought him.

Even before September

I weep for my country even before the primary season is over at the "choices" we will be given in November. What choice? U.S. Senator extreme liberal v. U.S. Senator liberal? That’s not much of a choice. Right now, the U.S. Congress (that’s the Senate and U.S. House of Representatives combined) has a lower approval rating and a higher disapproval rating than President George W. Bush has (and that’s saying something considering how many people disapprove of the president) and we are going to pick a new president to lead the charge in changing Washington from that pool? No matter which U.S. Senator America chooses, I think buyers remorse will be inevitable.

Coffee Table Economics

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for coffee and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1.The sixth would pay $3.The seventh would pay $7.The eighth would pay $12.The ninth would pay $18.The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the coffee shop every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until on day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily coffee by $20."Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his coffee. So, the shop owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $50 instead of $59 (15% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too.It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next day the tenth man didn't show up for coffee, so the nine sat down and had coffee without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

This illustration is not my own. I do not know the original source.

Romney out

Whoa! Another interesting twist in an interesting primary/caucus season; Romney withdrew! The field is narrowing down dramatically. Left still in the race are Huckabee, McCAIN and Paul, three very different men with varying points of view on every issue of debate. One has to ask the question: are these three in it for the remainder of the race to the convention?

Super Tuesday?

I'm sure you all know the results of Super Tuesday. McCAIN proclaims himself the front-runner, Romney supporters accuse Huckabee of stealing votes that rightfully belong to Romney, and Huckabee, Romney, McCAIN and Paul all vow to stay in the race. There are still more states in which delegates will be chosen and there is already talk of a McCAIN/Huckabee ticket. I think such a ticket would be a boom for McCAIN and a bust for Huck if he really wants to be president someday. A vice president needs to support the president, and if a McCAIN/Huckabee ticket were, hypothetically speaking, elected in November, Huck would have to compromise for 4, maybe 8 years, because McCAIN has some pretty liberal ideas and he likes to buddy up with the democrats on some of their pet issues, after which, Huckabee would have lost his conservative appeal. He could say "bye-bye" to his current base of support.

A Quote

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart MillEnglish economist & philosopher (1806 - 1873)