Tuesday, August 19, 2008

What does President McCain mean for us?

If I were to just list the anticipated result of a McCain victory in November, it would look like a bullet list of talking points from a liberal blogster or commentator. But the facts are hard to ignore. I anticipate an even harder turn to the right on the Supreme Court as the retirement of some liberal justices will occur during this next four years. I'm sure that no one in the one million five hundred thousand of the US wealthiest people, currently threatened by an Obama proposed tax policy, should anticipate any tax increase. The world will wait, but not for long, I'm sure, to see what McCain will do about the mess in the middle east. Look for more troops and more saber rattling as a solution to world terrorism. In general, look for a continuation of republican policies that have gotten us where we are today, in deep trouble.

The labels on these mini-movements have feel good sounding words like trickle down economics, faith based initiatives, education vouchers, patriot act and family values. We are regaled with flag waving, bible touting, and apple pie laden images of happy folks who feel better with less civil rights and economic clout as long as they can buy things cheaper at Wal Mart.

As far as an National economic policy, I would expect it to be the same "free market Friedman policy of Regan and Bush. Slowly over the last thirty years we've been fed a line of reasoning that goes like this. If you'll just trust the rich people to run things you will be fine. After all, they are rich because they are smart and know how to run big complicated things like government. Smaller things, such as Enron, the Banking business and Restoration efforts in New Orleans, they don't do so well.

What we have is less. We have less and more expensive health care costs. We have less money to spend because the average income for most Americans is falling. We have less Government because the Republicans in particular think that government is bad for us. The results is we have less enforcement of rules that might help us such as banking regulations, healthy food inspections and corrupt business practices. We make less investment in public infrastructure.We have less enforcement of labor laws. We have less standing in the world, as our allies have turned against our go it alone foreign policy.

We do have more of some things. We have more government corruption, more national debt, and more of our young solders in VA hospitals recovering from wounds. We have more people without meaningful employment and more people without health coverage. We have more roads, bridges, levies and other infrastructure in bad need of repair or replacement.

We need more National policy on things that count, such as transportation, energy, health care, and the environment. Recent Republican efforts in this area have represented the best interests of the business entities that profit from these issues. The consumer was not invited to comment. They basically have thrown the consumer to the wolves. What has resulted is bad loans, bad food, bad health care and higher costs on everything. (Oh yeah and the stock market ain't doing os well lately either if you're looking at your 401k.)

McCain will owe his victory in November, not to the people of the country so much as the corporate America and the people that serve those corporations. It is no wonder that Wal Mart practically ordered it's employees to vote Republican. A vigorous enforcement of existing labor laws would be uncomfortable for them, much less what might come with a Democratic take over of the White House.

No matter how nice of a person John McCain is and no matter how much he might have opposed the worst of Bush policy, he is at heart a conservative republican and they, my friends. have not proven to be good leaders of our country. Yes government can be a problem. It appears that even a govenment run by people who vowed to restrict the size and pwoer of government. But be aware that the problems government might bring effect some people more than others. A conservative republcan government seems to serve only those who have much and want more.

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