1. He is "pro-life." He believes that unborn humans deserve the protection of the constitution.
2. He is a hero. No, he's not perfect, either in his record, or his morality, but he has sacrificed more for his country than anyone I know of.
3. He is more right on taxes than Obama. I say more right, because there are much better ways to tax than our current system. McCain, however, does understand that the capital gains tax rate needs to remain low enough to encourage investment and trading. He is also for untaxing corporations, which is a very good thing.
4. He is more right on spending than Obama. He said last Friday that he will balance the budget by the end of his 4 year term. His proposal to do a spending freeze is hopeful, and I trust him to cut spending before Obama. He has consistently fought against pork bills, and will cut the excesses.
5. He is more right on education. He wants people to have school choice. He wants to encourage good teachers by paying them more and finding the ones that cannot teach a new profession. He would be more supportive of homeschooling and private schools.
6. He is experienced. (This is also a weakness). His international affairs experience is second to none. He has an intimate knowledge of how our government works.
7. A McCain presidency would mean that we would keep a tough reputation in the world, which is probably more imporant than being liked by the rest of the world.
8. A McCain presidency would mean less government intervention in the lives of the citizens, and in businesses.
9. Sarah Palin will be the vice president and not Joe Biden.
10. He's left handed, like yours truly.
Ok, so my last two points were on the light side. I've been off for a few weeks with this economic crisis.
Next I'm going to give critiques of both candidates.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Ten Things I Like About McCain, or That Would Be Good About a McCain Presidency
Posted by JB at 1:25 AM
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16 comments:
You forgot that he does a mean "Robot" dance!
Ok, now you're just being silly. Left handedness and attractiveness of the VP is important. Robot dancing... not so much.
I don't mind McCain so much, but I'd like to know why you think Sarah Palin is capable of running the country. I was undecided (even after "denouncing the republican party") until she showed up...
Kristen
Good question.
1. She's smart.
2. A natural born leader.
3. Young- some people seem to think McCain is not, which is more of a reason why she makes a good VP.
4. She's a Washington outsider.
5. She led a municipality for 5 years and a state government for 2.
6. She is consistently "pro-life."
7. She likes Ron Paul.
Honestly, I would be a little concerned if she became President, but knowing that the President is really a figurehead, and it is more important who the Pres. surrounds him or herself with than their own abilities, that gives me a lot of comfort.
Obama on the other hand, is... well, I'll let you know why I don't want him to be our President in the next post.
For now, why do you think Obama is capable of running the country?
I don't. I can see where the assumption came from though...I like Ron Paul the best ideally. I just don't think that Kim Jong-il is "Joe Six Pack." He'd mop the floor with her pretty hair. And I, personally, think I would be naive to base my vote on whether or not a candidate is "speaking my language" or a "Washington outsider". I also know that there are some brilliant people who disagree with me.
But just so I don't deceive anyone I will say that I am voting for Obama because I want easier health care. (Did you know that Scott and I have to pay for independent health insurance because to get it for the family through the school it was $927 A MONTH. If I could type numbers in all caps I would. $927!!!!) I also respectfully disagree with you on education. I think we should poor all the resources out into public ed. I know that may not be best over all for OUR children, but we have more than just our children to think about. There are poor children who will never get out of the public system, and what are we doing to them when we route finances away from public schools? Our children, thankfully, have parents who are more than capable and willing to teach them what they need to know. There are other reasons, like war, that I'm voting for him, and I need to be clear that I am pro-life and believe that abortion is wrong, but it seems to be one of the few, maybe only, issue that I agree with the Republicans on.
Also, Scott, the English teacher, says it is not considered OK to end a sentence with a preposition.
Yes Scott, I agree, ending sentences with prepositions is something "up with which I will not put." To quote Churchill.
On health care-
Not an expert on this, but from what I understand McCain's system is actually plausible. He'll give you a $5,000 credit to buy health insurance, yeah he'll tax corporate health benefits, but that's part of the reason our health insurance is so high (Re: Your family coverage being $927 a month through Scott's work). We have a lady that works at the bank who can get a cheaper policy individually than she could get through the bank with the bank paying 60% of the premium!! No one has an incentive to be or stay healthy. Insurance companies have captive audiences with corporations. McCain's plan will free up insurance shoppers to force insurance companies to be more competitive. McCain's plan is pretty good, he is just terrible at explaining and defending his own plan.
Obama's sounds good, but he has not said how he will pay for it [as we have seen over the past 8 years, we have to start paying for the stuff we do, whether it's a war or health care], or even how he will "work with insurance companies to lower our existing premiums"???? He will give a government mandate and will impose a "fine" to parents who do not have health insurance on their children!?! How much is it? How will he enforce it? Does this not concern you? The government getting that involved is scary to me. How long will it be before the government tells us what we can and cannot eat? Whether or not we can smoke and drink? How many kids we can have, and what sports are safe enough for us fragile dumb butts to play? How will private citizens be able to take advantage of the same health care as government officials without the people in the worst health flooding that market and causing moral hazard that will bankrupt that insurance system? Vagueness and lack of strategy like that is the stuff of pipe dreams and politicians. As I said, I'm not an expert on this stuff. These are the thoughts I have from what I've heard from the politician's own mouths, not caricatures.
Education- You and I may disagree on education in some ways, but I bet if we talked about it, we would agree much more than we disagree. Especially when it comes to how we will educate our children.
What I like about McCain is that he is for school choice and for incenting good teachers. Why should an excellent teacher like Scott be held back from making more money because some idiot down the hall got an online degree and barely passed his Praxis, can't speak in front of people, has horrible grammar and can't even spell his name, but is trying to educate our children? That guy keeps that school from excelling. Parents at least need to have a choice about where they send their kids, and good teachers need to be paid more than teachers who could care less. Instituting a voucher system would further promote competition among schools and allow the poorest among us to get a great education. Why should a poor bright kid be locked into going to the crappy school across the street when there is a great school across town? Do you know of any public schools that excel academically in the same way as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt etc? I can't think of any, but I know of private primary and secondary schools that are incredible. I want primary and secondary schools to compete for students like colleges do. That would at least be a step in the right direction.
Thanks for your comments,
Jon
Ooops, Jon. I meant to tell you that Scott said it IS ok to end a sentence with a preposition. And then he rambled something else about english to which I turned a deaf ear. Above. Over. In. About. To. From. Whatever. Sorry.
We paid about 200 dollars FOR ALL THREE OF US a month with our insurance at Barnes and Noble with a 200 dollar deductible and they paid 90 percent of our bills, yo! It was AWESOME!!! OH MY GOODNESS IT WAS SO AWESOME!!!! So you can imagine how we both threw up in our mouths a little bit when we saw the information about insurance through the school... I'm just saying that cause I don't understand why taxes make insurance to high.
When Scott changed jobs we were without insurance for several months because, obviously, we could not afford to do it through the school. We had to get physicals for our new insurane, but we didn't have insurance, so there you go. We need insurance as individuals. Not through employers. Oh my word, if anything ever happened to Scott...I never finished school. I don't get jobs that will pay for childcare much less health care and the childcare I have to take her to so that I can work to pay for her healthcare. WOAH.
Also, I see your point on education but I do disagree. You have to think about those kids that don't have the encouragement or the enviornment to excell. For many of them, school is the most positive place they have, and if that were changed they wouldn't have the parents (and now teachers) to motivate any learning at all. I read this to Scott, because we are both fans of your blogging skillz, and he wonders if the incintive for being a "good teacher" has to do with test scores. A huge problem many teachers have with school is teaching to the tests. Also, he said that most teachers leave because of discouragement over flawed system, not because of the lousy pay. I do want teachers to have better opportunities, though.
No answers here! Boy, it sure is cozy on top of this fence I live on. OH, LOOK. A preposition. :)
Well said. Your mom must be proud.
To clarify: I'm sure all your moms are proud but I was referring to JB!
Insurance (names have been changed to protect the innocent)- The reason insurance is so high at Fel Forado high school is for one of a couple reasons. The most likely reason is that the pool of people who are insured are generally unhealthy. Since the employer (in this case FHS) is required to cover everyone, Aunt Flossie, who has diabetes, high blood pressure, smokes, is obese, eats Krispy Kremes every morning for breakfast and goes to the doctor at every sniffle, costs significantly more to insure than Fcott who is young, healthy, doesn't smoke, excercises and eats right. The unhealthy people cause the healthy people to have to pay more in premiums.
The second option is that Supernintendo Smith has a buddy that sells health insurance packages to schools and he is giving him the business even though it's not the best deal out there.
There's not much we can do about the second scenario, but there are some good common sense approaches to work on the first scenario. People need to be responsible for the behavior that puts them in poor health. I realize that some people are just sick but otherwise take care of themselves. Those people should be protected from ridiculously high premiums as they currently are, but the people who are sick because they don't take care of themselves should pay the price for overeating, not excercising, and not getting the preventive health care that could keep them healthy in the long run. People MUST be held accountable for their behavior, or society will completely implode. I wish we had enough money to pay for everyone's healthcare, but we don't. It's a fact. We cannot further mortgage our children and our children's children's future because we can't shut our pie holes and stop ingesting substances that are killing us.
Obama's plan is a step in the wrong direction. It does not encourage personal responsibility, and it is impossible to pay for.
On education- How do we disagree? How do you think what I want to do would disenfranchise children of poor or uncaring parents in anyway that they are not already disenfranchised? What can the government possibly do to help kids whose parents are dead beats other than take them away from them?
I just want to give parents a choice about where they send their children to school and incent teachers to be good by holding them accountable. Yes, teaching to tests is bad, which is why we need to change the way we do education big time, like cutting the government out of that business. If getting a good education was the difference between making it and not making it, people would be more concerned about their children's education. Our entitlement society encourages people to not care about education. Again, I want people to be held accountable for their decisions, if I'm so stupid that I don't take advantage of educational opportunities for my children and that means that they will live in poverty because they can only dig ditches, I need to be held accountable for my decisions by living with the consequences. If my children are lazy and don't want to work when they get older, they (or I) must bear the consequences of that behavior. It is unfair to ask the taxpayers who work hard, teach their children well, and live below their means to bail out people who are lazy, could care less about their children, and live above their means.
In short, people should have choices about where they go to school and be held accountable for their poor decisions.
These two issues illustrate the primary difference between Republicans and Democrats. Overall, Rs want people to be held accountable for their actions (which they believe is better for society in the long run), and Ds want to rescue them from their own poor choices (which is noble, but doesn't help society in the long run, but rather bankrupts it).
Jonathan, you are right on about the Health Care issue. As many answers as Obama seems to have regarding this issue, there are more questions that arise? McCain's plan is simple and gets to the point. Again, you are exactly right about his lack of ability to explain his positions well. The other day I was talking to someone about the tax issue. I was telling them how Obama was going to repeal Bush's tax cut meaning the rate would go back up to what it was 8 years ago. Meaning no more Child Tax credit and other really good things Bush has done for Middle-Class families, basically what I was trying to tell them was that no matter how much money Obama gives back to %95 of Americans (%40 of which don't even pay income taxes) was not going to make up for the tax raise he was giving to all income tax payers. She then asked why she hadn't heard McCain say this? I replied that he has he just hasn't said it very well. Also on the tax issue, how is it that so many Americans turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the fact that what Obama is doing is Socialism. I mean he even admitted it the the plumber the other day when the guy asked him why he was going to tax his business so much. Obama's reply, "we need to spread the wealth." This is not American and it is not Capitalism. All these things make since when people pay attention to his connections. William Ayers, anti-Capitalism and America; Jeremiah Wright, anti-America and anti-middle class; ACORN, anti-Democracy and anti-small government. You put all these factors together and it makes perfect since that he would raise everyone's taxes and give the money to those who pay none. He is Rodin Hood without the dignity of admitting he is stealing! I truly feel Obama would be a horrible president for our current situation economically and with us still being in a war. I really don't understand why people would vote for a man with the lack of experience, character and understanding of what America really stands for that Obama has. One last thing...I don't think Obama is a muslim, is unpatriotic, and hates America. I just think that his view of what the direction the country should go in is not at all what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they pinned the Constitution.
Also, to Kristen, If you really liked Ron Paul so much then vote for Bob Barr the Libertarian candidate for president, or write in Ron Paul's name, but please don't vote for Obama I don't think that would be a good thing to do.
One more comment on education- Superintendents need to have authority to recognize great teachers and give them raises. Conversely they need to have more authority and freedom without government intervention to fire bad teachers or demote them. They know better who is good and who needs to find a new line of work.
Also, one more word on insurance. I want to make this clear.
The reason that group policies at work are bad (or at least not as good as individual policies) is because (in general) they encourage poor health, and encourage people and employers to accept the premiums without shopping, and creates a "moral hazard"- google it. If you are responsible to go out and get your own policy, you will shop for the best deal (like you guys did), you will have a higher deductible (on average) than a group plan, and you will be more concerned to not use your coverage than those in a group plan- you won't go to the doctor when you have a cold, and you will want to take care of yourself better because now a significant part of the cost will fall in your lap.
Jon, I understand what you're saying. I don't want to get upset about these things. It's not at all that I don't want to accept consequences for my actions but believe me when I say that if I had been given all my consequences for my poor decisions then I would literally be dead, and that's one reason why I think it's merciful to help out those who are less fortunate.
Those lazy kids are sometimes trained to be that way, not because they get "handouts" where they don't have to work, but simply because of cultural expectations. It makes me sad. I definitely don't mean that you are somehow harsh or unloving towards these people. Again, I think our life experience has been different and that's why we think differently.
You probably don't know that I come from a very sick family. My dad got brain cancer when I was young (20 years ago!) and still suffers from many side effects from that, as well as Alzheimer’s and Trigeminal Neuralgia, among other things. Can you imagine the insurance? My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer several years ago, went through radiation and chemo, and was THEN told by her insurance that they would not pay for her chemo...I know that we should be responsible for our health and that we should take preventative measures, but I also think, if we have a system set up like we do, that we should have help paying for those preventative measures. I sent Scott to the doctor last year to get tests run because he was having some mild headaches every now and then. That's how it started with my dad, who was very healthy and training to run a marathon. Scott for fine, thankfully, but we were left with huge medical bills because our insurance did not cover the tests. I make appointments for Cass or Scott when either of them get colds or have trouble pooping (yeah, I said pooping on your blog!) because I know how easily colds turn into pneumonia and how horrible colon cancer is. Why not catch it in an early stage?
So, that's how I think. It may be too much to ask, but I'd like healthcare that allows me to take my family to the doctor at any time for any reason without having to declare bankruptcy. They have these kinds of systems set up in other parts of the world, and according to the dems it works and the republicans it's horrible, and frankly I don't think that the public gets very much honest information from the media, MSNBC or FX News or from politicians so it's hard to know what to believe. So the only way I know to make decisions is to think about what would benefit the common good.
You do have some good points, and if things were different I may agree with how you want to approach education.
Oh, and me and Aunt Flossie should be BFF! She really sounds like someone I could do lunch with!
By the way, my family totally disagrees with me. So does Scott's. I heard my father-in-law refer to someone as a "Yellow Dog Democrats" and I asked him what he called Republicans and thought for a second and said "INFORMED". So there ya go!
Jonathan, re: Oct 14th comment. I am surprised at your statement that the president is a figurehead. The queen of England is a figurehead, but not the president of the US. Granted, if the Congress is hostile, the powers of the President are handicapped (as in Jimmy Carter), but as the head of the executive branch, the powers are real.Just to name two, the veto and the executive order. It us vitally important that the president pick good people to surround him (maybe someday her). No one can possible be knowledgeable on every subject that comes up. It will be impossible for either candidate to fulfill every promise that is being made, but I believe both candidates are sincere in what their goals are. I just hope the country can come together again after the election no matter who is elected. There are some very harmful things going on.
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