Brilliant Op-Ed Crushing McCain On The Economy
My Sunday morning online scan of the New York Times turned up an awesome Op-Ed by Frank Rich titled It’s the Economic Stupidity, Stupid. It’s a scathing (er – "fucking brutal") criticism of McCain and his total lack of understanding of "the economy", how it actually works, and what he would do about it were he to be president.
While Rich takes a few cheap shots (hey – it wouldn’t be a political Op-Ed without some gratuitous things) I think it’s right on the money.
At the end, Rich makes a good argument for Michael Bloomberg as the VP Candidate. He also dismantles Carly Fiorina as a potential VP and suggests Romney would be a slightly less bad idea. I can’t imagine either Fiorina or Romney as VP’s – my mind just boggles. Bloomberg – now that’s someone I could get excited about – for EITHER party. I hope the dude is at least answering his phone when it rings.
But the real message of the Op-Ed is how out to lunch McCain is on the economy. Taken at face value, it’s terrifying. Of course, it’s an Op-Ed so you can’t take it at face value, but it’s politics so that’s what you get.
Time to go for a run and think about birds, the ocean, and happy thoughts. I’ll drink some Pixie Maté first to fuel me while giving thanks to my latest 50 by 50 Marathon sponsor.
I find it interesting that those who decry "big government" always like to use Social Security and Medicare as their targets. In reality, those are the only two programs that are supported by specific tax revenue and have been running a surplus for decades. Where the government has been extremely irresponsible is that this surplus has been spent on other things, such as defense, wars, various pork and tax cuts for the wealthy. Far from taking from the rich and giving to the poor, we have actually been doing the opposite (remember that social security taxes are only on the first $102k of income). The surplus wasn't saved or invested, it was spent. If a corporation did the same thing with its pension fund money, the CEO and CFO would be in federal prison. The panic in Washington now is that the surplus is going to run out and we may have to, God forbid, not steal from the social security tax stream any more.
Doesn't it strike you as absurd that our defense budget is 40% of the whole world's military spending? That doesn't even include the war in Iraq and Afghanistan (an 8-year war funded out of "emergency" appropriations and debt), or the war on terror. Why should a country with so many guns per capita live in so much fear of attack all the time? I'm a liberal who actually likes the Second Amendment. We should have a civilian defense force like the Swiss. Every adult should be trained to use an automatic weapon and we can slash our defense spending by 80%. That's the kind of self reliance I'd like to see.
Unfortunately, neither candidate seems to have much comprehension about what it takes to run an economy. It's pretty frightening that one of these guys will be president. Time to move more money offshort…
Oh, and Sean, you're an idiot. Why not actually look at some of the writing of Neocons, you might be surprised instead of reading other people's politically driven extrapolations. The idea that most of them are associated with Likud and are religiously xenophobic is one of the biggest pieces of BS I have heard in a while. I'd say start with World War IV – it gives a good run down of basic neocon theory and the war on terror and the entrenched interests that have attacked neoconservatism over the last 8 years. By the way, I happen to consider my foreign policy views VERY neoconish – run for the hills everyone! Bwahahhahahahahaha!!!!! I have been known to drink blood at the rise of the first moon…
speaking of taxes has anyone heard this.
"Lawmakers are quietly talking about raising fuel taxes by ten cents," by a dime, "from the current 18.4 cents a gallon on gasoline and 24.3 cents on diesel." The new tax would be 28.4 cents on a gallon of gas, and 34.3 cents on a gallon of diesel.
The economy isn't the strong point for either of these candidates… and we're in a bit of a bind, here.
But we were at the end of Bush 1 and Clinton's 8 years as well, and we swapped back and forth between parties each time. That would mean it's the Dems chance to try to screw things up.
both mccain and obama are big government nightmares. there are two ways they can tax you: (1) direct tax; (2) expansion of money supply, which creates greater debt and inflation. the dumbocrats use method #1, the rethuglicans use method #2. eliminating the fraudulent federal reserve is where the real solution starts. if the american people want real change, they have to start by telling the 2 party system to f off, and start voting for parties that believe in REAL capitalism — like the constitution party and hte libertarian party. that's our only hope of overthrowing the banking, military, congressional, executive, pharmaceutical, and media nightmare that has in reality imprisoned us.
krish, i haven't seen obama lay out a plan for anything. he keeps talking about 'change' and 'hope' but what is he going to do specifically?