Petty Friday

Why am I so angry?

You know, usually I try to stick to discussion about policy questions.  I prefer to argue things with a mathematical slant because they give my opinions more weight and ultimately help find points of consensus.  But lets chuck that out the window today.  I'm a middle aged, middle class, Ohio born, Texas fed American with a manufacturing job and a solid tax burden, so why do I feel so disenfranchised with so much of what the Democratic party has to say?   In many ways, you would think I am the picture the left is painting in their middle class Utopia (except I lack the required Government dependence).  So why am I so upset 95% of what they have to say?  Lets take a sampling...

1) Voter ID Registration - The left claims to be very sensitive to the rights of the poor who somehow cannot get a government ID but are going to vote, but do not care at all that my vote could be cancelled out by a non-citizen. 

2) Health Care - The left wants to expand health insurance to all Americans.  They do not care that they need to massively raise my taxes and my insurance premiums to accomplish this task.

3) Private Finances - The left is implying impropriety or Un-American sentiment because Mitt Romney will not release his tax returns and he had a Swiss bank account.  I did see one tax return from Romney:  He paid $3 MILLION dollars in taxes and gave $3 MILLION dollars to charity and broke zero tax laws. If he is Un-American, I must be from the moon, because it is likely the sum total of my life time tax payments will not reach his tax burden from last year.  

4) Government Spending - The left has spent every last second of the last month attacking Romney as too rich, a corporate raider, and a guy who wants to take your money and give it to the rich.  The hypocrisy of this message when not one word is dedicated to the $5 TRILLION deficit the last four years, is insulting.  The left has no problem stealing from our children to live fatter today, but have a big problem with the way Romney ran HIS business and personal finances?

5) Job Creation - If the left is not attacking Romney for being too successful, they are attacking him because his company outsourced or laid off workers (in select cases) to, egad, make a profit.  We have a stagnant high unemployment rate over 8% and the worst recovery since the Great Depression and you are spending ALL of your time talking about how Romney did what EVERY OTHER American businessman has done over the last 5 years (are they all Un-American too?).

6) Fat Cats - The left constantly chirps about how money is corrupting our political system both by big donors giving heavily to candidates and by big businesses lobbying for beneficial treatment in law making.  So what is their solution to a government they claim is so corrupted by the rich?  Make it bigger.  Wait, huh, what???  You want to continue to expand the size and power of a government that you believe is so easily corruptible by the wealthy few.  This hypocrisy is of course totally beyond my comprehension.    

I am devastated by this complete disregard for my country's future.  I will cede to you that Romney is rich and he was a business man that had to make difficult choices.  Can you cede to me that our countries' economy is a disaster and our democratic leadership and media should probably say a couple of words about what to do to fix it?       

How in the hell can the left spend every waking minute talking about Romney's tax returns, gay marriage, amnesty, student loans and free contraception when we have 25 Million Americans Under-employed, a $15 Trillion National Debt, skyrocketing Health Care costs, and a $500 Billion Tax Cliff.

I will tell you how.  In each of these cases Democrats can buy votes with taxpayer money.  Our President: Want a low student loan rate on that philosophy degree? vote for me.  Want to skirt the law and skip the the head of the line to become a citizen? got you covered.  Want to be subsidized to have consequence free fornication? I'm your guy.   Did you make a horrible decision and buy a house you could not afford?  No Problem, not your fault.  Does your company need a bailout because you do not want to take a pay cut?  cash or check.

Alas, I'm just a taxpayer, you have used all of my money to buy all those other votes.  It is a shame you do not have room for guys like me on your platform.  I'm just a checkbook.  

Priorities

What are your voting priorities?

After listening to the litany of issues that have made the news cycles in recent months, I created a cheat sheet for prioritization of issues that are important to me and will help decide how I vote.

Obviously, politicians want you to feel singled out by and vote on a singular issue (good strategy, divide and conquer).  However, by prioritizing things that are important to you, you won't get sidetracked on an issue of relatively low importance or low impact just because it has an emotional appeal.  Below are the key issues I see being discussed in this campaign and my short take on each one:


Many of these issues are connected (like creating Jobs will improve housing so housing is lower on my list).  Also, I think Education is an incredibly important issue.  However, I do not believe federal government policies on education matter much compared to states and localities so it is lower on my list.

Ultimately, in my mind, the President who can focus on employment/growth and make significant improvements to our long term debt outlook (entitlement reform) will have greatly succeeded in moving us toward long term prosperity and away from the path of Europe.

Our current President has chosen to completely ignore the top 4 priorities in our nation and has made a mess of 5) Taxes 6) Energy and 7) Health Care.  I urge you all to make a similar list to help you decide what issues are the most critical to you and make sure that you are voting for the candidate that is willing to address SEVERAL of your most important issues.