We Never Learn…

Sometimes I have to wonder to myself where I belong.  I’ve have considered myself a conservative for quite some time now in my young adult life.  I’ve read so many different takes on what conservatism means and conservative philosophy.  The way I see it we believe in maximizing an individuals freedom within the boundaries of the constitution.  Without that very basic principle our country ceases to exist because there is nothing that goes beyond the foundational document of our great country.

I’m not going to go into all of the principles right now.  I will at some point, but right now I’m wondering if I even have a political party anymore.  I used to feel the republican party best identified with my ideas of America.  Now, I’m not so sure.  If I would have pulled a liberal and gone completely on emotion after John McCain won my home state of Florida I may have quit the party right then and there.  I’ll be honest at one point I said I would support John McCain out of fear of Hillary, but should it factor into my decision that I fear a McCain presidency as well?  John McCain represents almost literally nothing about conservatism.  Nearly every single liberal newspaper has endorsed him.  That doesn’t make me too confident in his conservative principles.  I keep hearing all over the news the question of “How does McCain win over conservatives?” and frankly if that doesn’t ring any bells with McCain supporters whom claim to be conservative then I don’t know what will to be honest. 

I’m normally an eternal optimist(as most conservatives are) and I can find the good in any republican candidate.  Any republican candidate including John McCain.  I agree with him about the war.  I agree with him about spending(although I doubt he really gets where the spending needs to be cut).  I also agree with him for the most part about his pro life voting record(even though he supports embryonic stem cell research).  However, it ends about right there.

The Senator votes against two vital tax cuts when our economy was hurting and uses liberal rhetoric to justify his votes.  He even teamed with senators Tom Daschle, Russ Feingold, and Jay Rockefeller to vote on amendments that would undermine the tax cuts. Did you get that?  He did all of this when our economy desperately needed these tax cuts.  I’m supposed to trust his judgment?  I’m supposed to believe he’s a conservative?  Tax cuts are more than just an economically intelligent approach.  It’s a moral good.  Letting people keep more of their money.  You are in a sense controlling their life when you have the power to judge whether their budget goes up or down.  How a “conservative” could vote against these cuts I do not know. 

He teamed with Ted Kennedy to co-sponsor a bill intended to seal the border.  However, this bill would have provided amnesty for millions upon millions of illegal immigration.  Conservatives are for the rule of law.  Conservatives are for their country having tight borders.  Conservatives are for the fairness of those who wish to play by the rules and get in line.  We don’t give those amnesty and say it’s not because we try to make them “pay a fine” and learn English.  They still get to stay here the whole time.  How do we enforce these laws?  The majority of people rejected this bill and he still tried to pass it quickly through the senate with as little debate as possible.   Is that the sign of a statesmen?  The bill wasn’t conservative in the first place, but then pushing it on an overwhelming majority of people that reject it?  Then on top of that he voted for Arlen Specter’s amendment to kill the border fence.  That doesn’t fall in line with common sense conservative views.

Finally what I’m going to mention in my short list verses the really, really long list of awful anti-conservative acts by Senator John McCain is the Stewardship act co-sponsored by Joe Lieberman.  This further shows me he needs to read a book on economics and quickly.  This is one of the most massive bills for government intervention into the private sector that I have seen.  This would be a disaster for the American economy.  According to the EIA phase 1 of this plan would increase gasoline prices by 9 percent in 2010 and 19 percent in 2025; natural-gas prices in the industrial and electric-power sectors by 21 percent in 2010 and 58 percent in 2025; and electricity prices by 35 percent in 2025.  As this plan was originally proposed in 2003 phase 1 would reduce GDP by $760 billion during 2004-2025.  It would also produce emission caps on major industries.  This would further change US policy towards the private sector.  Never before has the government regulated the emissions of carbon content of fuels or emissions.  Coal, oil, and natural gas provide America with over 80% of it’s energy and all are byproducts of carbon dioxide.  This will open the door to more government regulation and intervention into how we conduct business in this country.  It will also drive many jobs offshore to countries that do not have these kinds of standards.  This really isn’t rocket science, but once again McCain fails to understand some very easy to understand economic principle.  This kind of massive expansion in regulation is far from conservative principle.

So you’re probably wondering why I’m writing this piece.  I’m writing it because it seems that the republican nomination is headed towards John McCain.  I have shown a few reasons as to why John McCain is not, in my opinion, a conservative.  Is this the direction the republican party wishes to go?  Do we give up principles in order to work with liberals and appease the center?  If that’s the way we are going as a party then please drop me off at the next stop.  Hopefully in the future a conservative leader will rise up in the republican party, but it’s becoming more apparent that there isn’t enough room on this wagon for any conservatives.

Backing Mitt Romney(Part 5)…

Ah, where to go next in discussing Mitt Romney’s record and stances?  Oh yeah!  Tort reform and school choice.  Two issues that are important, but usually go by the way side in elective politics.  Two issues that are difficult for a politician to take on and to be honest usually that’s our fault.  This is a message that does not get communicated enough.  We need to apply conservative principles to these two issues and I’m going to talk about Mitt Romney’s stance in these areas. 

Governor Romney is on record supporting charter schools, school vouchers, and home schooling.  He really did focus more towards charter schools during his tenure as Governor.  He pushed to eliminate a state cap on the number of charter schools(why would there be a cap on this sort of thing in the first place?  Oh yeah it’s Massachusetts) and successfully vetoed a delay on the opening of new charter schools in the state.  Good he’s leaning towards more private education, but this is just a very small step in the direction we need to go.   Acknowledging that fact it was probably more wise of him to spend political capital on more attainable goals.  However, we need to go much further than these schools that are still publicly funded.  Where I disagree with Romney is as a Governor he has warmed up more to the department of education.  Before he became Governor he believed it needed to be abolished.  Alas, such is the total republican party flip it seems once they reach the legislative or executive levels of the government. 

 Romney has always been a strong proponent of tort reform.  He supported capping personal injury claims in automobile related cases and advocated for overhauling the state’s ridiculous malpractice system.  Massachusetts is known for having some of the highest malpractice insurance rates in the country.  Translation: Doctors are leaving the state.  I promise you that’s not a good thing although I don’t see liberals complaining about THEIR insurance rates.  Figures.  I can imagine this was a thorn in the side of the liberals in that state.  In 2006 Governor Romney proposed specific tort reforms such as reducing lawyer fees from 25% for verdicts over $500,000 to 15% for verdicts over $600,000.  Ah, this takes incentive down to go to court over everything.  Usually people go to court based on bad information given to them by attorneys.  He also proposed to tighten the states tribunal system so that only the most deserving malpractice cases go to trial.  I will freely admit that is a bit too open for interpretation for me personally, but the idea is right.  One proposal of his I do like very much is to reduce lawsuits by allowing doctors to disclose medical errors without fear of admissibility in court.  Folks, it’s time we started getting in the corners of our doctors in this country.  They are people and they make mistakes just like everyone else.  We need to give them more freedom in helping their patients without fear of malpractice lawsuits(you listening John Edwards?).  We need to come back to the table and be reasonable.  Doctors by vast majority are compassionate people that want to help their fellow man.  I believe some of Governor Romney’s tort reform proposals would go a long way in achieving a better doctor-patient relationship. 

The Flip-Flopper?

Recently I’ve seen a gain in the McCainiacs attack on Romney(rightfully so it’s down to these two for the republican nod) about his supposed “flip-flopping”. Some of it is valid I must admit. However, as I go on and learn in politics that many politicians seem switch or adjust their positions. This is true even amongst men of conviction such as…John McCain?

Yes, it’s true. Even John McCain himself has flip-flopped on a few issues. I have to believe John McCain has forgotten this fact or else has chosen to forget considering he has attacked Romney on flip-flopping. However, I have no problem refreshing his memory as well as educating some McCain supporters.

First of all I start with the obvious. The Roe v Wade comments. He said he would not support the overturn of Roe v Wade on the ground that “women in America would be forced to undergo illegal and dangerous operations.” Well if that were his firm stance then I’d have to respect that even though I disagree. However he then said on the campaign trail in 2006 “but I do believe that it’s very likely or possible that the Supreme Court should — could overturn Roe v. Wade, which would then return these decisions to the states, which I support” so now it’s a state decision? Wouldn’t that open up the possibilities of women undergoing illegal and dangerous operations? And if you believe it’s a matter of states rights then what makes it legal or illegal on a federal level if Roe v Wade is repealed anyways? I have no problem with the change, but it is in fact a flip-flop.

Another obvious one is the Bush tax cuts. He opposed them in 2001 and 2003 on the grounds of liberal talking points. He goes on to say “I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief.” He not only voted against them, but worked with liberals on amendments designed to undermine the cuts. He co-sponsored an amendment with Tom Daschle to limit tax reduction in the top tax bracket to one percentage point. He also voted for an amendment sponsored by Senator John D. Rockefeller to prohibit a reduction in the top tax rate until Congress enacted legislation to provide a prescription drug benefit. However, now he says he was against those tax cuts because of improper spending cuts yet wishes to make the tax cuts permanent. Wow, with the rhetoric he used at the time I guess he’s ok with going against his “good conscience” now? Though I’m glad he’s on board now. Sincerely.

Speaking of good conscience why is McCain all of a sudden now chums with Sam and Charles Wyly? Didn’t he refer to their actions as illegal and to them as prairie carnivores? Didn’t he lash out at them publicly in 2000? Why is he now reaching out for their support? He called for them to keep their “dirty money” out of politics. Now he just calls to keep their ”dirty money”. I know, I know he gave the money back, but that was only after they found out there was a federal inquiry into both of them. Before that he attended a fundraiser co-hosted by the brothers. Fact is he warmed up to these brothers at least a month before they found out about the inquiry despite the accusations made by McCain himself in 2000. I’m not trying to imply corruption by McCain. Personally, I don’t believe he is a corrupt man. However, the self-righteousness has to stop. No one in politics is above this sort of thing.

Obviously he supported the awful legislation of McCain-Fiengold campaign finance reform. It appears, however, that he is unwilling to run on that part of his record when running for President. In 2006, he basically abandoned the issue all together even though the new bill was largely identical to the one proposed in 2003. Now if he had a change of heart I’m glad, but it’s still a flip-flop considering how he championed this issue for years.

There are other somewhat multiple stances such as: the confederate flag; gay marriage; saying the war in Iraq would be easy at first then saying he knew it would be tough and hard; not embracing Kissinger in 2000 and now embracing him etc etc etc. These all are at the very least debatable and thought provoking in regards to McCain’s stances. None of these are a crime. Nor do they make McCain a bad man or a bad candidate(in my opinion his policies make him a bad candidate overall). Again I’m not trying to imply that McCain is somehow corrupt by any of this. I’m not indicting him on a personal basis. If you want him to be President that’s your right and I respect that, but don’t come to me about Romney’s “flip-flops”. McCain is no better than any other politician in this case(other than John Kerry whom literally changed his mind depending on the crowd he was addressing at that time). All I ask is for the self-righteousness on this issue to stop because no politician is innocent of flipping and on that criteria none of these guys are “men of conviction”. All politicians evolve or even sometimes change their positions over time.

Backing Mitt Romney(Part 4)…

I am writing this installment of my “Backing Mitt Romney” series in regards to regulation.  Regulation is a big pet peeve of mine as it should be any conservative.  Regulation really halts economic growth.  We have somewhere from 60 to 80,000 pages of regulations on the free market today.  As I’ve always said the free market really is just a shell of what it was 80 years ago.  I’m looking for a candidate that will be AGAINST regulations as they come through the federal government.  Not one that sees it and says “hmm that’s a good idea” like some “other” candidates have proposed.  It’s long overdue to finally start repealing many of these regulations. 

Mitt Romney’s record on regulation in Massachusetts is good.  It’s not as successful being that it’s Massachusetts legislature, but his proposals were pretty good.  Anyone else notice a trend here?  See when I first heard of Mitt Romney a year ago I immediately dropped him from consideration because he was the governor of a state where I can’t stand it’s legislature.  However it’s become more and more apparent that he was really at odds quite often with the likes of the Ted Kennedy’s and John Kerry’s.  For that I have to praise him.  He did fight for republican and conservative issues.  That’s worth commending.

Now onto his record.  First of all he supports drilling in ANWR.  Thank you!!  Anyone listening?  To get energy independent we are going to have to drill in our own land.  That’s just factual.  His efforts on the state level were to better improve the conditions for a constitutional relationship between government and free enterprise.  As conservatives we have to support these kinds of individuals.  He vetoed an increase in minimum wage from 6.25 to 8 dollars.  He compromised on a .25 cent raise while saying that a raise in minimum wage causes the loss of jobs.  Minimum wage is another form of artificial pricing.  Wages are a cost to do business. 

On other measures he vetoed a bill limiting the ability of out-of-state wineries to ship directly to Massachusetts consumers, calling the legislation “anti-consumer” and I have to agree.  That also interferes with those business’, but more-so with the consumer.  He supported and signed a bill that offered a less turbulent path through the state’s burdened permitting process for new business.  Translation: less red tape.  He proposed the easing of price regulations on retailers.  This is that artificial pricing I was talking about.  Very impressive for him to stand up this because this is not usually politically viable or the politically correct thing to do.  However, it’s the RIGHT thing to do not only to help business, but to help the consumer as well.

He also called for the privatization of Massachusetts Medical School.  He proposed measures to eliminate civil service protection for all municipal workers except police and firefighters and exempt low-cost public construction jobs from the state’s wage law.  This is something I really like about Mitt Romney.  He understands prices and the damage that price control does and showed it in regards to exempting construction from the state’s wage law. Mitt Romney pushed to deregulate Massachusetts’ auto insurance industry. Massachusetts is the only state in which the government mandates maximum insurance rates and requires insurers to accept every applicant.  Can anyone say communism?  Mitt was right to fight this and I applaud him for his stance.  Good Job, Mitt!

That isn’t to say that Mitt has no flaws.  I wish to be objective and I realize that no candidate is 100% what I want in a conservative or republican.  While Romney did not impose this position, he does support indexing the minimum wage to inflation.  Eeeek, Mitt.  Have to disagree there.  He also signed into law banning smoking in the workplace INCLUDING bars and restaurants.  Can anyone say…Huckabee?  However, at least this was state law and I don’t believe he would push this federally.  Either way it’s an infringement on the rights of the business owners to make these decisions. 

Overall taking the bad with the good I think Mitt Romney’s record on regulation is impressive.  He does push for many conservative principles in regards to the relation between government and the free market.  I feel he understands business very well as well as understands basic economics(I feel stupid even saying that considering how much more he’s achieved than I might ever accomplish in a lifetime).  Mitt Romney is an excellent choice for economic reasons, but also understanding in large where the line is drawn between business and government regulation.  This just strengthens my view of how he would govern as President. It’s becoming more and more clear to me that he very much favors the businessman and individual in the private sector over government control.  The next installment will be about School Choice and Tort Reform all in one. 

Backing Mitt Romney(Part 3)…

I want to start off by saying No, Mitt Romney is not perfect by any means.  Frankly I think Fred was VERY close to what I’ve wanted in a candidate for a long time and now with Fred gone I am forced to go with my number two candidate.  That happens to be Mitt Romney if you couldn’t tell already.  I actually feel he’s very, very intelligent.  Very knowledgeable on most of the issues.  As I’ve said before I think all of the republican candidates left viable would be fine on foreign policy so I turn to domestic and Mitt seems the best to me.  I want to continue this series talking about his views on Free Trade and Entitlement reform. 

I’ll be honest.  His record on Free Trade is scarce considering he was a governor.  However his talking points are very supportive of the concept of Free Trade.  A concept I happen to agree with very much.  We need a President, in my opinion, that understands the relationship between a strong, growing economy and free trade.  In a speech in 2005 Romney encouraged Corporations to trade aboard rather than fall towards protectionism.  Romney was quoted as saying “We must move ahead in technology and patents. I don’t like losing any jobs but we’ll see new opportunities created selling products there. We’ll have a net increase in economic activity, just as we did with free trade. It’s tempting to want to protect our markets and stay closed. But at some point it all comes crashing down and you’re hopelessly left behind. Then you are Russia.”  I know many do not like the CAFTA decision.  They see some jobs leave because of it and it becomes a panic.  However, to counter China’s growing demand it was necessary to open these trade agreements especially in our own backyard.  He was quoted as saying “It does make me chuckle, when you see Congress struggling about whether we should open our trade with Central America. When Asia is looming off the horizon, we’re worried about El Salvador and Guatemala?”  China is a much bigger threat and I believe Romney understands it and knows how to battle them economically.

Entitlement reform is something that excites me when candidates talk boldly about it.  It’s something that needs to happen and happen now.  It’s an albatross on our country and of course liberals wish to expand these ridiculous programs.  BRILLIANT!  Anyways, now on to Mitt Romney’s record.  Romney helped push state legislation to not only by increasing the number of hours required to work in order to receive welfare, but also placed a 5 year limit on receiving benefits.  I LOVE this kind of thinking.  Romney also to the dismay of liberals successfully pushed for medicaid recipients to pay for some of the services.  He also successfully pushed for workers to pay 25% of their health-care costs which was up from 15%. 

As far as social security goes he has not embraced any known plan yet.  Personally, I think the Galveston plan is wonderful.  How do I know this?  The government rejects and will not permit it, anymore after 1983.  However, Romney refuses to raise social security taxes.  He also supports personal accounts and reducing the growth rate of future benefits.  Truly I feel if anyone can look at this problem and fix it in a practical manner that Mitt can based on his knowledge of these types of issues.  However, I would like to see more talk about this very important subject.

Now we get into an issue which Romney and I differ a little bit on, but I understand in part about why he had to go the route he had to go.  This, of course, is his health care ideas.  He has received much scorn for this from republicans and probably rightly so.  However, we have to consider the fact that he was working with a massively northeastern liberal legislature(which he has been pretty decently successful with in pushing right wing values) and the fact that he was also facing a Bush threat to cut off $385 million per year in federal Medicaid funds unless the state reduced the number of uninsured people. 

He does deserve credit for attempting under these conditions to move a bad system more towards the free market.  Many of the health-care problems are because of federal law in which Romney’s hands are obviously tied.  He proposed a plan that encourages individual-owned health insurance and that would bypass some of the unfairness in the federal tax code(the tax code impedes individual ownership of health insurance).  Frankly it’s not a plan I feel he should brag about, but maybe brag about any of the actual gains he made under those conditions.  In contrast to subsidizing hospitals he chose to subsidize individuals in the way of an assistance program.  I really dislike programs in general, but this in a way seems to move toward encouraging private ownership of health insurance instead of just giving the hospitals money.  Romney’s original proposal offered the individual the option of forgoing insurance and posting a bond in an interest-bearing account.  This is more the direction we want to go, but the liberal legislation shot it down.  This alone tells me he’s not in any kind of favor of universal health-care and I was harsh on him at first hearing about this plan not taking into account what kind of legislation and pressure from the Bush administration he was dealing with so I have to credit him at least that much. 

The health plan that did come to pass certainly is not the total direction we want to move toward that’s for certain.  However, judged by earlier proposals that were shot down I have to believe he truly is for free market health-care and individual ownership of health insurance.  That being said he needs to stop bragging about that plan in Massachusetts in my opinion.  However, thanks to research it’s not nearly as much of an issue for me anymore in supporting Mitt Romney.  Some of Romney’s ideas for reform(especially on welfare) are fairly exciting.  I like that he has that mindset.  However, I wish he would get on the ball with tax reform and more-so social security reform.  That being said he does lean in the right position on most of these issues and that is encouraging for me in a candidate.  The next installment will be about regulation.  Another touchy issue with me.

I Am Pro Choice…

Yes, it’s true.  I figured on this day being the anniversary of Roe V Wade that I would announce how pro choice I am.  I mean it’s time we conservatives set the standard on what pro choice really means anyway.  For the longest time it’s been the liberals who hold that claim, yet I think it’s undeniable that conservatives are the fighters for choice for a free people.  I intend to show everyone how.

So yes, I am in fact pro choice.  I believe in the right for a person to choose to speak freely however they wish.  Yet we are faced with liberals whom constantly cry political correctness to everyone whom says something that might be offensive to someone, somewhere in the galaxy.  As we all know we must control what we say because others just can’t possibly live their lives without knowing that we are punished for the offensive things we say to each other.  That being said I also believe in the person choosing whether or not they wish to own a gun.  This is, after-all, a basic God-given right.  I don’t own a gun myself, but will never infringe on my neighbor’s right to own anything gun he wants.  I don’t even care if he owns more than one.  Yet, here we are today.  Some psycho blows away 30 people and EVERYONE has to have their basic rights taken away by liberals. I mean hell we all know the few that actually break the law certainly represent the majority of law abiding citizens in this country.  Who can argue with that logic?

I also believe in a person’s right to choose their sexual preference.  Honestly I do not care with whom you choose to have those kinds of relations.  That’s no one else’s business(and please let us keep it that way).  To further that point I do not care how you choose to spend your free time.  That is your privacy right guarded by our constitution.  Frankly we don’t even need a document to tell us that we have these kinds of rights.  They are given to us by God.  Our founders just verified that when creating this wonderful country.  Like these wonderful people I am a believer in self government which involves all kinds of choices that are neither my business nor anyone else’s.  However, leave it to liberal politicians that create price controls, regulations, mandates, higher taxes in the name of “compassion” because we are all too stu-stu-stu-stoopud to make these decisions ourselves.

However, I do have a problem with people that feel it’s their choice whether or not to end an innocent child’s life when that child can’t even so much as speak for itself.  We talk about being good stewards of the land and that is important, but let us not forget that we are to be good stewards of future generations as well.  We are blessed with that responsibility.  It’s not being pro-choice vs pro-life.  It’s about being pro-convenience or pro-irresponsibility.  That’s a sad way to choose which innocent has to die and which innocent gets a chance at life. Hell making that choice in any situation is sad.  Frankly I’m saddened I even have to put it in those terms, but it’s true.  What might even be worse is that our government “by staying neutral” favors that value(and yes it’s a value) by helping women(mostly young) proceed with this process.

I won’t even get into how bad the Roe v Wade law actually was far as the constitution is concerned.  As relevant as that is I’m talking about innocent human life.  I know, I know I hear all of the arguments about how it’s only a “blob” or a “fetus” and not really a child.  Let’s lower ourselves down to that basis of argument for just a second.  So what if it is?  We ABSOLUTELY know WHAT it is developing into.  It is going to be a human baby every single time.  It’s not going to be a unicorn or a model T Ford.  You are stopping the life and growth of an innocent child.  YOUR innocent child.  It’s rather hypocritical to worry about having control over your own body when you don’t even hold the same standard for the body growing inside of you.  As I have said before I AM pro-choice.  I’ve just so happen to have chosen innocent life over the “alternative”.

My Reasons for Not Voting McCain…

I’ve written four blogs on Governor Mike Huckabee.  I will probably write more as the primaries wage on.  However, I feel the need to touch on John McCain’s record as well as few conservative testimony’s about McCain in the senate.  It’s not a very pretty sight.  This pains in me in a way because I do have good friends that support John, but I’m sorry I have to speak my mind about someone I consider a moderate republican at best.

This is not a personal indictment against The Senator.  I’ve never met him and I’m certain he and I could get along personally.  A lot of people seem to like him so I imagine he’s a fun personality.  However, while this is important a good personality does not make a good President.  I will concede that John is very good on spending. That being said I don’t know how much John is into entitlement reform which is the bulk of our overspending.  Earmarks are just a drop in the bucket and good for him that he opposes him, but that’s barely a start.  He is also very good about the war on terror although him taking credit for the surge is getting a little old.  You can brag about questioning the President in a time of war all you want, but you weren’t in the drivers seat.

First of all John’s record on economic issues is troubling.  As we all know he opposed the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003.  It’s not even that he just opposed them, but as to HOW he apposed them.  He used liberal talking points and class warfare.  Not to mention inaccurate class warfare.  Rick Santorum(former conservative republican senator) says the tax cuts would have been even larger had John McCain gotten on board.  This is very, very troubling to me and knowing this would make it more difficult for me to vote for him in the general should he win the nod.  He was wrong then and thankfully he did not get his way completely. 

Also in regards to the economy he seems to me almost anti-big business.  He seems to take the narrow road of slightly demonizing “big oil profits” and believes big oil should re-invest in alternate sources of energy.  I’m sure many read that and say “yes, Cory that makes perfect sense” and if big oil chooses to do that I would certainly agree.  However, what business is it of the government?  Well, at least he’s consistent I guess because he did vote to ban drilling in ANWR.   He does not have a very good record on energy independence.  In fact he has about a 17% voting record on energy independence by CAF.  So it makes it that much more interesting to me when he says “We have got to achieve energy independence.”  Well, John I think we all agree with that, however you don’t seem to want to follow through.  At a recent debate he said something that concerned me deeply.  About some jobs that have gone overseas he said “we are responsible” for those jobs as to imply that government should replace those jobs.  Excuse me?  Do we want to open THAT door?  So anytime someone loses a job it needs to be replaced? This is the structure of a free market economy.  Jobs are lost as technology and efficiency grows and with new responsibilities by private business new jobs are created.  It’s cyclical and no amount of government intervention will change that fact.  It will actually make it worse and tougher for those new jobs to come about in a timely manner.

Obviously he’s been very, very poor on illegal immigration.  He is rated an 18% voting record by the US Border Control which indicates an open border stance.  Not only did he help author and support the disaster known as Kennedy-McCain, but he kept pushing down the throats of the American people after they overwhelmingly rejected it.  He says “the reason the American people reject the bill is because they do not trust government anymore” and while that may be true we don’t trust government anymore you are absolutely wrong about that being the reason the American people rejected it.  We reject it because it’s a bad bill.  It’s as simple as that and I don’t know why that’s so hard to understand.  He votes YES on allowing illegal immigrants to participate in social security and voted YES on giving guest workers a path to citizenship.  He voted YES on limited welfare to illegal immigrants.  He also said he’d have to “seriously consider” changing the constitution to allow immigrants to run for President.

Let’s not forget McCain’s assault on political free speech.  I don’t mean to sound that it was intentional.  Once again I don’t know because I don’t know McCain personally.  However when he says “I’d rather have clean government than free speech” I get a little concerned.  Frankly I don’t see how one is possible without the other.  The McCain-Feingold bill obviously was a possibly unintentional attack on political free speech. This, of course, includes a 60 day restriction on political free speech.  It also serves incumbents who are usually more well known than their opponents by restricting the quantity, regulating the content and timing of political speech.  Let’s not forget that this thing was a complete failure as it was passed in 2003 and more money than ever was spent in elections in 2004. 

It seems McCain has also fallen into the typical liberal global warming crowd with the McCain-Lieberman stewardship act.  Ah, more government intervention.  Definitely sounds like conservatism to me.  He also said he wanted to sign the Kyoto protocol.  Let’s forget what kind of damage for a second this would do to our economy.  Here’s a look at what it would do in this article http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/lewis200406160854.asp I guess this also goes with his economic record as well.  Frankly, I don’t believe personally that McCain knows a whole lot about economics. 

I haven’t even gone over another majority of the list of awful legislation either sponsored of co-sponsored by McCain such as McCain-Kennedy-Edwards(the supposed patients bill of rights which trial lawyers everywhere are crying tears of joy).  Also  McCain with the re-importation of drugs which is bad for pharmaceutical research and consumer protection.  I could also go into the gang of 14 disaster during appointment of judges selected by our President.  The list goes on and on and well you get the point.

He’s currently running on his record as a war hero.  Good.  That’s good politics I can’t blame him for that.  God Bless him for serving.  God Bless him for his sacrifice.  However, that doesn’t mean I feel he could make a good President.  Tom Coborn has recently endorsed John McCain.  Tom is a very respectable conservative and he has his right to endorse whom he wants, however I’m going to have to disagree with him on this one.  Rick Santorum says No.  George Allen says No.  Robert Bork says No.  Jim DeMint says No.  Pat Toomey says No.  Tom Delay says he may not even be able to vote for McCain in the general should he win the nod.  The vast majority of conservative talk radio says No to McCain.  I also say No to McCain. 

Backing Mitt Romney(Part 2)…

This is the second installment as to why I back Mitt Romney.  I talked about taxes in part 1 and while he doesn’t excite me as far as tax reform goes I do like his general overall stance on tax cuts.  However, now I would like to talk about spending.  People like to include the two issues together and that’s a mistake.  Taxing and spending, while in the same category, are two different things.  Mitt Romney has a considerably nice overall record on spending.

The average spending increase in Romney’s four years increased annually by 2.22% which is very solid considering the liberal legislature.  This was below the population plus inflation benchmark of 3%.  He came into 2003 halfway into the fiscal year and forced large spending cuts.  Again this was against the very liberal legislature.  He faced a 650 million dollar deficit that was inherited from the previous administration and he was given unilateral power to make budget cuts.  He made them to the tune of 343 million in cuts his first year alone.  As this continued on through 2004 he continued to cut “nearly every part of state government.”

Mitt Romney brought surpluses flowing into the state coffers.  The way Mitt Romney tried to cut down on government spending by streamlining many duplicate and wasteful elements of the state government.  Some of his plans included: plans to overhaul the wasteful Boston Municipal Court and close underused courthouses, merge the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority with the Highway Department, decentralize the management of the University of Massachusetts, streamline the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission, and phase out the obsolete Worcester State Hospital where employees outnumber patients almost 3 to 1.

On top of all of this he consolidated the social service and public health bureaucracy.  He also restructured the Metropolitan District Commission.  Romney then eliminated half of the states press positions saving over a million dollars of state revenue.  To me this is also very impressive he made 425 million dollars worth of cuts in 2006 taking aim at local earmarks instead of allowing the state to dip into it’s 1.2 billion dollar rainy day fund.  Sounds like exactly the opposite of what the federal government does now when it drys up social security funds.  To me this is a very impressive fiscal record considering the absolute liberal legislature he had to work(more like fight) with on a day to day basis.  He seems to understand the direction we need to go as far as spending is concerned.  The next installment will be about his ideas on Free Trade and entitlement reform.

Charlie Wilson’s War Was Really America’s War

This is a great read by Michael Johns.  Michael Johns is a Deptford, New Jersey-based health care executive and former White House speechwriter and Heritage Foundation policy analyst.  Enjoy!

If there exists one visional depiction of the Cold War’s end, it is still a Eurocentric one, November 9, 1989, the day East Berliners joined with those of the city’s West in celebration of the Berlin Wall’s demise. Three weeks earlier, on October 19, 1989, Stalinist East German dictator Erich Honecker, facing mass internal opposition, was forced from power when the Kremlin, overwhelmed with comparable resistance on many fronts, for the first time refused to provide the East German dictatorship with the political or military cover it had come to expect in its Cold War defense of the regime’s totalitarian reign over the East German people. Many East Germans began fleeing the nation without resistance into Czechoslovakia, which itself soon underwent its own liberating, anti-communist and now famous “Velvet Revolution.”

At some point during the day of November 9, 1989, a public affairs aide to Honecker’s successor, holding the almost hysterically superannuated title of “Minister of Propaganda,” was predictably asked when East Germans could begin leaving the country in other ways, including to West Germany through the Wall’s crossing points. “As far as I know, effective immediately, right now,” came the Minister’s response. With that reply ended the predominant physical symbol representing the separation of, and conflict between, freedom and totalitarianism–the very essence of the Cold War. Hammers were taken to that Wall over a series of days and nights, celebrations convened, and, importantly, not one East German stood to defend that beacon of isolation, brutality, and autocracy. East met West, freedom prevailed, the Cold War was won.

It’s a tidy, inspiring, important, and truthful series of events. But it does not even closely tell the full, vastly more complex story of the West’s Cold War’s victory, which was a truly global conflict, not just a European one. During the Wall’s 28-year existence, some 125 brave East Germans were killed trying to leap or otherwise cross the Wall to freedom in the West. Yet, the Cold War took many more than 125 lives; in the name of its perverse, unnatural ideology of governmental control and manipulation of man, communism itself took the lives of some 100 million people during the 20th century, and most of those lives were not lost in Europe. And while two anti-communist U.S. Presidents wisely chose the Wall to highlight the stakes in the epic Cold War conflict, and the military strength of NATO almost certainly held the Soviets from a potentially apocalyptic, expansionist conflict with Western Europe, it is a probable thesis that the most important initiatives to end the Cold War were actually fought and won outside of Europe, and–let there be no mistake–they were American-led.

Somewhat disturbingly, this has not been a story widely told or broadly understood since the West’s victory in the Cold War. Nor, when it has been told, has it been told particularly well.

Encouragingly, such an effort partially emerges in Universal Pictures’ recently-released film, Charlie Wilson’s War, based on real events and a book of the same name by former CBS foreign correspondent George Crile. In its effort to tell a hugely serious story, it predictably includes enough comedic relief for mass appeal. But it is the thesis of this film–that there exists an undeniable correlation between the ultimate victory of the United States-supported resistance in Afghanistan, known as the mujahideen, in their war against the Soviet Union’s invasion and occupation of Afghanistan–that makes this film a hugely important leap in greater understanding of the truth behind the late 20th century American-led effort, under Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, to win the Cold War, liberate millions, and usher in the great hope of peace and freedom that exists in our current post-Cold War world.

It may now be fading from the memory of many Americans, but looking at the world in January 1981, when the Reagan Presidency began, it would be a laughable premise to suggest that the West was actually winning the Cold War. In fact, during Carter’s Presidency, over a dozen nations fell into the Soviet orbit, sometimes–as was the case in Iran and Nicaragua–at Carter’s unwitting behest as he withdrew critical U.S. support from strong American allies under the auspices of these governments’ human rights violations, only to see worse violations emerge, as was the case in the emergence of the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, both of whom also fell quickly into the Soviet orbit.

Importantly, however, as Reagan astutely recognized, in nearly all of these Soviet-supported totalitarian states that comprised the Soviet Union’s global sphere of influence, spanning through Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, there was almost nowhere that these totalitarian regimes were not also facing internal opposition from the people they were suppressing. Charlie Wilson’s War tells the story of one of the most important of these struggles, Afghanistan, where, as part of overall Soviet aggression and on Carter’s watch, the Soviet Union sent over 100,000 troops to invade and occupy Afghanistan in 1979. Quite understandably, it was not a national development well taken by the Afghan people. While fractionalized, thousands of Afghans, known as the mujahideen, rose to oppose the Soviet occupation, and this opposition to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan quickly and properly drew U.S. support.

Who led this brave effort to aid a resistance force which, de facto, was fighting the Cold War for us? One of those people was U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson (played in the film by Tom Hanks), a Texas Democrat from southern Texas who, before his intervention in support of the mujahideen, was perhaps best known as a fun-loving bachelor who was not going to let his stuffy Congressional position interfere with his having a good time. Urged on by one of his romantic interests, Houston socialite Joanne Herring (played by Julia Roberts), who urges Wilson to intervene on the mujahideen’s behalf, Wilson quickly discovers that the Carter administration’s efforts in support of the mujahideen had been disturbingly restricted to a handful of low-level Central Intelligence Agency operatives, led by one very committed CIA officer named Gust Avrakotos, a Pennsylvania-born operative who, upon his 2005 death, The Washington Post called a “blue collar James Bond” who ultimately “ran the largest covert operation in the agency’s history.” In Charlie Wilson’s War, Wilson asks Avrakotos who in Carter’s CIA was running the vast and important effort to aid the mujahideen. “Me and three other guys,” Avrakotos replies.

Wilson also learns another disturbing fact: that the official Carter policy, described to Wilson during a visit to the U.S. embassy in Pakistan, was to ensure that the U.S. was not seen as intervening in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in any way that would be perceived as inflaming macro-level U.S.-Soviet relations.

As the film correctly depicts, Wilson experienced surprising success in his somewhat rogue effort to substantially increase covert CIA-channeled U.S. aid to the mujahideen, and the results were ultimately nothing short of remarkable, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan turning into Moscow’s Vietnam. The mujahideen proved hugely heroic fighters. With the aid of U.S.-supplied Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Soviet MIG and other fighter jets were routinely shot from the sky. Charlie Wilson’s War tells this story and, in so doing, provides a fairly new and important context on what was undeniably one of the single greatest contributing factors to the ultimate collapse of global communism. Afghanistan, quite simply, proved for the first time that, with determination and support, the Soviet Union’s conquests were reversible. The global significance of this message surely ranks among the most important of the 20th century.

Of course, Afghanistan, important as it proved, was just one of many global Cold War conflicts of the late 20th century. And Charlie Wilson, who does deserve credit for his determination in support of the mujahideen, was just one man. To place this film in some larger context in an understanding of the Soviet empire’s ultimate collapse, however, other critical facts cannot be overlooked:

First, the world owes a great debt to many historical global leaders who helped contain Soviet advances and who articulated the threat to freedom imposed by Soviet aggression in the post-World War II era. It must start with Winston Churchill, who, in his famed “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946, awakened the world to this new struggle, saying: “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe, Warsaw, Berlin, Praque, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere.” Successive U.S. Presidents from Harry Truman at least through Richard Nixon, and the Congresses during those administrations, admirably understood that the Cold War was a battle for the future of the world and that holding Soviet advances at bay–what was known as “containment”–was essential to the West’s freedom and security.

Second, when the Reagan administration arrived in Washington in 1981, hugely important and still underrated historical figures in this administration, including then-CIA Director William J. Casey, United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger (sadly, all now deceased) quickly recognized the fact that the Soviet Union’s advances since World War II and especially under the Carter administration represented, as Churchill described early Nazi Germany, “a gathering storm.” But these great leaders also understood something else. These global advances of totalitarianism were reversible. Reagan saw it too; he spoke with great persuasion (and, at least at first, with limited political support) to the promise of aiding these resistance movements and the possibility of a new dawn in the world. He was smart and brave enough to ask, as no leader before him really did, “what if?” What if the U.S. moved beyond the mere containment of Soviet advances to a rollback of these advances? What if such a U.S. policy could lead to these regimes falling to the hands of people in these nations? What if the cost of the Soviet Union’s global aggression ultimately became so taxing that it impacted the very fabric that allowed this entire unnatural empire to exist at all?

The policy that emerged from all of this, articulated by Reagan and known as the Reagan Doctrine, for the first time in the history of American foreign policy stated that wherever people being suppressed by Soviet-supported communist governments were willing to rise against these governments, the U.S. stood ready to assist them and to work for their victory. How brave was this? Consider, for instance, that Reagan articulated this policy openly and persuasively at a time when Soviet nuclear weapons were pointed at American cities and a Soviet military force of some 13 million men were trained and available to defend the Soviet advances that Reagan was convinced could be reversed.

The result of it all now comprises the greatest still largely untold story of modern history: When movements arose in Angola (UNITA), Nicaragua (the contras), and other nations, these movements, like the mujahideen in Afghanistan, enjoyed the benefit of Reagan’s full support, even as a hugely politically-charged Democrat-controlled Congress at that time sought to reign in and end Reagan’s efforts. But that did not stop Reagan. Addressing CPAC in 1988, a few days after Democrats had shot down the administration’s proposed support for the Nicaraguan contras, Reagan said: “Let me make this pledge to you tonight: we’re not giving up on those who are fighting for their freedom, and they aren’t giving up either…get ready, the curtain hasn’t fallen.” Reagan’s vision and resilience kept these freedom fighters alive when a Democrat-run Congress was consistently looking for ways to undermine and halt the effort. The result was that when that curtain ultimately did fall, a few years later, it fell on the totality of the 74-year standing Soviet empire.

The Reagan Doctrine was not merely opposed politically by the vast majority of Democrats. Their opposition could not have been more indignant or rooted in a perceived moral imperative. As Reagan sought Congressional approval for U.S. aid to the contras, for instance, then Speaker of the House of Representatives Jim Wright, the Texas Democrat, didn’t just lead fellow Democrats in attempts to defeat the measure legislatively. He also led fellow Democrats on a mission to Nicaragua, where they posed, smiling, for pictures with Nicaragua’s then Soviet and Cuban-supported dictator Daniel Ortega. On foreign soil, they denounced Reagan’s efforts to aid the contras as reckless, and later represented that Reagan’s policy represented an oversimplification of the Soviet Union’s global intentions. Not a few American liberals went even further to argue that the Reagan Doctrine was an open invitation to nuclear war.

Under this background, every vote on aid to UNITA, the contras, and other resistance movements was a huge political ordeal, with the vast majority of Congressional Democrats seeking to defeat the measures. Sometimes they won. But more often, because of extraordinary efforts made by Reagan to verbalize the importance of the policy, and the leadership of many Congressional Republicans who had the vision to fight for it, they lost.

While Wilson was one, many other Congressional names, most Republicans, deserve a rightful place as part of the Reagan army who fought for this critical support, including some who did so despite a lack of solid political support for it in their own districts: Congressmen Dan Burton (R-IN), Jim Courter (R-NJ), Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Jack Kemp (R-NY), Don Ritter (R-PA), E. Clay Shaw (R-FL), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Bob Walker (R-PA), Senators Steve Symms (R-ID), Don Nickles (R-OK), Malcolm Wallop (R-WY), and dozens of others. Sadly, history has not yet properly recorded the role of these brave elected U.S. leaders, many of whom sacrificed political popularity to fight these battles and who articulated the case for this important doctrine that ultimately ended the Soviet empire.

The doctrine also succeeded because others had the vision to lay the intellectual foundation for it, including the Heritage Foundation, which made the case for the doctrine on both a macro and micro level and correctly identified the Reagan era as perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to end the Cold War in freedom’s favor. Other advocates included Jack Wheeler, a Ph.D. adventure traveler who was one of the first to notice the opportunity associated with the Reagan Doctrine, relentless Reagan Doctrine advocates Frank Gaffney and Howard Phillips (both former federal government officials), who also saw the promise, and the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and Washington Times, which were nearly alone among print media in supporting it. Along with Wilson, former Reagan speechwriter Dana Rohrabacher, now a California Republican Congressman, was among the first to speak of the strategic and moral imperative for U.S. aid to the mujahideen. Each of these people and organizations overlooked liberal ridicule because they saw–and stood by–the promise for a new world where a totalitarian superpower did not represent an ongoing threat to the freedom and very lives of man.

Regrettably, you will hear none of these names or organizations cited in Charlie Wilson’s War. But let there be no mistake: the efforts of these great Americans and organizations ultimately made the West’s Cold War victory possible.

The decision to resist Soviet aggression in these regions was hugely contentious, with the vast majority of Democrats (aside from Charlie Wilson and a handful of others) on the other side of this debate. Had these votes gone the other way, with these resistance movements being denied the assistance they needed to resist Soviet aggression, there is no doubt that their plight would have been vastly different. Like the Hungarian revolt of 1956 and the Prague Spring of 1968, they would have been crushed by the same totalitarian Soviet aggression that successfully suppressed such resistance at home and abroad hundreds of times throughout the 20th century. The Soviets certainly tried their best in Afghanistan. Soviet forces indiscriminately bombed civilians. They blew the hands off children with explosives designed to look like toys. They torched entire caves of scared civilians. What was the human cost of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan? Some two million civilians were killed, and five million more fled the Soviet occupation. If there exists any modern example of “torched earth” military tactics and institutionalized evil in practice, it can be found in what Soviet troops did in Afghanistan from 1979 until 1989.

This is what the Reagan effort resisted, and it worked. With U.S. support being the single most important determinant, former Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev ultimately labeled his nation’s occupation of Afghanistan and decade-long effort to exterminate the mujahideen a “bleeding wound.” Yes, it was a bleeding wound. It was a bleeding wound because the Reagan army bravely stood against that Soviet occupation and consciously made it one, not just in Afghanistan but in almost every non-European nation where the Soviets sought to impose their will on people. It is late 20th century resistance that won the Cold War, and it is Reagan and the Reagan army that made that resistance against a ruthless global superpower possible.

Third, as most Americans will recall, the ultimate retreat of the Soviet army from Afghanistan should have opened a promising future for the newly-freed nation, but it was not exactly followed by the emergence of liberal democracy. Unable to maintain a consensus for some continued nation-building following the Soviets’ nine-year occupation, as advocated by most of the Reagan army of mujahideen supporters, the Taliban ultimately arose to fill the power vacuum left by the Soviets, making Afghanistan the breeding ground for al-Qaeda training and leading to what has become this nation’s current conflict against global terrorism. Does there not exist a contemporary lesson in this? It seems impossible, if we are a nation given to learning even history’s most recent lessons, not to see that U.S. post-Saddam engagement in Iraq, costly as it has been, is rooted in not making a similar mistake to the one made in Afghanistan. Had the U.S. committed just several years to help Afghanistan and its people rebuild following its 1989 liberation, what might be the state of this world today? But U.S. neglect of post-occupation Afghanistan, especially under the Clinton administration, invited a worst possible outcome, which ultimately arrived on September 11, 2001.

A final, important point: Just as the importance and ultimate success of the Reagan Doctrine (and its associated, modern-day lesson of the importance of resiliency in our current global conflict against Islamofascism) have escaped many Americans and their leaders, there may be no more outrageously inaccurate thesis held than the one that suggests that U.S. support for the mujahideen during the Reagan years somehow benefited today’s al-Qaeda. It did not, and this thesis ranks right there in its absurdity with the one that charges U.S. complicity in the September 11 attacks. Such convictions are not merely historical misinterpretations; they represent an apparent unwillingness to recognize that, in this world, there will almost always exist dangerous nations and movements that resent and seek to challenge and undermine American democracy and American interests.

The fact is that we did not first discover al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001. Yes, elements of what ultimately became al-Qaeda were there in Afghanistan during this critical Cold War conflict, and, yes, they too, for their own reasons, opposed the Soviet occupation of the nation. Having the benefit of fairly extensive involvement in some of the efforts to secure U.S. assistance for the Reagan Doctrine efforts, however, I well remember the passionate discussions in the Reagan administration and among all Congressional and U.S. supporters of the mujahideen over ensuring that U.S. support was restricted to our primary allies in the Afghan effort. And that goal was achieved. Chief among these was another great and largely unsung hero in the Reagan Doctrine’s ultimate success, Ahmad Shah Massoud, who earned the warranted nickname “the Lion of Panjshir,” and who was assassinated by al-Qaeda agents in what perhaps should have been a foretelling sign, on September 9, 2001, two days prior to the September 11 attacks.

There also existed at this time a very clear recognition among those of us close to, and supportive of, the Afghan resistance that a movement was emerging, then known as Maktab al-Khidamat (often simply referred to by the acronym “MAK”), that was comprised of non-Afghan Arabs. They began arriving in Afghanistan roughly five years following the Soviet invasion from other Arab nations to join in resistance of the Soviet occupation. It was not a large force, but it was a highly dangerous one, including Saudi-born Osama bin Laden (who initially supported MAK financially and later helped establish an Afghan base camp for it), Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other figures now comprising current al-Qaeda leadership.

Supporters of the mujahideen at that time were well aware of MAK’s existence and the danger it represented. And while there was concern around Pakistan’s intelligence agency, known as the ISI, which was heavily engaged in the distribution of U.S. support to the mujahideen, and there was sometimes frustration with the ISI’s bureaucracy and inefficiency, the U.S. never aided MAK and, in fact, almost certainly took important steps to neutralize it. In fact, one of bin Laden’s closest MAK associates at that time, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, who was then viewed as a threat as great as any MAK member, was assassinated in a November 1989 land mine attack in Peshawar, Pakistan. The forces behind that land mine were never formally identified and no party took responsibility, but it is widely perceived that this was one of numerous Reagan-era attempts to minimize the nucleus of the toxic forces that ultimately became al-Qaeda. If not, suffice to say there were no expressions of remorse from any official U.S. governmental bodies.

So let this fact be settled now: The rise of al-Qaeda, while largely attributable to the Clinton administration’s eight-year neglect of Afghanistan, during which the Taliban and al-Qaeda, with free reign, established an Afghanistan training presence, U.S. engagement in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan did nothing to strengthen bin Laden or any other al-Qaeda force. Rather, the defeat of the Red Army in that conflict stands as one of the great successes of U.S. engagement in the world, sending a hugely important global signal to the Soviets and the world that the future did not belong to Moscow’s totalitarian aspirations. The future belonged to those who resisted it. This change of current is at the heart of the West’s Cold War victory.

All Americans should take 100 minutes from their schedule to catch this grand story, as told in Charlie Wilson’s War. The intricate details of the Cold War’s end will not be fully gleaned from the film, but maybe that’s okay. It is still a constructive contribution because it is one of the first mass-appeal efforts to reflect the most important lesson of America’s Cold War victory: that the Reagan-led effort to support freedom fighters resisting Soviet oppression led successfully to the first major military defeat of the Soviet Union and, with deference to East Germany’s former Minister of Propaganda, whose spontaneous words blew open the Berlin Wall, sending the Red Army packing from Afghanistan proved one of the single most important contributing factors in one of history’s most profoundly positive and important developments.

Backing Mitt Romney(Part 1)…

To me Fred Thompson is the most consistent conservative that was in the top tier running.  That being said it seems that the establishment has rejected Thompson and that’s their right.  All is fair in love, war, and politics.  With him not making any noise I guess I am forced to go with my second choice in Mitt Romney.  I would like to take the time in this blog to explain why, exactly, a staunch conservative such as myself could step beside a controversial figure in the republican party and whom some conservatives feel is a fake.

 You would have to know me personally, but economy is a big issue for me.  Third highest behind national security, and selecting judges.  Frankly I think all of the republican candidates would be fine on national security.  I don’t trust any of them after Thompson with the selecting of judges.  I feel after Thompson that Romney would be the best on economy.  So in my top three issues Romney clearly comes out on top nearly by default after Thompson.  So in the first part of my Mitt Romney series I will talk about his record in taxes.

 I’ll start off with the bad.  Romney did impose hundreds of millions in fee hikes while governor. Fees are more voluntary as they are charges on services rather than everyone picking up the government bill through higher taxes.  I don’t agree with it or justify it, but it’s understandable considering the deficit he faced. However some of it did close loop-holes for big business and millionaires like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.   That is a major staple in the the democrats tax hikes “on the rich” which they don’t feel they need to tell you about.  Guys like Kennedy and Kerry hide their money off shore with these loopholes.  The tax burden once again falls squarely on the middle class. He also closed about 174 million worth of corporate loopholes.  Most fees owed by corporations they have no problem passing onto the consumer.  I can see where praise for Romney could come at closing some loopholes, but personally I would prefer tax cuts across the board.

 That being said Romney did propose to an unbelievably large liberal legislature to cut state income taxes from 5.3% to 5%.  This was in 2004 and would have guaranteed 675 million on tax relief for over a year and a half(according to the club for growth).  When the liberal legislature wouldn’t budge he then again proposed the same tax cut in 2005 and again in 2006 with no success.  I have to give him credit for that considering what he was going up against in that state legislature.  He was, however, successful after a big fight with the state government in passing a bill that prevented a capital gains tax from being applied retroactively.  This resulted in a 275 million dollar rebate for capital gains taxes collected in 2002.

 There’s no question that his tax policy has inconsistencies in it while governor.  However, it’s disputed that this may be because of the unbelievably liberal state legislature in Massachusetts.  While he did not endorse the Bush tax cuts(nor did he oppose them) and dislikes the 17% flat tax,  I can appreciate that he gives the Bush tax cuts credit for the economic growth we have seen in recent years and proposed broad-based tax cuts in a very liberal Massachusetts. 

That all being said looking to the future now with a Mitt Romney Presidency I’ve decided to look at some of his proposals.  I don’t agree with Romney on his assessment of the FairTax, but I also believe the FairTax to be very improbable at the time.  As far as actual tax code reform it seemed to me Thompson was the only candidate willing to go as far putting his plans out there, although Rudy has recently proposed a similar plan.  I do agree, however, with Romney about taking taxes on capital gains for people making up to 200,000$ a year to 0%.  He also wants to lower taxes on interests and dividends for middle income Americans as well.  That, I also agree with.  He also pledges not to raise taxes.  That has to make all conservatives happy.  It’s not ALL that I want by any means, but it’s a start in the right direction. As he goes farther right in his campaign I am encouraged.  Next I will talk about his record on spending along with his proposals for the future.