Posted on 05/26/2008 11:54:19 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
WHILE AMERICANS focus on the interminable Clinton-Obama celebrity death match, Sen. John McCain is using clear-headed, compellingly crafted speeches to propose surprisingly bold, free-market ideas. With one huge exception, the Arizona Republican advocates more limited, open government as his Democratic rivals promise tax hikes and an even-busier state. Voters should welcome this stark contrast.
On spending, John McCain would rule with a tight fist.
"There will be no more subsidies for special pleaders -- no more corporate welfare -- no more throwing around billions of dollars of the people's money on pet projects, while the people themselves are struggling to afford their homes, groceries, and gas," McCain said April 15 in Pittsburgh. "I will veto every bill with earmarks, until the Congress stops sending bills with earmarks," McCain continued. "I will seek a constitutionally valid line-item veto to end the practice once and for all." More impressive, McCain said, "We will institute a one-year pause in discretionary spending increases with the necessary exemption of military spending and veterans' benefits."
Such prudence would be a welcome relief from the Bush/GOP Congress years that did for fiscal responsibility what the Playboy Mansion has done for sexual restraint.
McCain's budget discipline would make it easier to cut taxes. He wants to make President Bush's tax cuts permanent. He would slice corporate taxes from 35 to 25 percent. He also would scrap the Alternative Minimum Tax, double the dependents' exemption from $3,500 to $7,000, "and sign into law a reform agenda to permit the first-year expensing of new equipment and technology."
Most significantly, he would let Americans choose to file taxes under today's rules or volunteer for a simpler, flatter rate, perhaps at 25 or 15 percent.
Regarding health care, McCain warned in Tampa, Fla., on April 29 that his opponents "urge universal coverage, with all the tax increases, new mandates, and government regulation that come along with that idea. But in the end, this will accomplish one thing only. We will replace the inefficiency, irrationality, and uncontrolled costs of the current system with the inefficiency, irrationality, and uncontrolled costs of a government monopoly."
Instead, McCain believes that "the key to real reform is to restore control over our health-care system to the patients themselves." He would expand Health Savings Accounts, and more dramatically, offer a tax credit of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to help Americans purchase their own coverage, even across state lines. McCain added, "It would be yours and your family's health-care plan, and yours to keep."
McCain also calls for reining in the misguided, multi-trillion-dollar Medicare drug plan.
"People like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet don't need their prescriptions underwritten by taxpayers," McCain observed. "This reform alone will save billions of dollars that could be returned to taxpayers or put to better use."
There is a cautionary note among these encouraging signs: John McCain has beer-bonged the Kool-Aid on global warming.
"We need to deal with the central facts of rising temperatures, rising waters, and all the endless troubles that global warming will bring," McCain said May 12 at a Portland, Ore., wind-power research facility.
He desires "a cap-and-trade system to change the dynamic of our energy economy." His specific goal is to reduce CO2 60 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Former Virginia state climatologist Dr. Patrick Michaels estimated in the May 16 Washington Times that this would lower per-capita emissions "to 19th Century levels."
Before relegating America's mid-21st Century economy to the norms of the Grover Cleveland era, McCain should heed the expanding caucus of experts who believe so-called "global warming" is exaggerated, if it even exists.
On May 19, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine released a petition signed by 31,072 Americans scientists, including 9,021 Ph.D.s. They reject the idea that CO2 is boiling Earth. So much for climate science being "settled."
One hopes McCain will listen on this issue. Just as he recently has warmed to tax cuts, perhaps he will cool on "global warming."
Nonetheless, McCain will remain a mixed bag. Sometimes he will annoy the Right. Other times, he boldly will go where no GOP standard bearer has gone since Ronald Reagan. As a wise man said, "John McCain is not perfect. Just perfect enough."
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Deroy Murdock is a columnist with Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. E-mail him at Deroy.Murdock@gmail.com.
“On spending, John McCain would rule with a tight fist.”
Who is going to pay for the social costs of McAmnestys’ (La Raza) base?
Cut the spending and return to the income tax calculation method as set down in 1913. Cap the income tax at 10 percent of any individual's income.
Bait / Switch
Vote me in for this (Please please please please please), so I can screw you into the ground with foreign nationals.
John, when hell freezes over, my vote will still be clutched in my hands so tight you’ll have to take a chain saw to get it out.
You’ll never get my vote. Ever!
BWAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!
The last thing I’m going to be sold on about McCain is his economic ability, given that he’s personally admitted he knows nothing about the economy.
McQueeg is uneducable when it comes to the hoax of global-warming and amnesty for illegals.
1.) Whom, specifically, do you suppose will be paying for the health care McCain's beloved additional 30-to-40 million additional illegals are (inevitably) going to need?
2.) From where, specifically, do you suppose that money will logically be coming? Will the marvelous magical Money Fairy be providing, in this instance... or: will McCain ultimately need to tap some other source, instead?
All this article proves is that Murdock finally got his lips unlocked from the rear end of Rudy Giuliani, and that they’re now firmly fixed to John McCain’s.
It doesn’t matter what Sen. McCain does, in the area of economics. As you can see above, there’s not a lot of satisfaction. Sen. McCain - and President Bush - oppose the appeasement of America’s enemies. A significant and growing chunk of “conservative” (or, libertarian) opinion favors the appeasement of America’s enemies, including al Qaeda, just as Sen. Obama favors it. Just read the posters from this weekend warmly praising the Barr candidacy...and pronouncing it “conservative” (sic). I admit that on tax and immigration policy, Barr is a more conservative candidate than McCain. But even with the economy in the tank, this probably will be a national security election, with McCain being the only one of the top four candidates (Obama, McCain, Nader, Barr) who favors staying the course in Iraq and fighting al Qaeda.
Couldn’t agree more.
After all, how could anyone vote for someone who has no credibility and especially one the people did not select as their candidate.
Team Juan's Online Mug Whore Squadron never answer the question you've just asked. Now you know why.
What is the cost analysis for his Kyoto-style-for-America-only Glowbull Warming plans? Not just taxes but the economic impact of hamstringing the energy and manufacturing industries.
I do think it serves him well that he has worked across the aisle on issues, but I have been disappointed in some of those issues. However, it might be the very thing that brings some of those disillusioned with the present democratic selections over our way. Besides, there are many democrats who are pro-life, and maybe we can bring some of them into the Republican tent this election cycle.
"Nuh-uhh! Don't go there!"
Actions will always speak louder than words, and John McCain is someone who probably will often back stab both conservatives and conservatism, if not all of the time, after he does become the next POTUS. All anybody has to do is see what McCain has done already during his entire duration as a U.S. Senator. He just wants as many conservatives as possible to truly vote for him on November 4, and this is all that it is.
McCain can propose all the conservative economic agendas he wants but how will he get them through what looks to be a super majority Democrat/Socialist House and Senate? Reagan formed a coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats to push through his economic policy. There is no coalition to be found any more...
[John McCain would rule with a tight fist.]
The times of kings, or queens, has returned?
The left and half the right wants fools to reign over them and destroy their monies and their rights and God given freedoms.
If Bob Barr is on the ticket, then he is a good vote.
Wonder what McCain's popularity rating is among FReepers.
Just wow, McLame is going to “git her done”, and all of this is promised with a RAT controlled Congress.
Right Juan. McCain, all smoke and mirrors. A guy who likes to just ignore questions about subjects he knows run contrary to what he is going to ram down your throat.
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