Posted on 05/09/2007 2:31:43 PM PDT by bd476
There's a vacuum in the GOP, we keep hearing, and Republicans aren't quite satisfied with their presidential choices.
Apparently, neither a veteran senator-war hero, nor a Harvard MBA/JD corporate governor, nor even a law-and-order, 9/11 mayor is quite good enough for the Red Staters. There's just something missing.
And what, one wonders, might that be? Exactly what je ne sais quoi would fill the alleged GOP void?
Just Fred.
Thompson that is. The actor who doesn't act, Thompson is tall and big; he talks straight, drives a truck and is wunna-us. A bootstrap American with take-it-or-leave-it charisma, he's got smarts and the kind of steely gaze you'd like to see aimed at al-Qaeda.
His resume otherwise has all the right bullet points: lawyer, chief minority counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee, a U.S. senator who ran hearings on campaign finance controversies while chair of the Senate Government Affairs Committee from 1997-2001.
Like Ronald Reagan's, Thompson's acting career has featured strong manly roles -- a CIA director, senator, FBI agent, chief of staff and rear admiral -- as well as head prosecutor on ``Law and Order.'' When Thompson spoke recently to the Orange County (Calif.) Lincoln Club's annual dinner, he approached the podium to the L&O soundtrack.
In his speech, he came across as sincere, honest and straightforward -- all the traits Americans crave in a candidate -- and he talked folksy:
``Even if we won't be going around in the woods trying to find any bears to kill, sometimes the bear visits whether you're looking for him or not,'' he said.
What's not to love about Thompson? Apparently, nothing, which may explain why the former Tennessee senator is polling in the...
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
SPAM??? Are you trying to tell me that he did not vote for NCLB, the Prescription Drug Bill, 2005 Highway, Sarbanes-Oxley? Did he not vote against the Republican Study Committee’s fiscally conservative annual budgets (2006, 2005, 2003...)?
“If that’s the best you got, it’s sad. The old “Flake Amendments” are this year’s Dingell Norwood. NOthing but Fluff.”
No, your excusing this spending record is sad. The Flake amendments were aimed at reigning in Congressional Pork, hardly “FLUFF”. 0 for 19 on anti pork amendments is not the voting pattern of someone I want for POTUS.
“And the fact of the matter is on all of those other items, Fred would have been right in line along with Hunter and the vast majority of GOPers.”
,br> I doubt it, Fred has been on the losing end of 99 - 1 votes in the Senate because he did not feel that the issue being discussed was within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. This was on issues far less obvious than NCLB, to say nothing of the Prescription Drug fiasco. Fred has a proven tract record of bucking the majority and going it alone if it meant upholding the principles of Federalism, something that he does more than pay lip service to. Most likely, he would have stood with Mike Pence and the Republican Study Committee in opposing the recent trend in the GOP towards big government conservatism.
If you want someone who has been a one man fighting machine against silly spending, loss of US sovereignty, sealing the borders, strengthening our military and smash mouthing the libs since 1981, it ain’t Thompson. It’s Hunter. Not only a fighter, but a man with far more vision than his colleagues.
Search Duncan Hunter by keyword here and see the archive articles I and a few others have posted. He was sounding the alarm bells in the 1990s over our weakening of human intel. He has warning about China for the last 20 years. He has been the man since Reagan left office to fight and fund Missile Defense. He has been a porkbuster since his first term. He has voted for every tax cut bill. He was a staunch anti-abortionist before anti-abortion became the norm in GOP politics. He fought tooth and nail against Clinton’s pathetic, pork laden crime bill (that Rudy supported). It goes on and on. Has he had a few wrong votes, sure. But very few.
>My biggest problem, by far, in the list of things he voted for was the Prescription Drug Bill.<
Why? This is one bill that draws NO money from the government. Didn’t you read my post? The prescription user pays the premiums to private insurance companies to cover a portion of their prescription costs. The gubmint pays NADA. This bill was a pat on the head to the pharmaceuticals. It costs taxpayers nothing!
The amendments by Congressman Jeff Flake to strip out pork from the House Energy and Water Appropriations Bill were as follows:
Dairy education in Iowa ($229,000)
Hydroponic tomato production in Ohio ($180,000)
National Grape and Wine Initiative ($100,000)
Virginia Science Museum ($250,000)
Juniata Locomotive Demonstration ($1,000,000)
Swimming pool in Banning, CA ($500,000)
“Facilities” in Weirton, West Virginia ($100,000)
Multipurpose facility in Yucaipa, California ($500,000)
Strand Theater Arts Center in Plattsburgh, New York ($250,000)
Mystic Aquarium in New London, Conn. ($1,000,000)
The Jason Foundation in Ashburn, VA ($1,000,000)
Northwest Manufacturing Initiative ($2,500,000)
Lewis Center for Education Research ($4,000,000)
Leonard Wood Research Institute ($20,000,000)
Arthur Avenue Retail Market ($150,000)
Bronx Council for the Arts in Bronx, N.Y. ($300,000)
Johnstown Area Regional Industries ($800,000)
Fairmont State University ($900,000)
Tourism Development Association in Kentucky ($1,000,000)
This is not a lot of money, but going 0 - 19 on these amendments is inexcusable.
>Since the conservative base isn’t large enough in and of itself to carry any candidate into the White House< Where did that come from??>? >what appeal does Duncan Hunter have to “swing voters” - the independents who decide elections?<
Well, just let me tell you, Sturm. People who care are attracted to a man’s man (a rarity today); a tell it like it is; a succinct speaker with real solutions; a 20-20 visioned man; a not afraid to get up off his butt, rollup his sleeves and fight for what is right man. That is DUNCAN HUNTER’s appeal!
I did read your post and that is simply NOT TRUE! My father is in an assisted living facility and I have taken over legal power of attorney for his financial affairs. I signed him up for his Medicare Plan D Prescription Drug Plan and I am the one who monitors what he pays, what his private insurance pays and what Medicare pays. Medicare pays a certain portion of his prescription drugs and he pays the balance. His private insurance does not pay ANY of it. The bulk of it is paid by the taxpayers
“I’m voting for Fred because he’s the only potential candidate who has articulated that he will both defend the principles of a limited federal government, and that he will defend the country that makes that possible.
Ron Paul will do the former, and Duncan Hunter will do the latter. Only Fred can credibly say he’ll do both.”
That about sums up my view as well.
Then where do you think the private insurance company comes in? Because I was forced to, I pay monthly premiums to one to cover prescription drugs under Plan D. The price of those prescriptions spiralled immediately. (The whole purpose for the bill) I pay the entirety of my prescriptions until I hit the $265 deductible. Then I pay the difference that the insurance company does not pay. The government pays nothing for my prescriptions.
Private insurance coverage can supplement the prescription drug plan. The individual in question pays a premium to the Plan D program and Medicare pays his drug costs. He pays what Medicare does not. I went over every Plan D option with a representative of my father’s private insurance company. The notion that this is an absolute fiscal disaster in the making is not news. Practically every Conservative free market think tank opposed this plan vehemently with many calling it the worst piece of legislation in decades. Mike Pence and a few brave souls from the Republican Study Committee opposed this, but most Republicans caved. For a more complete picture of the coming fiscal mess this is going to bring on us, check out this study by the Cato Institute:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp91.pdf
Hell yes, and he can win, too.
Sorry to keep dragging this out, but I paid into Medicare for 40 years. Hefty premiums for Medicare come out of my monthly Social Security checks. I did not want the Med.D prescription drug coverage to begin with. As I said before, I think it is a sop to the pharmaceutical companies, who raised the price of my prescription immediately after I met the deductible on the additional monthly insurance premium on my plan B coverage, which is very expensive to begin with. Gotto go. Thanks for the help.
I do not doubt it as the plan does get administered by private companies, but there is a BIG government subsidy.
Medicare faces the same long term insolvency problems as does Social Security, only worse. The retirement of the “baby boom” generation, followed by the demographic decline of working age contributors, is going to bankrupt both if some major reform is not carried out. In the short run, I see the threat of terrorism as our most serious problem. Long term I see this as the biggest problem our country is facing. Great civilizations are far more likely do decay from within than be destroyed by an external enemy. This demographic problem is a global one that will bankrupt countries like a tidal wave. (It already is causing havoc in Europe) See the following article for an idea of the scope of the problem:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040501faessay83307/phillip-longman/the-global-baby-bust.html
Excellent research.
You would have been better off if you had been allowed to invest that money all those years in a private account. By now you would have a pretty healthy nest egg that would be more than enough to meet you retirement needs. During the 2006 campaign I was a policy adviser to a candidate for the GOP Vermont U.S. Congressional nomination. Here is something I wrote for him on Social Security:
According to a Cato Institute analysis, Social Security will begin running a deficit in less than 15 years — that is, it will begin to spend more money on benefits than it brings in by taxes. At that point, to continue to pay promised benefits, the program will have to draw on the Social Security Trust Fund.
Crisis deniers have made much of the trust fund recently, suggesting that it guarantees Social Security’s solvency until 2042, or even 2052, according to some projections. However, it was President Clinton — not President Bush — who pointed out that: “These trust fund balances are available to finance future benefit payments but only in a bookkeeping sense.”
Clinton’s fiscal year 2000 budget explained that trust fund assets are not “real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits.” Rather, these funds are “claims on the Treasury that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures.”
It is past time that we face up to the fact that our Social Security system is in dire need of reform if it is to address the needs of future retirees. I propose that any reform be rooted in an approach that gives the American people control over their own retirement savings, rather than bureaucrats and politicians in Washington D.C. My logic is simple, the average American citizen can be trusted far more wither their own retirement savings than the political class in D.C
As Cato Institute scholar Robert A. Levy points out, most people have been led to believe that the Social Security surplus can somehow be secluded in a “lock box” by using it to pay off government debt. Lower debt, so the argument goes, means lower future interest payments. Wrong. The trust fund receives interest-bearing government bonds when its surplus is commandeered to retire other government bonds. There is no net change in indebtedness and, therefore, no change in interest obligations. Yes, federal debt will be lower than it would have been if the surplus had bankrolled more government spending. That’s good; but past Social Security surpluses have been spent, not used for debt retirement. And future surpluses will soon disappear.
We need a plan that will transfer control of our retirement savings out of the hands of the political class and into our own hands while ensuring that those who have already paid into the system receive the benefits promised to them. My proposal is based on the Cato Institute’s detailed plan.
Individuals would be able to privately invest their half (6.2 percentage points) of their payroll tax through individual accounts.
Individuals who choose individual accounts will receive a recognition bond based on past contributions to Social Security. Workers choosing individual accounts will forgo accrual of future benefits from traditional Social Security.
Allowable investment options for the individual accounts will be based on a 3-tier system: a centralized, pooled collection and holding point; a limited series of investment options, with a lifecycle fund as a default mechanism; and a wider range of investment options for individuals who accumulate a minimum level in their accounts.
At retirement, individuals will be given an option of purchasing a family annuity or taking a programmed withdrawal. These two options will be mandated only to a level required to provide an income above a minimum level. Funds in excess of that required to achieve this level of retirement income can be withdrawn in a lump sum.
If an individual accumulates sufficient funds within their account to allow them to purchase an annuity that will keep them above a minimum income level in retirement they will be able to opt out of the Social Security system in its entirety.
The remaining 6.2 percentage points of payroll taxes will be used to pay transition costs and to fund disability and survivors benefits. Once, far in the future, transition costs are fully paid for, this portion of the payroll tax will be reduced to the level necessary to pay survivors and disability benefits.
This discussion will be offered in the context of payable Social Security benefits. That is, the Social Security system will be restored to a solvent pay-as-you-go basis prior to the development of individual accounts. Workers who choose to remain in the traditional Social Security system will receive whatever level of benefits Social Security can pay with existing levels of taxation.
“Excellent research.”
Thank You, I aim to please. :-)
Beautiful!
Hunter does not abide by the way in which these items were to be removed from a bill. The reason? He is on the Defense Appropriations. He does not want to give idiots like democrats the ability to yank needed things, like say, Missile defense, out of the Defense bill.
I believe Hunter is part of that study committee as well.
I do not buy it. if such things are needed, then we need to make a case for them. There is just too much corruption surrounding the earmarks process to take this so lightly.
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