By Ric Joyner
We had an excellent time at the confirmation celebration of my niece. Lot’s of family, lots of singing, and lot’s of politics. My brother-in-law has been a farmer all of his life, and knows farming inside and out. He is also a democrat from WAY back. What I found interesting is the forceful conviction of his ideas. I also appreciated his angst toward how Bush has run the government. But in the same instance I am also concerned with the shallowness of his arguments. They point to one person at fault whereas both democrats and republicans are at fault in many cases. His conclusion was plain…if you don’t beleive his point of view…you lack common sense. I already stated the harmful myopic “small town” view of blaming one individual…the president…for all of America’s ill. That thought process in my opinion, lacks common sense.
Here is how I will sum his comments from my point of view. My comments are based in what I perceive he was saying.
1. What good happened during the Bush Administration? This question came out of the blue, and he eventually answered it himself. He cited how terrible things were in general such as the war, the economy (which wasn’t an issue until one month ago except the housing crisis. The housing crisis was started by pressure on banks to give credit to those that had poor credit and could not afford the house). His “Bush terrible list” list are the current democratic talking points. But what was good? Here is a small list I created.
The US was not attacked after 911.
The economy was good considering the 911 terrorist attacks until it was RECENTLY discovered mortgage bailout. The Democrats such as Barney Frank were protecting the sub prime loans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were making. The economy did slow down during the last half of 06 in certain areas such as housing but not commercial. But for the most part the economy added 10,000,000 jobs under Bush. Also there is a ton of money that went to Barack Obama’s campaign from both lenders, and to key democrats.
Terrorism around the world is being hunted down. I agree that the war in IRAQ was not necessary, but the war in Afghanistan was prudent. However hindsight is easy. The issue with IRAQ is how Sadaam went to great lengths to deceive the world that he did have weapons of mass destruction. Would it be an unjust war if we found the weapons? What if they were moved to Syria or Russia? Easy for everyone to arm chair quarterback…including Obama.
Unemployment is around 6%. This is one of the lowest levels in the history of this country. The unemployment rate increased right after 9-11 but then dropped with the tax cuts.
Lower taxes. Under W, we have the lowest tax rates (almost half of what it was under Clinton) which keeps the money in the hands of families and gets the economy moving. Carter years were 17% unemployment with high tax rates. Reagan slashed taxes and the economy started moving again. Bill Clinton inherited the economy from Reagan and Bush 1. Toward the end of the Clinton term he instituted nearly twice the taxes that Reagan and Bush 1 had, and that sent the stock market tanking! Remember the DOT COM bust? It also slowed the economy from 98-2002. Bush 2 had to deal with a rough economy, and he got it rolling again with tax cuts. The stock market and the economy improved dramatically from late 2002-2008. (There were certain sectors that experienced slow down, and that was primarily the housing market)
W got medicare part D for the aged because prescription drugs were a real cause of poverty for the seniors.
Education on the “no child left behind act” which is an attempt to bring up the education in our schools.
Stimulous payments. While I disagree with stimulous payments this was a benefit under Bush. I didn’t ask my brother-in-law if he cashed his check. Perhaps if Bush/Reagan is to blame for everyone’s problems, that he should send back the money? Isn’t it hypocritcal to take someone’s money you hate?
2. He feels that the $700 Billion is a Wall Street bailout even though nothing has been spent yet, so it is too early to say whether it is a bailout of Wall Street or a rescue plan. The Dems and Republicans both voted against it two weeks ago because they heard from the public to stop supporting a bailout of Wall Street. However, I heard this dem talking point from another democrat supporting Obama this same weekend… that it was a Wall Street bailout. I finally got him to admit that since nothing was paid out we can’t be sure which it is yet. What you will see happen and is happening now is the slow movement of the money. When the government does anything it is slow and nearly always too late. Remember Katrina?
3. Give every household the money instead of Wall Street. The issue here is that giving roughly $740,000 to each household WOULD grind the economy to a halt because no one would need to work any longer. The $700 Billion is designed to be used by the government to help instill confidence back into the banking system not Wall Street. Here is an overview of the bill: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Economic_Stabilization_Act_of_2008 Feel free to read and let me know where the focus is bailing out Wall Street? Didn’t find it? Didn’t think so.
4. The republicans stole the election in 2000 and 2004. First, Al Gore is the one that decided to contest the hanging chads in Florida, not George Bush (he had already won the state). Yet this is considered stealing the election? What if it went Al Gore’s way? Would he believe that the election was stolen? Probably not. And this is the problem with all of politics. The farther left or right it gets, the less middle ground we can find. Second, no one stole the election in either year. Either George or Al could have won. I brought this up because of the voter registration fraud with a group that is tied to Obama. My brother-in-law shot back that McCain gave money to ACORN, and yet I find no solid information to back up his comment, so I will dismiss this comment as not factual. Either way, Obama supported, trained, gave money to ACORN and ACORN is falsifying voter registration. Is my brother-in-law saying it is ok to be dishonest with voter registration records when the democrats feel shafted at the election of 2000? The progressives believe that “by any means necessary” (Saul Alinsky the father of radicalism) to win the election because their “cause” is the correct one. My brother-in-law may not have said it, but excusing Barack for his association with this group is stamping their tactics with “ok” to cheat.
5. Failing businesses. He brought this up because his view is that businesses are failing i.e. “look at downtown Ladysmith”. At first, I thought he was kidding because small businesses come, and go for an endless list of reasons. Most don’t last 2 years because of the start up costs and mismanagement of the business (mismanagement is not meant to suggest criminal activity, but is designed to say that making mistakes, and miscalculations of risk is mismanagement which leads to the business closing). There are several coffee shops that have gone out of business around Madison, and this should be no surprise by the high level success or failure of any business. But his view was that the failures were because of George Bush. I found this comment incredible… defying any logic because where is personal responsibility? Didn’t he know that a tornado ravaged Ladysmith? That slowed commerce. The oil prices this year slowed tourism which is another risk business must navigate. But if you are looking for a boogie man to blame… George will do! But I have no evidence that I can cite that shows businesses are failing faster or worse under W. So this argument lacks factual statistics. That does nothing to help the people that lost their businesses under social engineering democrats. Another example of democrats savaging business, is the push by progressives to stop smoking in bars, and restaurants statewide. They are attempting this at the local level, and have pushed businesses to close with little regard for the welfare of the people affected. Is this progressive thinking? Is this caring for the people that had the business? Many went bankrupt. No, it is government interfering with people’s choices. I don’t smoke thus I don’t go the restaurants that allow it.
6. He espoused isolationism. Meaning that he wanted us to close off our country to trading with other countries etc. He said George Bush sent jobs overseas. I asked him why President Clinton signed NAFTA and the unions warned him that jobs would go overseas and they did. So why is this Bush’s fault and not President Clinton? The type of isolationism that he would like us to see under “Woodrow Wilson” (it was Hoover but Ia am assuming he made a mistake) actually helped prolong the great depression. Our country started trade and tariff wars with the rest of the world which stopped trade and caused our goods to stop flowing out of the country and with the isolationism came lost jobs and suffering especially in the ag market. Our global trade has been a bright spot for our economy during the financial crisis. Again, when people pull into isolationism, it is due to fear, ignorance of basic economics, and a negative outlook.
What I discovered in my talk with him was how little outrage he had over the democrats protecting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lending practices after an audit was done in 04 that alerted the auditors to serious issues with them. Even Alan Greenspan appeared before Congress after the democrats took over in 04, and attempted to show them how a coming crisis could seriously affect the economy if they didn’t act. What did Senator Chris Dodd and Barney Frank do who are both democrats? Take money from the lenders!!!! Where was his outrage that these democrats directly attributed to the crisis we now are experiencing…by doing nothing and stopping any changes to their lending practices? And where was his outrage that Obama took millions from the lenders, and his top advisors stole $100,000,000 from them while they worked at Freddie and Fannie? He didn’t say a word. He is not even outraged that the democrats loaded the first bailout or rescue bill with money to ACORN!!! That is democratic graft by any other name. Hypocrisy is rampant!
The final ironic conversation today, was while he said that I shouldn’t talk politics in the family, that was the majority of his discussion throughout the day!
Our last conversation (again my interpretation of what was said) was that I was on the wrong track, and that I should embrace more regulation and Obama. I oppose regulation, higher taxes, and a candidate who is very left leaning (socialistic in thinking). I also don’t want to put my trust, as he does in a candidate that wants to rob my wallet to give to Barack to distribute wealth, and who has fake centrist ideas to get elected. I think I will stick to McCain who is what you see is what you get. No thanks on Obama. I will still take my chances with my conservative roots.
The last issue for me with him was noteworthy. He works for the school district thus has no problem if our company has to pay more taxes, even though it stops us from hiring people who support their families and pay taxes. Yet my goal is to put people to work and paying more taxes will slow us down. Many of my fellow business people are not hiring now for two reasons. First to wait and see what new taxes we will have to pay and how long the slow down will last. We are also holding off on a retirement plan contribution for employees, which was our goal this year because we aren’t sure if we will pay taxes under Obama’s plan. As a side note, I also experience the risk and burden of owning a company, and he just shows up at a job. Thus it is easy for him to spend other people’s money just like Barack.