It's one for the history books

Well, all the election stuff is over for now..., wait, think again!  Yesterday I heard people talk about how there are so many "liberal" Senators up for reelection in 2014 and how now's the time to start sorting candidates for 2016 and all that blather.   Aieeee!  They just can't stop, it's like people who are addicted to some unpleasant substance.  Well, anyways, it's over for me, and for this blog.

I feel sorry for those who say the sky is falling, who see an election result as a sign of impending apocalypse.  They have been guzzling the kool-aid, haven't they?  It doesn't surprise me that many want to blame the right's loss on a candidate who was insufficiently pure.  Don't they ever stop?  Not while there is money to be made, I suppose.  The reverse Pauline Kael syndrome that I've seen makes me laugh, though.  She was the New York Times movie critic who supposedly said in 1972, "I can't believe that McGovern lost.  Everyone I know voted for him!"  (She denied saying that, by the way.)  If someone is shocked because "all their friends" were for Romney and hated Obama, that may say more about them than about the election.

Enough already!  Give it a rest.

Reason 10--It doesn't add up

I simply do not believe that if Romney is elected, 12 million jobs will spring up like mushrooms after January 20.  If deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy create jobs, where have they been since 2001?  The Great Recession and the painfully slow recovery occurred because of, not in spite of, tax cuts and deregulation.  If voodoo economics worked, the Recession would not have happened.  Foolish deregulation of the financial sector was a disaster that makes Sandy look like a summer shower.  How people make money--doing so fairly and in accordance with the expectations of society--matters a great deal.  Regulation is needed to prevent the "haves" from rigging the economy to favor themselves.  Regulation is needed because the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been since the beginning.  There are few more "natural men" than predatory plutocrats.

I also don't believe that taxes on investment income should be eliminated, nor that capital gains taxes should be eliminated.  Ronald Reagan said that taxes on earned income--wages and salaries--should not be taxes at a higher rate than capital gains or investment income.  He was right.  I'm not a fan of the estate tax and believe it should be eliminated for estates of $5MM or less, but in place for larger estates to prevent excessive concentration of wealth.

Finally, I don't believe that Romney cares about anyone other than "winners" like himself and his sneering running mate.  They don't even really care about the 53% Romney talked to his money men about.  They trot out phoney lines like "a rising tide raises all boats" and "we built that" to reassure people that they want the middle class to succeed, but the reality is, they view the middle class like Henry Potter in "It's a Wonderful Life" views the middle class.  Watch it some time and you'll see what I mean. 

Reason 9--Paul Ryan

Paul Ryan is by himself enough reason for me to stick by the President.  Ryan is a disciple of Ayn Rand, the atheist apostle of selfishness, greed, and narcissism.  Some people are seduced by her version of the world, which is basically the same as Korihor's--one profits by one's own efforts, in a vacuum, alone, and one should do nothing for others, and force them to fend for themselves.  However Ryan dresses it up, this is the essence of his budget plan and the "Opportunity Economy" and "We built that" which he and Romney talk about.  In their perfect world, the economic "winner" takes all, regardless of how he contrived to "win", and it's every man for himself.  (Sorry, no pc version of that old saying quite captures it, and in the days when people really needed to jump into lifeboats to save themselves, "man" was understood to mean everyone.) 

This philosophy is the antithesis of the Gospel of Christ.  I'm surprised that a faithful member of God's Church would select a running mate with this kind of a philosophy.  Romney's doing so, and the philosophy itself, are insupportable.

Is Vice President Biden prone to unfortunate gaffes and hyperbole?  Yes, but he does not subscribe to a philosophy of the devil.  Ryan's philosophical lodestar is in my opinion an irredeemable evil.

Reason 8--The Supreme Court

Quite simply, I don't believe the nation can survive any more Alito/Scalia type Justices, and that's what Mr. Romney has promised to appoint.  I recognize that he is not bound by such promises, and it seems he doesn't feel bound by most anything he says except, "Elect me!"  But in this I take him at his word.  I expect that we will get at least 2 and maybe more new Justices during the next Presidential term.  I think the women The President has appointed have been reasonably good--I'd like to see a President return to the practice of seeking quality before ideology, and even appointing members of the other party, which hasn't happened since Nixon, but Kagan and Sotomayor have been decent Justices in spite of the efforts of the radical right to "Bork" them.  

The President is a scholar of the Constitution (which makes me laugh at the rabid Romney-ites who say that the President is somehow a danger to the Constitution).  I trust him to continue to make acceptable appointments to the Supreme Court, even though I think he will be more influences by demography and ideology than he should be.  I expect Romney to appoint people who will be in favor of more Citizens United-type decisions--there, the ruling was that corporations have the right to make unlimited political contributions.  I can imagine further abhorrent and aberrant decisions from the litmus-tested candidates that Mitt would appoint.  Even if he wanted to appoint someone who was moderate, I suspect the Taliban Party types would have none of it.  

Citizens United has been the worst Supreme Court decision of a generation--it ranks with the Dred Scott decision and Plessy v. Ferguson as an unholy trinity of terrible, corrosive, unjust decisions that have had awful consequences for the Republic.  It has introduced the appearance and the reality of outright corruption by corporate interests of both political parties.  Nothing like it must ever happen again.  We can't afford another Justice Scalia, or another Alito.  Hence, I will vote for the person who will not appoint that ilk of Justice, and against the one whom I think would do so.

Reason 7--Itching Ears and Teeth on Edge

One of my biggest concerns about the challenger in this year's Presidential race is that I believe his ideological house is built upon sand:  the shifting sand of saying whatever it is that the demographic or slice of the electorate he is courting wants to hear.  If he was still the moderate Republican who ran for Senate in 1994, or for Governor in 2002, I could seriously consider him.  But since he began his Ahab-like pursuit of the Presidency, he has steadily and consistently steered himself toward the libertarian reactionary extreme of his party.  The party that used to be mine until those people drove me out of it.  So he has embraced the wingnut migration of the GOP, even while I have turned away from it. 

On a host of issues, since 2007, he has moved steadily towards the Fox News crowd and away from what he once stood for.  In some cases he claims an epiphany, but one suspects that the only epiphany Mitt Romney has had on these issues is that he won't get the votes of his party's aptly-named "base" unless he shifts to at least appear to agree with them.  They have been taught by Roger Ailes (i.e. Fox News) and his friends that one's "competence" and "character" mean nothing, that what counts is ideological purity.  And that, Mitt has given them.  I believe he is a competent leader, at least when things go his way.  (Don't forget that when he was "working with Democrats" in Massachusetts, he vetoed hundreds of bills, many of which were made law by overriding his veto--hence his single term.)  I believe he has personal character, keeps the standards of the LDS Church, and believes in the Gospel of Christ.  But I think politically he is like the false prophets Isaiah decries as saying what their listeners want to hear, rather than what is true--he gives soothing words to itching ears.  He may do this because he honestly thinks the hard right of his party is correct and he was wrong for most of his life and political career, but one suspects that there are other forces at play.  One suspects he has changed almost everything he ever stood for because he really has only one thing on his agenda--being elected.  Heaven and his polling team only know which Mitt we will get from day to day.  

The interesting thing to me is that his much-touted first debate performance was the Etch-A-Sketch moment his advisers had promised back at the time of the Republican Convention in August.  Having tacked his yacht far to the right to gain the nomination, in the general election (they said) he would tack back towards the center to appeal to moderates.  And so he did.   I made the observation that he had fulfilled this prophecy right after the debate, and some were roundly critical of me for doing so.  At least a couple of them thought I was complaining from the right that he had forsaken his new ideological purity.  No, no, folks, I was noting his latest morph in the quest for electability.  But I digress.

A few months ago, Romney was proclaiming the libertarian reactionary notion that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is unneeded, that the states can and should lead natural disaster recovery.  After Hurricane Sandy he sings a different tune, because the need for FEMA to take the lead and respond vigorously, as opposed to making block grants to states and leaving them on their own, is palpable--so obvious as to be unmistakable.  Here is another of what I think of as Mitt's "Odo Moments"--referencing the shape-shifting character on Star Trek: Deep Space 9.  I offer this as the latest example, and perhaps one of the least, of Mr. Romney speaking to the itching ears of the electorate.  His words do not soothe my ears; to borrow another Biblical metaphor, they set my teeth on edge.  

The President is not perfect.  He has done a number of things I don't like.  He seems to care way more about making the homosexual rights advocates happy than I think he ought.  He should have concentrated on economic recovery and left health insurance reform on the back burner until the nation was more fully out of the abyss that supply side economics and deregulation put it into.  He favors certain economic interests in the City of Chicago over keeping Asian Carp out of the Great Lakes.  But even in these things, he has at least been consistent.  I can accept a leader who consistently does a few things I don't like, way more than a would-be leader who will say anything to get the vote count he needs.  Hence, I will vote the same as I did in 2008--with less enthusiasm, but no less conviction that my choice is the correct one.

Reason 6: Two words

The next reason I will vote the way I intend to has to do with two words.

The first is "Jeep".  Romney said to a crowd in Toledo (where Chrysler makes Jeeps) that Chrysler is planning to move Jeep production for the American market to China.  "That's 2,000 jobs lost.  [If elected] I'll fight for every job."  Blah blah blather blah.  Problem with this was, that's not at all what Chrysler said.  The company took out ads to respond that they what they were going to do is resume Jeep production for the Chinese market in China.  They said they aren't taking those American jobs anywhere, that in fact they intend to add jobs in America.  Did this pants-down misreading of the news cause any chagrin in the Romney camp?  No.  In fact the campaign thereafter blithely rolled out an ad, oh-so-carefully worded, that said something like, "Chrysler will be producing Jeeps in China."  Literally true, but because of the wording a false impression is created that all Jeep production is involved.  Creating the false impression is the only reason such an ad would be run; it's hardly noteworthy by a political campaign that a plant for an overseas market is being opened on site in the location of that market.  

This is a poster child for the dishonesty that I believe has permeated Romney's campaign.  All the hullabaloo about his confident style in the first debate overlooked the slight problem that he was not truthful in much of what he said there.  He does indeed have a $5 trillion tax cut planned as the flagship of his economic "plan."  America has created millions of private sector jobs under this President.  Romney has no plan for what to do if he manages to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and he will not be able to undo it on day 1 if he gets elected.  The parade of phoniness goes on and on.  The mainstream press doesn't call him on a lot of this, or does so in a timid way that negates the impact of doing so.  If Chrysler had not taken out the ads refuting Romney, I think the Jeep phoniness would have been glossed over, too.  The mainstream press is so afraid of having its objectivity challenged by partisans that it elevates the importance of the appearance of objectivity over that of telling truths that some won't like. 

The second word is CRUT, an estate planner's abbreviation for a tool called a Charitable Remainder Uni-Trust.  This device involves setting up a trust which pays a fixed amount to the donor each year (a percentage of the total trust value, as opposed to the "income" of the trust, hence "uni-trust", since principal and income are lumped together for the calculation) for a period of time, and what remains at the end is paid to a designated charity.  If you contributed appreciated capital gain property to such a trust, the trust could sell the property tax-free, using the charitable status of the remainder beneficiary, and you could deduct the after-sale value of the property given to the trust as a charitable contribution.  As a hedge fund manager, Romney's income from his company, Bain, was all treated as capital gain property.  (This hedge fund income loophole remains and needs very badly to be addressed.)  A very clever maneuver, tailor-made to reduce or eliminate the taxes Romney would pay.  Romney used these extensively to avoid paying taxes on much or most of his income during the eighties and nineties.  Once the law changed and the loophole these devices represented was closed, and it became apparent that he wanted to run for national office, Romney discontinued this practice, but the CRUTs already set up were "grandfathered".  His CRUTs gave the absolute minimum to the charity he selected--the LDS Church--and huge distributions--something like 8%-- to him annually.

All this was legal.  Any lawyer worth anything knows that "legal" is not the same as "ethical" or "right".  A great lawyer, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, said that, "Taxes are the price we pay for living in a civilized society."   The common wage-earner has been paying for Mitt Romney to enjoy the benefits of civilized society, and Mitt has not paid his way.  That's why he has refused to disclose his earlier tax returns--the most recent do not reveal these devices he has used to shift the burden of paying for civilization to others.  I believe this tax strategy shows a clever person determined to maximize the gain to himself and minimize his own personal responsibility.  I could understand and tolerate this attitude from a client, but I don't want to see it in a President.  Oh, and it looks like good old Harry Reid had it right after all.

Reason 5--"Bipartisanship"
The person I'm not voting for has repeatedly charged that the one I am voting for has not shown "bipartisanship" or "leadership" in dealing with those who have opposed him.  This is disingenuous at best and, at worst, perfidious.  The challenger in this race began to campaign for the 2012 election in 2008 before the incumbent even took office.  Three days after the inauguration, leaders of the opponent stated their solemn intention to thwart everything he would try to do.  The opposition's Senate boss has said his number one job has been to ensure the President serves only one term.

I thought the number one job of everyone who holds office under the Constitution was to work with others to achieve the best for the whole country.  My mistake--the oath of office means nothing, apparently.  It is mere empty words.

For the past four years, "bipartisanship" has been an empty word.  It is impossible to "work with", let alone "lead", people who refuse to talk to you.  I don't believe even someone as vacuous as Romney can be serious in his charge about a lack of "bipartisanship".  That is why I think he is somewhere between being insincere and being phony as a three dollar bill on this issue.  He knows why it didn't happen, and who set out from almost the day the President was elected to make it that way.  I hope and pray that their plans come to naught.  If not, they will have set the pattern of hyper-partisanship and refusal to cooperate which will prevail for years to come, and while that may be what the people who have done this deserve, it is not what our country deserves.

Reason 4--Whom would we be getting?
The 4th reason I decline to vote as many seem of my friends think I should is because I'm not sure who it is they would have me vote for...well, I know his name, and what church he goes to, but not a lot else, not really.  Most of the moderate positions he espoused a few years ago, he has abandoned in the quest to get the more extreme element of his party to support him.  When others do this kind of thing, it's called "flip-flopping."  He says he is for bipartisanship, but when's the last time he said something good about his opponent?  If you disdain your competitor, I don't see how you work with him later.

I think there is one core belief about this election that he holds true to, and really only one.  I don't mean his belief that making money is synonymous with virtue.  I think the only polestar for him is that he really, really, really wants to be President, and will do whatever it takes to get there.  He seems to authentic in his drive to obtain the job, I'll grant him that.  There are many in his party for whom that willingness to perform whatever contortion, spout whatever half-truth or outright fib, and curry favor by courting whatever group of voters, is the ultimate point of attraction--the willingness to do whatever one has to do to win.  It is closely akin to the divine right of kings attitude many in that party have:  when you have the "right" to rule, when your superior claim to office is self-evident, then process does not matter and anything you do to gain election is by definition appropriate.  I know I'm tarring the other guy with a brush that has tarred the Bushes and Cheneys before him, but in this case, guilt by association sticks like glue.

So my question is, whom would we be getting if we get the other guy?  The Massachusetts Moderate?  The crimson caveman of his fundraising speeches?  A CEO?  A corporate freebooter?  A crony capitalist?  An auto-pen for whatever the tea party taliban might send him from Congress?  I don't know, and I don't see how anyone can claim to know.

Reason 3--Fun With Numbers
Another reason I intend to vote a certain way is that the person I will not vote for plays games with numbers.  He says the President is a failure because the unemployment rate is stubbornly high.  The unspoken truth of the unemployment numbers is that fiscal austerity has cost hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs even while private sector job growth has been steady, and that is why the rate has remained high. This austerity has been imposed by the red team, and they should not blame the President for it. If the Ryan-Romney budget is implemented, millions of public sector jobs will be lost, and we will have to trust to voodoo economics to create private sector jobs to replace them.

I don't believe lower taxes on the rich and elimination of the regulation that is intended to curb the excesses of the private sector will open a floodgate of new jobs.  There is no evidence that supply-side economics has worked in the past, what ever the wishful thinkers say.  What supply-side economics has done is make wealthy people like Romney and Ryan, wealthier.

As an aside, an economist named Laffer (how apt) once claimed that the willingness of people to undertake economic activity falls rapidly as the marginal tax rate (the rate on the incremental dollar of income) increases.  The Laffer Curve is, like so much of the dismal science, false.  Do you really think someone will refuse to earn a second million dollars of income because they will pay an extra nickel of each of those dollars to income taxes?  I don't.  The rich never seem to hesitate to get richer, which is fine by me. Just don't try to rig the world in your favor and don't cry if you are asked to part with a little more of the second million than you did of the first.  A tax rate of 40% is no higher than what Reagan imposed on high incomes in the 80s.  If the sainted Ronnie could do it then, why is it such a horrible idea now?

You can find some economist somewhere to agree with just about any proposition, and can therefore find "proof" for almost any policy choice from the output of economists.  But such fun with numbers proves nothing.  

I'm not willing to trust voodoo economics to create jobs.  Job growth will continue as conditions improve.  All those fired state and local workers have to work their way through the system and find jobs.  Firing a lot more government workers will not reduce the unemployment rate, whatever creative math the red bunch comes up with.    

Reason 2--In my view, "Obamacare", though flawed and not what I really wanted to see, beats the tar out of "Romney-I-Don't-Care."  I don't see how 50 million uninsured people, a sixth of our population, is not a problem that needs fixing.  The status quo was essentially socialized medicine as to these people--the law required that they be treated if they went into an emergency facility seeking care, and "the system" ended up with the bill.  You and I paid for them through increased costs charged to cover the cost of treating them.  Not providing a basic level of health coverage for all is shameful.

We provide a basic level of legal representation for the indigent.  How is it moral to give them lawyers but not doctors?  

I have no sympathy for the "I've got mine, go get your own" crowd.  I think they are the ones who the Savior described as being goats, being told on Judgement Day that they did not  provide for the least of His brethren.  Government action is an effective and appropriate way for a a society to act, especially a democracy.  Romney says that if he can repeal the Affordable Care Act, he will then work to replace it with something better.  But he doesn't say what he'd replace it with.  Similar to the rest of his promise making, he is light on details.  "That's to be worked out later" is not a basis on which I'm willing to give up a flawed but far better-than-nothing attempt at fixing the problem.  I don't trust Romney to live up to those promises and I trust his party even less.

Why I will vote the way I intend to vote

Hi--I've been gone a while.  My wife has convinced me that this is the place to voice my opinions, not Face Book.  Please note that you are welcome to disagree with me, but this is my place.  If you want to leave graffiti, do so someplace of your own.  Dissenting opinions that aren't sufficiently well argued will be deleted at management's discretion, and all such decisions are final.

I will not be voting the way many of my friends think I should.  I'm going to do a few posts to explain why.  It will be up to you to decide for whom I intend to vote.

Reason 1--I don't want a robber baron as President.  I don't want a corporate raider as President.  I don't want to elect a disciple of Ayn Rand as Vice President.  I don't want the socio-economic clock turned back to the "good ol' days" of 1900.  Those days were good for a few people who clawed their way to the pinnacle of an unregulated economy, but they did so at great cost to the vast majority.   I think this was immoral, and I don't want those days to return.