“Mugsy’s Rap Sheet”

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- Mugsy

(I apologize for the lack of posts lately. Other commitments have consumed my time as of late.)

In 2005, the 78 year old Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected to succeed the late Pope John Paul II, who passed away at the age of 84.

When asked why they choose someone so old to be the next Pope, the Cardinals basically admitted that Ratzinger was really just an “interim” choice, not expected to live very long, but will give them the opportunity to appoint someone better in a few years. I can only imagine just how under-whelmed the new Pope must of been upon hearing the news.

I live in Texas and our Presidential Primary is fast approaching, and I hate my choices. I’ve written on here several times of my problems with both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. My first choice, Bill Richardson, was the last of the “Second Tier” candidates to drop out of the race… which says to me that I did a good job of picking a candidate whose experience and record struck a cord with those of us that care more about “accomplishments” than “promises”. And when he dropped out, my natural second choice was former Senator John Edwards. But now that he is out of the race, I find myself interminably vacillating between my two remaining Democratic choices: Hillary and Obama. Early voting in Texas ends on the 29th, so I’m waiting until the last possible moment before casting my vote.

Here is the scorecard:

Iraq:

When it comes to Iraq, Obama has the clear advantage as being opposed to the invasion of Iraq from the start. After hours of extensive Googling, I was able to find interviews with then Illinois State Senator Obama where he did indeed speak out about the lack of a “need” to invade Iraq… which is a question that has bothered me ever since the second Democratic Debate when he said he opposed invading Iraq only because of the “timing” (calling it a “distraction”), something that could wait till later. So on the subject of Iraq, Obama scores an A-.

Hillary, on the other hand, has always been a hawk on Iraq, second probably only to Joe Lieberman. She has not committed to ensuring that all of our troops will be out of Iraq by the end of her first term, and has suggested leaving as many as 70,000 troops there until the end of her first term (2012). However, she is now claiming on the campaign trail that she will “begin withdrawing troops [from Iraq] within 60 days“. So on the subject of Iraq, Hillary scores a C-.

But on the subject of Iran, both candidates have made hawkish statements advancing the falsehood that Iran “is” developing nuclear weapons and “no question” they are aiding the insurgency in Iraq, the first of which was found to be completely false when the 2007 NIE, released last December, revealed Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003; and the other assertion which has LONG been in question. So on the subject of judicial use of our military in the future, I rate Hillary & Obama a wash, both earning a C-.

Next subject: Health care:

In 1994, in his first State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton announced his plan to bring a National Health Care Program to the United States, and announced the formation of an exploratory committee to be headed up by the First Lady, Hillary Clinton. The reaction from Republicans and the media was much as you’d expect when a $500 Billion dollar a year industry is threatened. Hysteria over “Socialized Medicine” and “rationed health care” flooded the airwaves for more than a year, driving the issue to a quick and painful death, never to return for the rest of his Presidency.

The result: 14 years later, Hillary has abandoned the Canada/England “single payer” health care model of covering every American in favor of a new system that involves “restructuring” the existing “insurance-based” health care model to make insurance more affordable. In acknowledging that the best way to control costs is make health insurance a “mandate” the same way we mandate car insurance for drivers, in a plan already being derided as “Hillary-care“, Clinton’s program will require all employers to insure their employees, purchasing “price-controlled” insurance (regulated much the same way state insurance boards regulate other types of insurance now). She also stated in a recent debate that the term “pre-existing condition” would be banned under her program. However, if you are unemployed or are self-employed, you must still purchase this “affordable” insurance to remain covered. But, as I pointed out before, the attacks on the Hillary plan are already underway. Google the subject and you’ll find almost nothing but Right-wing negative spin regarding her health care program clogging the blogosphere already, so the likelihood she’ll be able to pass her program is questionable. On the subject of National Health Care, Hillary scores a solid B.

Senator Obama’s health care program is not a mandate, though also focuses on making insurance affordable through price controls and modernization. Like the Clinton program, employers would carry the burden of insurance premiums, but according to his website, the government would “reimburse” employers a “portion” of their costs should an employee fall to “catastrophic illness”… but what exactly the government is “reimbursing” is not clear. Would it offset part of the cost of increased premiums as a result of that employees illness, or does it mean reimbursing the company for its losses due to not having that employee there at work… or maybe it means something else entirely? The website is not clear. And what is there for the government to “reimburse” if you are un/self-employed? Mostly, his entire program consists of making insurance cheaper. Like the Clinton plan, Obama also promises no one can be refused insurance due to a “pre-existing condition”, But without a mandate, there will be a disproportionate number of seriously/chronically ill people in the system pushing costs upwards, whereas a mandate has more “healthy” people in the system to offset those costs. Obama once expressed support for “single payer” health care system, but has since recanted his support for the idea. Overall, Obama’s plan rates a C+.

The Economy:

After reining in our out-of-control “Military Industrial Complex” that needs a steady diet of wars to feed the machine and use up the bombs for more Defense dollars to build more, our National Debt is my most important next issue.

One of the things that makes the National Debt such an enormous issue to me is the fact it is probably the least understood, most easily dismissed, and yet affects your daily life more than even George Bush’s disregard for our right of Habeas Corpus (the right not to be held without charge). When Bush entered office, the National Debt was under $5Trillion and shrinking thanks to a balanced budget and reasonable tax rate on the wealthiest 5%. But with the reduction of that tax rate, compounded by the astounding cost of the clusterf### that is the “War on Terror“, that debt has DOUBLED in just seven years to $9.2TRILLION DOLLARS! When Ronald Reagan increased the Debt from just $1Trillion to $4Trillion in his eight years, he was highly criticized, and Reagan himself actually raised taxes in four of his eight years trying to keep the rising Debt under control. George Bush has shown NO such compunction towards fiscal responsibility, not only refusing to raise taxes or cut spending to control the rising debt, but going so far as demanding that his fiscally irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthy be made “permanent”. As a result, he has added an additional $5Trillion to the National Debt, with no end in sight.

The Gross National Debt

And WHY exactly is the National Debt so important? How does it affect your daily life? Regular readers of “Mugsy’s Rap Sheet” will know that we must pay interest on that debt every year. If we don’t pay that interest, foreign countries will stop loaning us money, which is about all the Bush Administration has left to run the country. More than half of which the IRS takes in in taxes each year goes to paying for the War in Iraq and interest on the Debt, leaving precious little (about $450 Billion) to provide services here… everything from Social Security , National Defense (FBI, CIA, etc), Education, oversight (FAA, SEC, FDA, etc), student loans, the National Parks Service, libraries, museums, interstate highway funds, and MUCH MUCH more. If your credit card debt was this out of control, you’d be in serious trouble. Very soon (I’ve heard the year 2025 bandied about), every tax dollar we take in will go to pay for entitlements (”Social Security”, “Medicare”) and interest on the debt. And theoretically, eventually every dollar we collect in taxes will go just to pay interest on the debt, and the entire U.S. economy will have to be financed on borrowed money. Ignoring the National Security issues raised by depending so heavily on borrowed money from questionable sources (China, Saudi Arabia) just to maintain a functioning government, eventually, we won’t take in enough in taxes to attract more loans to fund the government. Consider that for a moment… every dime in taxes going to pay interest, and no country willing to loan us any more money to run the government, the United States will cease to exist. That’s not an overstatement, nor am I being overly melodramatic. Under Bush, we are already halfway there. We MUST bring our debt under control. Fiscally irresponsible Republicans (who boast of being “fiscal Conservatives”) will borrow without an iota of conscious, thinking the “National Debt” is one of those phony/overblown issues like “Global Warming“. So the burden falls to the Democrats, who will cut government spending and raise taxes to try and bring the Debt under control, which Republicans and other uninformed citizens will scream bloody-murder over.

So balancing the budget and bringing the National Debt under control so that we stop wasting BILLIONS of tax dollars on paying interest instead of spending it here at home, is of incalculable importance to the future of this country.

Okay, how to I say this? Hillary Clinton’s website DOESN’T EVEN HAVE LINKS TO “JOBS” OR “THE ECONOMY” on it, so I can’t tell you what her plans are to create jobs, stop the National Debt from hemorrhaging cash, or balancing the budget and paying down the debt. This, to me, suggests this subject doesn’t rank nearly as high of importance to her campaign as it does me. So on the Economy, Jobs & the National Debt, I have to give Hillary a D- (not an “F” because she has noted Bush’s out of control spending and the size of the Debt on the campaign trail).

The Obama website does include a section on the economy, but nowhere in it does he mention the out-of-control spending, bringing down the deficit or paying down the National Debt. The site does (irresponsibly) suggest “tax cuts for the middle class”… offset by rolling back the tax cuts on the rich (for a net benefit of zero). His website does list a number of ideas for ensuring job security and promoting job growth, and both Hillary and Obama’s websites talk of job growth through promoting “Green Jobs” (as does John McCain). So on jobs & the economy, Obama scores a C+.

There are plenty of other issues the candidates can be compared upon, but on the top two critical issues… war and the economy… both Democratic candidates score disappointingly. Here in Texas, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is running a close second to John McCain in the polls. Second only to California in the number of Delegates, a win for Huckabee here would do much to throw the GOP Presidential race into turmoil.

And what about voting for Huckabee in the General Election? Huckabee has made “taxes and fiscal responsibility” a cornerstone of his campaign with his “Fair Tax” pledge to replace our current “income” tax with a “consumption” tax (good in principle, but the “Fair Tax” organization’s stated program does not make the necessary adjustments needed to avoid shifting the bulk of the burden to the poor), which, if successful, could do much to bring our fiscal house in order.

While making frightening and ridiculous statements about “changing the Constitution to bring it in line with God’s Law” and being one of three Republican candidates to admit that he “doesn’t believe in evolution“, the next President is going to have a Democratically controlled Congress to contend with, and with some 30 Republicans announcing that they will not be seeking reelection vs. just 5 Democrats, likely resulting in a veto-proof majority in the Senate, it is unlikely any extremist judicial appointments or Constitutional Amendments proffered by a “President Huckabee” would pass, so any batshit crazy Evangelical policies are sure to be kept in check.

Huckabee has likewise criticized President Bush’s lack of use of diplomacy, decried him as having a “bunker mentality” and blowing any chance at improving relations with Iran after 9/11 when they offered to help pursue bin Laden.

The first President I was old enough to remember life under was Richard Nixon, followed soon after by his VP Gerry Ford. I was too young to understand Watergate, but I do remember that a one-term Governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, was appealing as a Presidential candidate because of his unquestionable honesty & integrity, something deemed to be in short supply after the scandals of the Nixon Administration. Members of the Nixon Administration were actually convicted and sent to prison. The discovery of a secret war run by the CIA in Cambodia and the fall of Saigon after promising victory in Vietnam, culminating with the President himself resigning in disgrace to avoid impeachment, the country was hungry for “change”. Sound familiar?

But with a failure to deal with the rise of radical fundamentalism in the Middle East, and the evening news updating us of the plight of the “Hostage Crisis at the American Embassy in Iran” for over 400 straight days (it would be 444 days in all), Carter was (unfairly) branded “inept”. This paved the way for three-time loser Ronald Reagan to win the Presidency on his fourth try, despite Democratic control over BOTH Houses of Congress, in 1980, heralding Republican control of at least half the government for the next 26 years. Republicans regained control of the Senate just two years later in 1982 and held it (with only a brief 18 month interruption in 2002) until just last year.

Jimmy Carter was a very good man, whose integrity and morality I’d put up against George W. Bush’s any day of the week. But he also was not experienced enough in the ways of Washington to prepare him for what lie ahead, and a mere four years after the Nixon/Ford legacy of a criminal White House, a Republican was elected President yet again, with more criminal wrong-doing than ever before… only now, they were better at covering it up (see: Iran/Contra). More fiscal irresponsibility, only now promoted as “fiscally responsible” (a term that endures to this day), the legacy of Jimmy Carter is George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Now, the country is again hungry for “Change” following the criminality and “fools erand” war of George W Bush. So hungry, they are once again rushing to nominate and inexperienced, honest but good man promising “Change” without regard for the consequences. And I fear that if he fails at undoing the mess left to him by his predecessor, A President Obama might not only set back the Democratic Party another three decades, but possibly set back African-American politics even further.

When it comes time for me to vote next week, my vote might best be served by casting my ballot for Mike Huckabee. The immediate effect would be to help extend the turmoil of the GOP Presidential race and force John McCain to concentrate more on his Republican rival than get a five month lead on attacking the Democrats. With a Democratic Congress in control, any damage Huckabee might do is minimal, and his focus on a “flat tax” means he’s not out there promising irresponsible “tax cuts” at a time when we can least afford it. And this government is sorely in need of someone whose making the National Debt a front-burner issue. If he’s a disaster, let him destroy the Republican Party for the next three decades, not the Democrats.

Much like the Cardinals in Rome did in 2005, now is a great time for an “interim” President till someone better comes along, opening up the opportunity for a more Progressive Democrat in 2012. Think about it.