much cussed and discussed piece from 1.29.08 print edition of the herald-gazette...
My presidential campaign platform
Barack Obama’s runaway victory in the South Carolina primary has the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton on the ropes.
I don’t think either candidate can win nationwide and, with that thought in mind, here is a portion of the campaign platform I would offer up if I were in the race against them.
I would put in place programs to dismantle LBJ’s Great Society programs immediately. These programs have rewarded the unproductive and punished the productive for far too long.
My first commitment would be to get federal, state and local governments out of the housing business. I would demolish 10% of the the public housing units per year over my eight years in offices, leaving 20% for those truly in need.
The housing market would be returned almost wholly to the private sector where supply and demand would set house prices and rents. There would be no more subsidies and no more housing market crisis.
My second commitment would be to place strict, nationwide limits on how long individuals would be eligible for welfare, food stamps and free and reduced price school lunches. Additionally, care for low income children would be doubled for children from the homes of married couples. We must put an end to the culture in which unmarried mothers are recompensed for birthing bastard children.
Certainly these moves would cause troubles for some. And, I would have a bridge fund in place to train chronic public assistance recipients to be self sufficient. There would be a work component in my plan, however, that would require menial labor on public projects (goodbye litter) before a check was written.
Where would this money come from? It would come from the billions we now spend on foreign aid. My platform would immediately eliminate such aid to countries who are not staunch allies of the United States both militarily and otherwise.
The fact is, we cannot, in great numbers, ‘save the children’ of countries where the population has exceeded the natural resources needed to nurture it. This is a sad but certain scientific fact.
We can save a few and your charitable organizations would be free to mount those efforts. My government would be supportive but not directly involved.
Illegal immigration would be handled thusly. I would beef up border security, including fencing the border where needed. Illegal immigrants found here would be immediately deported and our foreign aid to their home government docked for the cost of that deportation.
No illegal immigrant would be eligible for a driver’s license or any sort of public assistance and I would suspend the current law that grants automatic citizenship to children of illegals born in this country.
Some cities and states that have deemed themselves ‘sanctuaries’ for illegals and refuse to follow deportation guidelines. I would cut all federal funding for these governments until they fall in step. Believe me, that will not take long.
I would encourage a phasing in of sales taxes to replace income and property taxes nationwide. Quite frankly, working Americans and property owning Americans are paying far more than their fair share.
As for my stance on abortion, I feel that decision should be left up to the expecting woman, her physician, the prospective father if he is in the picture, their families and clergy. The American government and its judicial system simply have no role in the reproductive rights debate.
Contraception is not rocket science. It should be practiced.
The Declaration of Independence guarantees Americans (not illegal immigrants) life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Everything else is gravy. It is up to you - not your fellow Americans - to provide the gravy.
You’d best get crackin’.
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41 comments:
Not bad, scoop. Too bad the America you and I dream of is no more. Americans, as a whole, have lost their love of life and the liberty to live it. We have villified the very words upon which this country was built; i.e. independence, liberty, responsibility, profit, and wealth. In a relatively short time, we went from a group of people that would risk life and limb, pack up their family, and move into the wilderness of the wild west in search for a better life. Now we have an entire demographic that wont get off the couch and walk a few miles a day to find a job.
My only conern is once our shell of what "America" used to be falls into the abysmal hands of the power hungry beauracrats and their dependent leeches, where do we self-reliants go for sanctum? When we are tired of working and fighting tooth and nail to build wealth, only to have an overbearing and perpetually growing government lurking around every corner to take more and more of our sucesses; where on earth can one go and live in a utopia of self reliance and indepence, where I can be free to achieve as much as possible without paying for those unable, or unwilling, to take responsibility for themselves? America WAS the last great place on earth, where one could be free to acheive. Now it is a reflection of the European style of life from which we fought a war to escape.
I'm all aboard, except for the abortion issue.
Life begins in the wound. Equality and Justice is for the unborn too. Have you scene a 3D ultrasound lately? Very convincing.
One other clarification: lunch programs have small subsidies and many run on their own accord.
I would prefer a larger focus on an overhaul of the Dept. of Education, specifically initiating a voucher program.
General, I have got to agree. Being a grandmother, I have attended the ultrasounds of my unborn grandchildren. It is a beautiful sight! It is sad to me to know how many children are killed daily, but sad, also, how many women suffer because they regret it later because they really did not know what they were doing.
Seems it's an even greater sin and problem for society for a woman to bring an unwanted child into the world. Every child should have someone to love them. Therein lies the problem.
I'll weigh in that there's a greater problem if our society has evolved to only allowing the 'wanted or desired' people to remain alive.
Wanted or not, life is still life. Many great people that accomplished great things for mankind came from unwanting parents and were put into orphanages.
what should happen is all the pro-life people should share the expenses of raising all the unwanted children or any medical expenses. they should do the right thing and provide homes for every mother to go so abortion aint necessary. they can raise the children and pay all medical and other costs.if the child goes to jail after been raised by them they should pay the jail costs. if they aint willing to do that they should leave the laws alone.
Won't argue that but a woman should have a choice. The problem is so many children aren't given a chance.
You left out a key component if your platform is going to have a snowball's chance.
Enact term limits & once the term is up, they must go back home. Shoot all the lawyers & lobbyists inside the Beltway.
if you ran on that platform you might win a uga frat house president or maybe a rural small town southern office......but you are very far off with your views, as viewed by most americans.....you need to wake up....america has changed, for the better......the old south and the old south ways are gone......everyone cant do it on their own anymore.....you have to help people out....be a christian...the proof in is the pudding, just look at the man leading the republican race....people realise that they need a moderate,,,,Bush has proved to americans that a fool and a conservative fool at that, cant cut it in the world today.......walter, you need to get out and into the real world, and quite listing to the rednecks and the dawgs
While it probably all looks good to someone who has his head up the Republican backside, it is nonsense when looked at Walter. You must not do much actual research.
You propose a national sales tax to relieve the burden on the middle class. The fact is the middle class, in proportion to all other classes, pays a much larger portion of income towards sales taxes now than the upper middle or wealthy.
To run our Government, even with the war in Iraq eliminated, would require about a 30% tax inclusive sales tax rate (23% based on the total consumer cost) on every transaction in the USA... even business to business wholesale and business to Government sales. It would have to include food and include all services, not just materials.
The more people spent the more tax they would pay. The result of such folly would be a drop in consumer spending for anything but the bare necessities. Only the rich would continue to spend.
It would also force businesses to merge and eliminate multiple step distribution, since each step would be taxed.
What puzzles me is how anyone with any ability to think and reason and with ten toes and ten digits on their hands to add with would ever think a spending based tax would help anything!
Spewing nonsense that can only make things worse for the middle class doesn't solve problems. America needs a strong middle class, not a weaker more taxed middle class.
If you want a fair tax, tax as a percentage of income with no deductions. Reduce cash to welfare families in proportion to the number of children, and make them work. The more kids you have the less free income you have. It's that way for the middle class, it should be the same way for the poor.
If we taxed based on income with no deductions the rate could be 20% or less. It would encourage spending, it would not raise food or housing prices.
If we taxed transactions buying would be suppressed. Everything we bought would cost more, the more stages in the process the higher the tax burden in the end product or service.
Time to put the taxopiates away and quit dreaming in a Republican purple haze.
Think and research before parroting nonsense.
11:34 you are so right.....only fair tax is to have about 4 brackets, then do away with all deductions......the fair tax proposal would open a big can of worms....and what would all the accountants and irs workers, and tax lawyers do.....plus the law makers would give all kinds of things that would not be taxed.....are you gonna add 30% to price of homes, if so no one would buy from builder or real estate, but would buy from indiviual.....what about the 30,000 car, another 9,000 tax...........one reason the honest, god fearing, intelligent, conservative, southern mike huckabe is not leading the republican race is that the smart people know that this is a very bad idea that hasnt a chance of being enforce even if enacted....
walter, i dont really believe you believe everything you write......you have to be smarter than that......just like neal boortz, you are an entertainer, you bring up things to get a reaction....and that is alright as long as everyone knows , and then they can play along......the problem is that some readers might start to believe what you say, then we got problems in river city......all the stuff that you, boortz, o'reilly, hannietty, springer, bill bennet, etc spout is just to rile up the talk and is not what yall really believe.....the only harm is when people start to believe all that crap, then you get a chenney, a bush, or a Ralph reed
the majority of this country doesnt want the goverment telling a woman what to do with her pregnancy, doesnt want us to stay in Iraq, doesnt want us to invade iran, doesnt want us to turn our backs on the poor and the disabled, doesnt want us to continue with our broken health care system, doesnt want us to be the worlds peace keeper, doesnt want us to continue to pollute the world, doesnt want us to continue sending jobs overseas, doesnt want to continue get our aid and money from china, and doesnt want the death pentaly.......Walter, how can you be so different from the majority of Americans..
I am laughing my ass off right now. The posts above me are sooooo far off base. You have not even read the Fair Tax and YOU are spewing dog pooh on this blog not Walter. I love the fact that you tell Walter to do his research when obviously you have not done your own.
I would love to debate these issues with either of you but it would be a little more enjoyable if you actually knew the material that would be discussed.
Nice try gentlemen, now go back to your little liberal holes.
Any direct questions or pooh you would like to spew with someone who knows the difference in reasonable concerns and just all out bullshit?
You keep the income tax you whining, COMMUNIST, bleeding heart, liar.
FairTax4me
Also Huckabee wasn't even on the radar until he openly supported the Fair Tax during a debate, this also got one of the biggest- if not the biggest- responses in a Presidential debate since they started electronically monitoring them.
YAWN.... you make it sooo easy.
Well Mr. Brains, you are in for a shock. Anyone can write anything on an internet web site.
If you think fairtax has their facts straight you better think again.
A sales based tax will NEVER work for dozens of reasons. It would just kill our economy. It would cost more to enforce than anything we have now, and it would create a whole new class of criminals who sell bootleg goods without tax.
Can you imagine Mr. X buying a tractor from Mr. Y? Either they do it cash under the table (illegal) or Mr. X pays 30% more that Mr. Y never gets to keep.
The same is true for gasolene, food, fruit at the fruit stand, and everything else.
Not only that. When Hardwick wants new pencil erasers to change the code books the county would have to pay about 30% tax.
If this stuff just slowed the economy 10% the tax rate would have to go up to 50%.
Ya gotta wonder how some people are so easily duped.
What the "fair tax" is really about is some whiners think they will get a tax break. The only people who get tax breaks are the rich and the poor. That's true now, it will still be true with the fair tax program.
Fair tax would be no deductions and everyone pays a certain percentage based on income. No breaks (like liar Bush did) for the wealthy.
Then the middle class rate could drop. A sales based tax would just kill our economy. It would hurt those who are already being hurt much more than any other system.
It would force our economy underground and ruin what remained above ground.
3:09, maybe you should ask someone that has actually had a child from being raped:
https://www.cbn.com/700club/features/Amazing/Heather_Gemmen022406.aspx
https://www.cbn.com/700club/features/Amazing/Heather_Gemmen022406.aspx
Let me try this one more time:
https://www.cbn.com/700club/features/Amazing/Heather_Gemmen022406.aspx
walter, i understand why you are a conservative. being an editor in this county....but you got to liberal up some....you have gone too far to the right....you may want to run for state office in the future, and you would have to explain or waffle on those issues...
Two of the largest economies in the world already run on a consumption tax, Florida and Texas.
If you think that UN-taxing corporations would result in economic loss you are insane. We would have everybody scrambling for our doors instead of the up and coming industrialized nations.
The middle class will have LESS of a tax burden than they presently have and it will be a voluntary contribution to our "all powerful" government instead of an outright confiscation.
The underground economy is already alive and well with ILLEGAL Aliens, drug dealers, tax evaders, and anybody who adds a little more exemptions than they really have every year around tax time.
If you believe that the American people are going to shift their spending habits from consume, consume, consume, borrow money for consumption, consume some more- infinity- into save, save, save, you are not being realistic. This will not turn us into a nation of savers but it will untax all of our savings.
Your idea of tax brackets without deductions would last about two seconds before the poor would receive a break, then the middle, then the poor, then the middle, make up the difference through the rich,... rinse /repeat... and then eventually you would come around to untaxing the rich a little to spur economic growth and then go right back into the same crap we have now.
I KNOW you have not read the FairTax Book and I would ask you to read it. If you had read it, half of what you have written would have been tossed.
That's all the time I have now.
FairTax4me
ALSO Bush's tax cuts did work. Proven Fact. Suck it up.
Yeah sure, Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy worked great. Just like his "the hard part is over" idea about Iraq.
The USA has been driven into recession by Bush and his failed policies, he created a historically high deficit, and 20-30% of the country still wants us to think he was successful.
Bush is the best friend any Democrat ever had. After his mismanagement it'll be tough to elect a Republican to toilet bowl cleaner at the Pastime Grill.
Florida and Texas have a light sales tax that augments the property and other taxes. It's 6% tax in Florida. It isn't 23-30%. naturally a 6% sales tax doesn't hurt anything. We are used to it.
http://dor.myflorida.com/dor/taxes/
shows they also have MANY more taxes than just the sales tax.
Only a bubble head would compare a redistributed tax in a STATE (Florida makes you pay tax on out of state purchases and many other things you are not taxed on in Georgia) with a FEDERAL tax that is typically at a 30% rate.
You need to quite reading all the crap put out by people trying to shift the tax burden to the middle class. They'll suck fools like you right in.
Try reading this link:
www.brookings.edu/papers/1998/03taxes_gale.aspx
I read it and it is the same jibber jabber as the rest of the Anti-Fair Tax crusaders. The Brookings Institute has it out for the Fair Tax and so does Bruce Bartlett. Go to fairtax.org and read their comments and research sometime if you ever get off your high horse and quit filling your brain with just Fair Tax Flawed Tax bull. If you would just research a little you could find the answers to your fear.
The tax cuts do work, spending like crazy doesn't.
The tax burden won't be on the middle class under the Fair Tax if you just look and see.
Also, you proved my point that they do work off of a consumption tax not an income tax. Take away the other taxes and put in a higher consumption tax and presto! you are off the mounds of taxes. Consumption taxes will work and do work. Income taxes were unconstitutional at one time for a reason. You are a socialist, class warfare fool. You have been had by your lefty friends and media.
How can some of you say that America doesn't fit in with the Conservative platform? Why is AIR AMERICA going under if America is on the Liberal path... or even the moderate conservative path?
This tells the truth. Liberals cannot stand up to callers with actual questions about basic truths!
You LOSE. You lost in the beginning. Conservatism and Libertarianism are the only true American ways of life.
Go back to your hole and take your socialist agenda with you, we do see your socialist agenda you know.
Liberal Radio is a waste and a complete wash. YOU LOSE.
FAIRTAX IS THE KEY TO UNLOCK AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you think that rape is actually a statistic worth mentioning when it comes to abortion in America you are terribly mistaken. Less than one percent. A doctors discretion could easily handle that. NEXT.
IM ALL FOR THE FAIR TAX PLAN.I AGREE WITH ANON 1:21&6:03
BIG COUNTRY
Scoop for president!
right wingers listen to the radio and tv, because it takes no skills and it is fun and easy....they like to be entertained.....liberals read, because they can and because it is more detailed
Liberaleft you must be joking. We listen to the radio, watch the news and read. Liberals can't survive in the radio world because they accept callers and these callers phone in and destroy their silly ideas of economic and socialist prosperity through higher taxes and wealth redistribution. In return they lose their audience and become professional bloggers so that they can type up something that some other Liberal said and link a post to it and claim it as fact.
Why do Independent studies and economists prove that people work harder because of incentives?
Because its true.
If your Democratic puke party couldn't buy votes from the ignorant you would be cold and all alone at the ballot box.
Please tell me some reasons why you choose this ideology- and leave the Bush bashing out please. I want to know why you would vote for a Liberal if it was the FIRST President of the USA.
http://www.fairtax.org/PDF/Hillary_Clinton_rebuttal_letter-040407.pdf
Read this for a little info on the FairTax and how it does NOT increase the middle class tax burden.
It also shows you how stupid Hillary Clinton is or at least how much she doesn't know about the Fair Tax.
The Brooking Institute inflated the actual numbers to show a much higher tax rate than previously reported by other independent economic studies.
This is the same flaw in most research findings that claim a higher tax rate than 23% to 25%.
The 23% TAX-INCLUSIVE rate (same as the income tax, tax-inclusive) is in fact an accurate replacement for the taxes now being confiscated by our Federal Government.
For every Brookings Institute report (and others with the same agenda) ripping on the FairTax there are two or three to prove them wrong. I read your link and gave it thought now I would like for you to read this one. I would direct you to others but you can find all this yourself at
www.fairtax.org
Use their search bar at the bottom left hand corner to dig deep into the research. YOU have taken the bait my friend.
fairtax4me
if there is this large number of right wing conservatives out there, then why is the only three candidates left in the race are all liberal....because the vast majority of americans are not the hard hearted war loving idiots that say they are patriots but really are just digging us into a deep econominal hole.....liberal is the way out and we will have a liberal president next year(probably Mccain)...and you will see the stock market shoot up....and it wont be because of the bush tax cuts, it will be because the confidence of the american people is restored......Liberleft
Mccain is for the war you idiot.
he is for the war after he was against it.....
if anyone wants to know what a great speech is like, then they need to see the replay of michelle Oboma speeeh today in california....on stage with ophra winfrey, stevie wonder, and maria shriver....she is one great speaker....blows her husband away....calibornia is now in his column....she will put him in the white house.....too bad she cant be the president instead of him....Hillary and McCain are toast.......
I you like Obama you should read up on his church and then get back with me. This link is from his church website
http://www.tucc.org/black_value_system.html
I'm sure you have an excuse.
He is scum and if you believe in this racially separatist shit you are scum too.
LOOK IN THE MIRROR AND SAY "I AM A SOCIALIST", I'm Barrack Obama and I approve this message.
fairtax4me
I'm not going to jump in here and start calling names. But there are a few facts that need to be pointed out. I believe the fairtax is a pretty good start and would do wonders for this country.
Throughout this argument, there has been no mention of some very important facts.
First, the sales tax would only be levied on new items sold to the end user, whether that end user is the government or not.
Second, the price of goods would not increase by much because of the imbedded taxes that would dissapear. Businesses factor in tax expense just like they do materials or labor. Once they don't have a huge tax burden, not to mention tax compliance costs, their costs will go down, and subsequently so will the price.
Lastly, the monthly prebate every tax payer would receive to offset the sales tax on necessities. A middle class family would get a check at the beginning of every month based on the size of their household. It would be possible to take home your entire paycheck AND not pay any consumption tax.
huckabe is a great speaker, is very honest, is very conservative, is good looking, is very smart, and is religius......but if he wants to ever be included in national politics, he must give up the crazy talk about fairtax......this is a killer.....will never be taken seriously as long as he spouts this crap
maybe the country wants a socialist....just because you rednecks(who would benefit the most, next to the mexicans and black) dont want it, doesnt mean that the majority doesnt want it.....this is a land that the majority rule......go Oboma....I like you more now that i have hear you are a socialist
Wow, can you actually get anything right? We are not a majority rule democracy. We are a Republic.
I guess you did get it right about you being a socialist though.
Congrats, you're a F**kin Idiot.
fairtax4me
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