Sunday, September 25, 2011

Herman Cain wins the Florida Straw Poll

So Herman Cain won the Florida straw poll.  That may be good news for Cain, but he is likely to be out of the race by the time the Florida primary is held on January 29.  This will be the 7th presidential primary held.  Candidates that fail to win delegates will likely be out after the South Carolina primary, the primary held just before Florida.  By the time Florida is held, the race will be down to maybe 3 or 4 candidates.  It is unlikely that Cain will be one of them.

This is bad news for Rick Perry.  It shows that he is not as strong in the South as many like to believe that he is.  It shows that southern Republicans are not comfortable with his candidacy and that they are searching for someone more palatable to vote for.

It also shows that the Republican party and the eventual presidential nominee has real issues.  It shows that they will have difficulty uniting behind their eventual nominee.  This is good news for the Obama campaign.  The chances that Obama will win increase the more that the Republican party is disunited.  The fact that their are still 5 people in the race who could potentially win the nomination is proof of this.  The race really should be down to 2 or 3 by now.

One problem with Republicans is that a candidate like Herman Cain will not get into politics until they run for President.  If Herman Cain really wants to be President, why can he not spent some time running for Governor of his state or in the Senate and work his way to be President.  Sure, it is politically popular to rail against career politicians, but Americans do prefer someone with some experience when considering who should occupy the Oval Office.  Herman Cain did not start his career fresh out of college as the CEO of Godfather's Pizza.  Why does he think that he should begin his political career as our President?


Saturday, September 17, 2011

Tea Party is Going Too Far Too Fast

I read a story on the Fox News Channel about the Tea Party's desire to replace speaker Jim Boehner with someone more to their liking.  My reaction is huh?  Who do they expect, Ron Paul...oops.  Perhaps even Paul will be too liberal for the Tea Party now-a-days.  Perhaps the Tea Party is putting the cart before the horse.  Let me explain why.

Federal Revenues are at a 60-year low when adjusting for inflation.  Bush era tax cuts do not even come close to explaining this.  When you have 14 million people collecting unemployment insurance and not paying payrolls taxes, that explains some of the problem.  When people are concerned about jobs, they will spend less money on other things.  The means that revenues coming from taxing corporations will be lower.  Energy prices are high, which means that there is less money for corporations and individuals to spend on other items.  Finally, and probably most importantly is that our trade deficit is near record levels.  This means that so much of the money that we do spend heads overseas and the opportunity to tax corporate profits and the income of those employees is lost.

Until these revenue problems are solved, realistically, it will take 20 years or so to balance the budget.  Not to have patience in this matter will mean cutting every new federal program inacted since 1950.  This includes Medicare, Medicaid, NASA, the Peace Corps, WIC, School Lunch...the list goes on and on.  Doing this will cost every single elected representative their seat in Washington.  To a Tea Party member, cleaning house sounds like a real good thing.  Cutting all of these Federal Programs sounds just fine.  But it is not.  There any many Tea Party like people in both houses of Congress.  They too will lose thier jobs.  Every head in Washington will roll.

Why?  You will make the economy worse, not better.  Nothing cleans house in Washington like a poor economy.  Just ask Jimmy Carter and George HW Bush.

Replacing revenue is the #1 priority.  Getting people back to work.  Getting people to spend money.  Keeping jobs in the US.  Lowering fuel costs.  Working for more balanced trade.  Using more domestic energy and resorces.  This will help restore revenues and help fix the economy.

The second item for Tea Party members to consider is that Harry Reid is still in charge in the Senate.  Anything and everything too conservative that is passed in the house has a road block.  If the Tea Party is serious about extreme fiscal reform, they need to do two things before they attempt to really push thier agenda.  First, they need a Republican in the White House.  Second, they need a fillerbuster-proof majority in the Senate.  This needs to be accomplished  before there is any effort to replace Boehner.

It reminds me of a game where one team lost 56-52 and people were calling for a new starting quarterback on the losing team.  You scored 52 points and lost.  The quarterback is not the problem.  Jim Boehner is not the problem right now.  The problem is Barack Obama and Harry Reid.  That is who the Tea Party needs to focus on replacing at the ballot box next fall, not Jim Boehner.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Climate Change and Political Expediency

I was going to blog about something else this week, but Thomas Friedman's article in the Tribune this morning set me off.  It is not because I believe, like Rick Perry and Michelle Bauchmann, that climate change is a hoax.  But if you wish to prove man caused global warming by pointing to the weather, you are in a losing battle.

Floods and droughts happen.  Hot spells and cold spells continue.  Blizzards and Hurricanes plaugue our lives.  El Nino and La Nina continue to fight in the Pacific.  All of this happened before the industrial age, and will continue to happen in the future.  It is a mistake to use weather to prove global warming.  In fact, since one can not even predict the weather next weekend, one certainly can not predict how global warming will affect the lives of my yet to be born grandchildren.  But Global Warming is not hoax.

So here is the truth that no one else politically-motivated will admit.  1) The Earth is getting warmer.  2) Greenhouse gases are accumulating faster than natural processes can rid them for us.  3) Some of this has been caused by human processes, but not all of it.  Probably not even the majority of it.  4) Other pollutants, particulate pollutants, are blocking sunlight and cooling the planet, providing some counter to the warming effect of greenhouse gasses.  5) Geological evidence supports two facts.  First, that the Earth has been warmer than it is today.  Second, the planet has been cooler than it is today.  6) The sun varies in it's warmth output.  7) The planet wobbles like a top, which effects the climate.  7) The orbit of the plan around the sun also varies.

There are many things which effect the climate on the planet.  Some of them are caused by humans and some are not.  Is the path that we would need to take to remove all human costs of global warming worth the costs?