“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
- Henry Mencken
The people have spoken and they want a new direction! At least that's what Howard Dean, nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emmanuel say. But what kind of direction do the people seek?
During the election, I worked as an observer for the Republican Party at one of the local polling stations. During that time, I sat with several observers for the Democrats and had the opportunity to quiz them on why they wanted to put Democrats back in the majority.
My first question concerned the current (and re-elected) Governor of Wisconsin, Jim Doyle. A man who has openly given away tax-funded contracts to big campaign contributors and who is under federal investigation for his "play for pay" tactics (see http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/061104DoyleRapSheet.pdf). Democrats railed for the past two years about the Republican "Culture of Corruption" and yet here were these people actively trying to re-elect a man who may go to jail someday for his actions as Governor. Their response was surprising, none of them were from Wisconsin and they were not aware of the Governor's transgressions. These people were volunteers who had come in from New York to assist the Wisconsin Democrats get all their candidates elected, in other words; Democrat - good, Republican - bad.
So given the idea that any discussion on Wisconsin issues was off the table, I moved on to the topic of national issues. So I asked them why they thought we would be better off paying higher taxes, paying more into social security and medicare, becoming more dependent on foreign oil from hostile nations, perpetuation of a failing education system and a weakened national defense/intelligence system. Here are the myth's that I received as answers with my comments on each.
Myth #1 They are only going to raise taxes on the wealthy. Oh, Really? Let me ask you something; why to billionares like Warren Buffet and George Soros always come parading out talking about how they wouldn't mind higher income taxes? The answer is simple they are wealthy, they don't need income. In fact Warren Buffet only pays himself a meager $100,000 salary (http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2813), you could raise the top rate to 100% and still not touch a dime of his $60 billion net worth. To add insult to this, go to the US department of the Treasury where you will find that the top 50% of wage earners (those making $55,000 and more) are now paying 96.54 of all taxes paid (http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/menu/cy2003.guest.html). Once this number reaches 100%, it's over, the bottom 50% will keep voting for those politicians who will maintain the status quo and the super rich (Buffet, Soros, Kennedy, Rockefeller) typically vote Democrat since they are unaffected by income tax. In truth, the only way to tax the wealthy is to tax their wealth. Don't hold your breath for this to happen, financial disclosure forms released Friday by the nation's current 100 senators show there are at least 40 millionaires among them -- 22 Republicans and 18 Democrats. All but six of them are men.
Senate millionaires :
John Kerry, D-Massachusetts: $163,626,399 Herb Kohl, D-Wisconsin: $111,015,016 John Rockefeller, D -West Virginia: $81,648,018 Jon Corzine, D-New Jersey: $71,035,025 Dianne Feinstein, D-California: $26,377,109 Peter Fitzgerald, R-Illinois: $26,132,013 Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey $17,789,018 Bill Frist, R-Tennessee: $15,108,042 John Edwards, D-North Carolina: $12,844,029 Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts: $9,905,009 Jeff Bingaman, D-New Mexico: $7,981,015 Bob Graham, D-Florida: $7,691,052 Richard Shelby, R-Alabama: $7,085,012 Gordon Smith, R-Oregon: $6,429,011 Lincoln Chafee, R-Rhode Island: $6,296,010 Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska: $6,267,028 Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee: $4,823,018 Mike DeWine, R-Ohio: $4,308,093 Mark Dayton, D-Minnesota: $3,974,037 Ben Campbell, R-Colorado: $3,165,007 Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska: $2,963,013 Olympia Snowe, R-Maine: $2,955,037 James Talent, R-Missouri: $2,843,031 Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania: $2,045,016 Judd Gregg, R-New Hampshire: $1,916,026 John McCain, R-Arizona: $1,838,010 James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma: $1,570,043 John Warner, R-Virginia: $1,545,039 Kay Bailey Hutchison, R - Texas: $1,513,046 Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky: $1,511,017 Harry Reid, D-Nevada: $1,500,040 Sam Brownback, R-Kansas: $1,491,018 Thomas Carper, D-Delaware: $1,482,017 Ted Stevens, R-Alaska: $1,417,013 Maria Cantwell, D-Washington: $1,264,999 Barbara Boxer, D-California: $1,172,003 Orrin Hatch, R-Utah: $1,086,023 Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana: $1,080,014 Bill Nelson, D-Florida: $1,073,014 Charles Grassley, R-Iowa: $1,016,024*These figures are base estimates provided by senators on their financial disclosure forms.
How about the House?
Millionaires fill US Congress halls (Jean-Louis Santini 07/01/04 "AFP"). The US Congress, the domed bastion of democracy in the capital of capitalism, abounds with deep-pocketed politicians whose fortunes have made the legislative branch of government a millionaire's club. In the 435-member House of Representatives, 123 elected officials earned at least one million dollars last year, according to recently released financial records made public each year.
By comparison, less than one per cent of Americans make seven-figure incomes, do you think that these "representatives" are going to enact any tax plan that affects them?
Myth #2 The Democrats will end the War in Iraq. The very idea that what is going on in Iraq is seperate from the overall conflict with Radical Islam is ridiculous! Be that as it may, does anyone really think that if we drop our weapons and leave the war will be over? In her book "Useful Idiots, author goes into great detail the suffering of the South Vietnamese and the horror of the killing fields of Cambodia after we left. The war didn't end until the Communists took over the country. To wit, the leader of Al-Qaida in Iraq has vowed to take the fight all the way to the White House (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/11/10/international/i093219S40.DTL&feed=rss.news) and the leader in Iran has once again threatened the defeat of America (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/11/27/133838.shtml). We can choose not to fight, but the war won't be over until either they or we are dead.
Myth #3 The Democrats will make us energy independent and lower the price of gas. This was the best one. When I asked them how it would be done, my new friends threw out a new answer every time I shot the previous one down. Ethanol? Ethanol can't travel in pipelines along with gasoline, because it picks up excess water and impurities. As a result, ethanol needs to be transported by trucks, trains, or barges, which is more expensive and complicated than sending it down a pipeline. As refiners switched to ethanol this spring, the change in transport needs has likely contributed to the rise in gas prices. Some experts argue that the U. S. doesn't have adequate infrastructure for wide ethanol use. Solar? Have you ever seen the solar cars, good luck taking the family to visit Mom for the holidays. Hybrids? Car and Driver took out the batteries and electric motor from a Toyota Prius and improved it's overall gas mileage since it was lighter by about 1000 lbs. Hybrids are nothing but a public relations gimmic to buy time and rake in profits while a real technology is being developed. Hydrogen? Someday perhaps, but that technology is years away (http://planetforlife.com/h2/h2vehicle.html) and what do we do in the mean time? The truth is that America has enough oil in the ground to power our population for the next 200 years. Coal liquifaction and natural gas being converted to diesel fuel are also viable today but neither drilling nor the use of coal seems to be on the Democrats list of alternatives.
And, of course;
Myth #4 The Democrats will address Global Warming. I truely believe that it is just a matter of time before this junk science is exposed as the fraud it is once and for all. There is an increasing body of science that is forcing the debate http://www.etherzone.com/2001/carb032201.shtml) and now, journalist Christopher Monckton, who was a policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher, has published a detailed report attacking the manmade global warming theory from various angles — including the so-called "medieval warm period."
The United Nations, which has issued a widely quoted report on global warming, "abolished the medieval warm period — the global warming at the end of the First Millennium A.D.," according to Monckton.
A U.N. report in 1996 "showed a 1,000-year graph demonstrating that temperature in the Middle Ages was warmer than today," Monckton writes in Britain's Sunday Telegraph.
"But the 2001 report contained a new graph showing no medieval warm period. It wrongly concluded that the 20th century was the warmest for 1,000 years . . .
"Scores of scientific papers show that the medieval warm period was real, global and up to [5 degrees Fahrenheit] warmer than now.
"Then, there were no glaciers in the tropical Andes; today they're there. There were Viking farms in Greenland; now they're under permafrost. There was little ice at the North Pole — a Chinese naval squadron sailed right around the Arctic in 1421 and found none."
Monckton also writes that Antarctica has cooled and gained ice-mass in the past 30 years, and the oceans have cooled sharply in the past two years.
He calculates that global temperatures will rise only .18 to 2.5 degrees in the coming century, "well within the medieval temperature range."
And he suggests that rather than point to greenhouse gases as the culprit behind any measurable global warming, we might blame the sun. He cites a scientist who maintains that in the past half-century the sun has been warmer, for longer, than at any time in at least the past 11,400 years.
Monckton's conclusion: "Politicians, scientists and bureaucrats contrived a threat of Biblical floods, droughts, plagues, and extinctions worthier of St. John the Divine than of science."
But even beyond this, Global Warming proponents can't get their story straight Note: "Scientists: Pollution could combat global warming" http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/11/16/smog.warming.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories. As long as Global Warming is a weapon to extract American Civil Liberties, it will prevail however once other industrialized nations like China and Russia come under attack, the myth will go away.
It amazed me that the people I was talking to actually believed what they were telling me, my immediate reaction was simply that they were well drilled to spew the campaign drivel even as unbelievable as it was.
But, if reasonably intelligent people can see through the charade, than how in the world could the Democrats hold all their seats in Congress and the Senate, let alone become the majority on November 7? Unfortunately, there is only one answer a reasonably intelligent person can deduce......
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