Elections

Hillary Will Not Be Elected

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I’m going to predict Hillary Clinton will not be elected. I believe the majority of Americans are fed up with the lack of economic growth, high unemployment, increasingly bad race relations, politically driven riots, politically driven campus unrest, and an increasingly chaotic international situation. They’re going to vote for a change of government.

The real question is what to do when the GOP controls all three branches of the federal government. What should it do, in what order? Ted Cruz, for example, will immediately repeal what he considers all of Obama’s illegal executive orders. Nice. But of limited impact in the great scheme of things. What I’m concerned about are the fundamentals.

My list of fundamentals:
1. Replace the tax code with a lower, flat tax. Everyone pays at the same percentage.
2. Pass a balanced budget amendment. Include debt repayment in the budget.
3. Require all rules and regulations from any federal agency be approved by Congress. Require a cost-benefit analysis be included for each. Each regulatory agency and its existing rule set should be reviewed and scrubbed.
4. Pass welfare reform. Only the old and infirm should be on social benefits long term. Everyone else should be working and contributing to society. I would be open to CCC and WPA type programs to make the long term unemployed productive.
5. Repeal ObamaCare. Go to a market based healthcare and insurance system. Vastly reduce the legal hurdles and risks to providers. Include tort reform.
6. Repeal Common Core.
7. Review the costs and goals of every federal agency. Close every unnecessary agency. Start with the Dept of Education.

At the state level, I would like to see every Republican controlled governor-legislature team perform a full scale review of its school system: its administrative burden, its curriculum, its goals and its metrics. Consider voucher and competition systems to give parents a choice of schools and make schools compete for students.

People are ready for change. The future of the nation requires it. What good is attaining political power if it is not used?

The Four Million Missing Votes Myth. Romney in 2012.

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We are in the midst of a very odd presidential campaign. My usual preference would be for a governor as candidate but Chris Christie is not one I would vote for and the other governors have pretty much cratered as candidates. Walker and Jindal, who I like, are out. Kasich, who I don’t like, is on life support by rich donors who are using him to trash Trump.

I am still a Romney guy and would vote for him again if given the chance.

This brings up the frequent allegation that Romney alienated “Religious Conservatives,” by which are meant religious fundamentalists.

I have my doubts about the conservatism of religious fundamentalists but they have been allies as they see themselves under attack by the left wing “secular humanist” wing of the Democrats.

However, there is doubt about the supposed absence of votes from the “Religious Right” in 2012. I do think that segment of the Republican electorate can be affected by events and I think one example is the Bush drunk driving arrest, which was concealed by the Bush campaign and revealed just before the election by a Democrat operative. Actually, the story was first broadcast by a Fox News affiliate in Maine.

I think this revelation, which occurred the week before the election, may have led some Religious Right voters to stay home in enough numbers to make the 2000 election a virtual tie.

The story of Republican voters staying home because Romney was either not conservative enough or because he is Mormon is just not true.

To the extent that any of these analyses are based on the proposition that Romney got millions fewer votes than McCain, they are provably wrong. What happened is pretty simple: some states and localities take longer to count the votes than others some big cities are notorious for this, some count absentee ballots slowly, California traditionally counts very slowly, and some of the jurisdictions hit hard by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 were understandably slow getting finalized. But the final numbers are not what was originally available in the immediate aftermath of the election:

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Random Thoughts

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-Why should food made using GMO techniques be specially labeled? It’s indistinguishable from non-GMO food. The only difference between GMO techniques and older breeding techniques is the speed and precision with which the desired genetic outcomes are obtained. The outcomes themselves are the same. Going out of our way to label GMO food is like going out of our way to label manufactured products built using CNC machine tools.

-There are often two purposes to an election. One is the selection of the best candidate. The other is the punishment of an inept or corrupt incumbent in order to discourage bad behavior by future elected office holders. A similar point holds for wars. Winning or changing the strategic situation to favor your country is but one reason to go to war. Another reason is to punish your enemy in order to discourage others like him. This is one reason why it was important to depose and humiliate Saddam Hussein after our 2003 invasion and why it was a mistake not to have done so in 1991.*

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*It might have been best to get rid of Saddam Hussein by bribing him to leave Iraq. However, he might not have been amenable to such a deal, and once we decided to invade it probably made more sense to do what we actually did.

A Better Debate Format

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I have long hated the current presidential debate format. It is either fawning adulation or gotcha shenanigans, depending. I get nothing in the way of actual knowledge from them, other than to see how the candidates perform under stress, which is useful, I admit. I was glad to see it all come to a head over the CNBC debate. I was very happy to see the candidates speaking out at the absurdity of it all. I was even happier when the candidates got together to plan a debate format among themselves. Unfortunately, The Donald decided he benefitted from the current format, so that idea is a no-go. At least for now.

I still believe both the candidates and the country would benefit from a wholly different format. My criteria are as follows:
– Allows them speak in paragraphs. Or not, depending on what’s called for.
– Allows them to debate a few topics, known to them ahead of time and mutually agreed on.
– Allows them to question each other’s solutions and approaches. Some actual reasoned debate.
– Employs a neutral moderator whose job is to monitor the format and keep things on track. Think C-SPAN-ish.

In fact, I think C-SPAN would make an ideal venue. And the neutral hosting approach left as a legacy by Brian Lamb would serve us well.

Two Nations.

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two nations

We have now become two nations, divisible, without liberty and justice for all.

As usual, I read another good Belmont Club post.

I get discouraged about the future when I see the stupidity of the youngest generation in college. The left is worried that Republicans hold most state offices. Why has this happened ?

That dominance — and what it means to the policy and political calculations and prospects for both parties at the national level — is the single most overlooked and underappreciated story line of President Obama’s time in office. Since 2009, Republicans have made massive and unprecedented gains at the state level, gains that played a central role in, among other things, handing control of the U.S. House back to the GOP in the 2010 election.

It’s just inexplicable. Why would the country that elected Barack Obama twice choose Republicans for those offices closest to their own lives ?

While the story at the national level suggests a Republican Party that is growing increasingly white, old and out of step with the country on social issues, the narrative at the local level is very different. Republicans are prospering at the state level in ways that suggest that the party’s messaging is far from broken.

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