A Voters Guide

Posted on 2008-01-30 by David

I know everyone has been waiting anxiously for me to offer a voters guide to Utah’s presidential primary next week. Here it is.

First and most importantly – go vote. Even if you have no particular interest in politics you should get into the habit of participating in this “government by the people.”

Second – if you are going to  vote you need to pick a single candidate because we don’t have instant runoff voting. For those who still need to pick a candidate – here are your four candidates and two dividing issues to help you choose. (If you don’t want to vote for one of these four you should have already made your choice.)

The two choice issues are party compatibility and change vs status quo.

If you prefer the Republican view your choices are Mitt Romney or John McCain. If you lean Democratic you may choose Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. If you want to see a change you can choose Mitt Romney or Barack Obama (not that the change of mitt Romney is the same change as you would find with Barack Obama). If you like the status quo you can select John McCain or Hillary Clinton. So now, in alphabetical order, here are the individual candidates and what they offer.

Hillary Clinton – she would bring all the advantages of having a woman in power (I don’t see what advantages are related to one gender over the other, but that’s what she offers). Her baggage includes her husband who has demonstrated a willingness to insert himself into the public discussion and a penchant for breeding divisiveness (as if we didn’t have enough divisiveness already). Hillary not only represents the status quo, but she guarantees – by virtue of her name – that most of the country won’t leave the partisan rancor that we have seen for more than a decade.

John McCain – he brings the advantage of serving 26 years in federal office. He knows how our political system currently works. His baggage is that he has spent 26 years in Washington D.C. Chances are pretty good that he has friends there who are invested in keeping the current system.

Barack Obama –  he has the advantage of not serving 26 years in federal office. He also has an impressive ability to inspire people and look towards the future. His baggage is that “he doesn’t have enough experience.” He has been a U.S. Senator for only four years. I’m not sure why the senate is such a guaranteed training ground for a president other than it gets you close to the action to know how things work. It seems to me that if you can’t figure it out within four years I have no confidence that you can figure it out in 8 years, or 26 years either. By the way, I think that the way Barack Obama canceled his campaign appearance in deference to president Hinckley’s funeral and personally offered his condolences to President Monson was very dignified. Many candidates would have simply expected a smaller crowd or silently called of their event.

Mitt Romney – he has the advantage of a wide variety of experience with positions of authority and no excess of experience in government. His baggage is that some people don’t trust him, some people associate him with the current administration (based on party affiliation), and some people dislike him for both of the preceding reasons.

There you have it. Make your choice. I think it’s obvious that I favor change over the status quo. I hope you do too. It would be a nice change if we had high voter turnout on Tuesday.

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And Then There Were Two (Each)

Posted on 2008-01-29 by David

The results of Florida’s primary have functionally whittled the Republican field to two candidates. no longer is there the possibility that Giuliani will suddenly jump back into the front runners circle. No matter what other candidates may hang around there are really only two candidates among the Republicans – Romney and McCain – who have a reasonable expectation of getting the nomination. Similarly, the Democrats buried any hopes of Edwards rising as a contender after his dismal third place finish in South Carolina leaving only two candidates – Obama and Clinton – with any legitimate shot at the nomination.

It’s time to start pushing for Obama here in Utah since there is no Republican contest in Utah’s primary.

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Educational Spectrum

Posted on 2008-01-28 by David

I like the idea behind SB36 which proposes allowing home school and charter school students to participate in extracurricular activities at public schools with what appear to be some reasonable restrictions. (hat tip – Daily Herald) This bills seems to illustrate one common problem that seems to plague any education debate. We treat education as an either/or proposition. Either we support/participate in public school or private school, or charter school, or homeschool. Instead we should be looking at an educational spectrum where parents have the option to make use of a reasonable cross-section of the various approaches to education based on the needs of their child. I does not have to be a free-for-all, but why should we not allow for home schooled students to integrate to a degree with their public school counterparts in extracurricular activities, drama classes, or auto shop?

Why should public education be a black box where you put your student in and let the teachers, district officials, and legislature define the objectives and methods or else keep your children out of public school and not be allowed to use any of the services that your tax dollars are still paying for. Public education should be a service where parents are allowed to make use of as much or as little of the service as they deem necessary so long as their choices are granular enough to not interfere with the service being provided.

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Democratic Primary Done Right

Posted on 2008-01-26 by David

Congratulations to Barack Obama – hands down the best candidate among the Democrats. This is what all the democratic contests should look like.

South Carolina results - democratic primary

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Nobody Seems Impressed

Posted on 2008-01-25 by David

I chuckled as I returned to an article from early December by Paul Krugman about how:

In past financial crises — the stock market crash of 1987, the aftermath of Russia’s default in 1998 — the Fed has been able to wave its magic wand and make market turmoil disappear. But this time the magic isn’t working.

I thought he was right about that in December and I thought that the same could be said of our new stimulus package. It’s funny how this urgent bipartisan action has not made anyone very happy. The liberal Paul Krugman asks Who gets stimulated? while conservative Frank Staheli says:

A $150 billion “stimulus package” is to America’s economy nothing but a light snack. It will stomp this “stimulus package” dead in a couple of weeks and then move on, undaunted, toward oblivion, its $53 trillion of unfunded expenditures gallantly in tow.

I have heard arguments that the money is less important than the boost in consumer confidence – from the sound of things it’s not likely to be much of a boost.

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Let It Die

Posted on 2008-01-24 by David

The temporary law allowing warrant-less wiretapping is set to expire on February 1st. Congress is hurriedly trying to devise an appropriate update. If you want to know how government grows, it’s by passing temporary laws and then reauthorizing them forever. Eventually we forget that they were temporary and then we end up with a cabinet position which controls a department that is based on a law that would expire in five years or less. (That’s the real life story of the Secretary of Education and the law that grew into NCLB).

I don’t think that we will have a Secretary of Eavesdropping, but I do believe that congress should set a precedent and let this expire. If we really need a bill like this it should not be rushed through to meet a deadline. It should be approached carefully so that it is not full of holes like the current law.

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Downsize D.C.

Posted on 2008-01-23 by David

KVNU had a post today about a movement to let the Protect America Act (PAA) expire. That caught my attention and led me to DownsizeDC.org. This is the kind of site that would attract any self-proclaimed Constitutionalist, Ron Paul supporter, or advocate for limited government. Among the various things they advocate for is a bill to require that members of congress have a chance to read any bill before they cast votes on it. That just makes sense. Anytime one of our senators or representatives votes on a bill they have not read it is like signing  a contract (for their constituents no less) without reading the fine print. Worse yet, it’s like my one-year-old raising his hand to sustain someone in sacrament meeting when he has no concept of what is happening – he just raises his hand because the people he knows are raising their hands which is a lot like a game we play at home called “Isaac Says.”

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One Party State

Posted on 2008-01-22 by David

Most people are probably not yet aware that the state legislature is in session yet and already our unbalanced government is drawing flack from both sides of the political spectrum. From the left we get complaints about a task force to study merit pay for teachers. I like the idea of merit pay, but the task force being proposed is highly questionable as it is overwhelmingly composed of legislators rather than educators and citizens. It goes so far as to pay the legislators on the task force, but not the other members of the task force. It is so loaded with legislators that if they were to split the legislators proportional to the makeup of the legislature they would have 9 Republican legislators and one (likely Republican) governor’s designee who can simply dictate the outcome of the study against the other 3 Democratic legislators and 6 professional educators – this assumes that they put 3 Democrats on the task force – which is not guaranteed.

From the right we have complaints that our state laws governing the use of campaign funds are too lax. It seems like the simplest of common sense that campaign donations should not be used on other campaigns or for personal use unrelated to active campaigning. It’s nice that we have laws to require full disclosure of any gift over $50, but that’s no excuse to allow campaigning to be used as a source of personal income.

You really should visit the original articles to get the full extent of both issues. Nice start to the political year.

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Liberty Or Death

Posted on 2008-01-21 by David

How many people, like me, are only familiar with little more than the final sentence of this speech by Patrick Henry? It contains very little in the way of political policy or ideas, but a very good sketch of the character of the men who built our nation. How many citizens today are too busy to be bothered with understanding or maintaining the liberty which those men held in such high regard?

. . . it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth . . . For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

As I read the words of the speech I began to ask myself, would we even recognize if our freedom were under assault today as theirs was then? It is especially important considering that our freedom is most likely to be abridged, not by a government based across the ocean from us, but one in our own land; one often held up as an example of government over what many call the most liberated society in history.

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

If we do recognize a real danger will we have the courage to take action or is our character such that we would bow to the conventional wisdom which would undoubtedly tell us that we are too weak to make a change?

It should be no wonder to any of us that a patriot would say “give me liberty, or give me death,” if they have seen, as our founders had, that the war was already begun and that the options for an equitable peace had already been exhausted.

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Promote Job Creation

Posted on 2008-01-19 by David

Bob Herbert and I often differ in our views but I really like what he said about economic stimulus as is being discussed in D.C.

There is no question that some kind of stimulus package geared to the needs of ordinary Americans is in order. But that won’t begin to solve the fundamental problem.

Good jobs at good wages — lots of them, growing like spring flowers in an endlessly fertile field — is the absolutely essential basis for a thriving American economy and a broad-based rise in standards of living.

Forget all the CNBC chatter about Fed policy and bargain stocks. For ordinary Americans, jobs are the be-all and end-all. And an America awash in new jobs will require a political environment that respects and rewards work and aggressively pursues creative policies designed to radically expand employment.

I’d start with a broad program to rebuild the American infrastructure. This would have the dual benefit of putting large numbers of people to work and answering a crying need. The infrastructure is in sorry shape. New Orleans comes to mind, and the tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis. (emphasis added)

What is a political environment that respects and rewards work? The answer is – one where we don’t perpetually give money to people who don’t work (I’m talking welfare here, not pensions or social security as those are supposed to be earned benefits). What we currently have is a policy that discourages people from taking work that is “beneath them.” If I am receiving unemployment I lose the benefits if I take work that pays me less than I’m worth and thus it is in my interest to turn down temporary or lower paying work so long as I can receive those benefits.

Even unemployment could be considered an earned benefit. People on government welfare can stay there as long as they are willing to live at that level of poverty – their health care is free to them even if it’s somewhat limited, and they never have to worry about going hungry even if Food Stamps don’t provide any luxuries. For those who lack the skills to get a job that pays noticeably more than welfare hands them, there is no incentive to go work when staying home gives them the same economic standard of living.

Herbert is right, economic stimulus should come in the form of work programs not unlike the WPA which would provide income and training for  those in need of new or improved skills. As the economy grew the program could be terminated (again) but until then people would have work and the nation would be improved in whatever ways were deemed necessary at the time. This would be much better than a one time tax rebate or extension of unemployment benefits. It would be more valuable than manipulating bankruptcy laws to save a few people from foreclosure. On-the-job training would even be more effective than paying people to seek new or improved skills in an academic setting.

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