And now we will observe j-mac whining about too many words since he has the intellectual bandwidth of a bumper sticker.
Here are my conservative beliefs:
1. Limited government.
a) That means I opposed the creation of the massive Department of Homeland Security by the alleged Republican president George W. Bush.
b) This means I believe in fiscal responsibility, which is the chief reason I oppose both the Republican and Democratic parties. The unspoken fact is that we can balance the federal budget very easily by eliminating and banning all tax expenditures with the exception of the EITC, which is proven to increase productivity. Tax expenditures add up to over $1.6 trillion ANNUALLY. Our politicians are too chickenshit, and too beholden to special interests, to take this simple, bold step. We have a government which believes in wealth redistribution UP the food chain, and socialist government inteference in the free market via these tax expenditures.
c) I believe we need to increase the Social Security and Medicare retirement eligibility age to 70, indexed to 9 percent of the population going forward. Only 5.4% of the US population was over 65 when SS was enacted, and 9% when Medicare was enacted. Today, 16% of the population is over 65. There were 42 workers supporting each retiree in 1940, with 2.7 workers supporting each retiree today. This trend is unsustainable. We are living longer than our ancestors, we should be living longer.
d) Liberals whine about too much money in politics, then turn around and do all they can to usurp power from the states and concentrate it at the federal level, thus making it easier for special interests to capture that power in one-stop shopping. If you don't want our politicians captured by money, stop giving them the power over our lives that is being bought! DUH! I talked about tax expenditures above. If we took away tax expenditures, special interests would no longer have incentives to bribe our politicians to put them in the tax code. Instant, serendipitous campaign finance reform!
2. Pro-life.
As I predicted, the overturning of Roe v. Wade has done nothing to curtail the number of abortions in the US. I repeatedly predicted this for as long as I have been on this board. As a matter of morality, I still believe it was right to be overturned, all the while knowing it would have no significant real world impact. The real problem is we have allowed the extremists on both sides to control the dialog. We have to seize it back from them. The answer to the abortion problem is birth control. Half of all abortions are the result of no birth control being used at the time of the sex act which led to an unwanted pregnancy. HALF! Another fifth are due to the improper or inconsistent use of birth control. With a giant ramping up of birth control education and encouragement, we could drop abortions down to a small fraction. Without having to throw anyone in jail out of sheer cruelty.
3. Pro-defense.
I am not just pro-defense for America. I am pro-defense for our allies. Whether or not and ally is a member of one of our treaty organizations, we should vigorously come to their aid when they are imperiled. We should NEVER attempt to appease the aggressor, nor victim-blame our allies. The one issue in which I am in total agreement with Donald Trump is that our NATO allies need to live up to their obligations. I strongly disagree with his ignorance and idiotic tactics. But if you go back through my posts to my beginnings on this forum, you will find I spoke of Europe's need to step up their own defenses long before Trump came along. I posted along the lines that Europe looks down their noses at us for not having the same social safety nets they do, but then expect us to spend our money on their defense.
4. Morality
Back when Bill Clinton was getting blowjobs in the Oval Office, Democrats were making the argument that a politician's personal life has nothing to do with their job. That's horseshit. If a politician cannot keep their most sacred vow to their wife or husband, then they certainly can't be counted on to keep their vows to their constituents. Now Republicans are making the same bizarre argument, but have taken it to a whole new level. MAGA Christians have dragged their religion into the gutter, following one of the most corrupt and criminal politicians in our history. One who has violated every significant vow he made to his three wives and his voters. Alexis de Tocqueville explained how allowing politics to infect religion led to the downfall of Christianity in Europe 200 years ago. "[T]hey hate the Christian religion as the opinion of a party much more than an error of belief". This is being borne out today as the percentage of Americans who have stopped attending church altogether has been spiking since Trump's first term. Today, the MAGA Christians live by the credo, "It's Okay If Trump Does It!"
5. Gun control
Not a lot of people know this, but the NRA used to be strongly in favor of common sense gun control. Like with abortion, the dialog around this issue has been captured by the extremists on both sides. An indisputable fact is that all other advanced democracies have far lower homicide rates than the US. The difference is some simple common sense rules to prevent the homicide epidemic we live in. Our gun problem is identical to our opioid problem. The pharmaceutical companies were not satisfied with the profits they were making from painkillers, and so they began expanding the market for their drugs and flooded our streets with an astronomical excess of their drugs. For their personal profit. The end result of this greed was an opioid epidemic which plagues us to this day. The arm manufacturers are no different. They are flooding our streets with more guns than there is a legitimate demand for, and now we are experiencing an out of control bloodbath. People like Charlie Kirk are okay with mass slaughters of schoolchildren and their fellow Americans because they oppose us doing anything about it. Kirk mistakenly thought he was exempt from the carnage he sanctioned.
6. Health care
The first Big Lie from Trump and the Republicans was not the 2020 election lie. It was the lie they were going to repeal and replace Obamacare if given all the power. This lie was exposed when they did get all the power and failed to produce a replacement. Amazingly, the submissive voters gave them a pass. The saps STILL give Trump a pass despite their health care costs continuing to skyrocket since his first term to the present day. The answer to health care is to make health care insurance the same as auto, life, and home insurance. You can pick up the phone and call any auto, life, or home insurance company in America you wish. This provides you leverage as they know you can always call another insurer if you are not satisfied. You cannot do this with health insurance. In fact, most of us are hostage to our employers for our health insurance and thus our health care. Obamcare more deeply embedded this dependence. You can bundle your home, auto, and life insurance for discounts, but you can't do that with your health insurance. Your home, auto, and life insurance continue if you lose or change your job. You have to start from scratch if you change or lose your job, oftentimes having to wait 3 to 6 months at your new job before you qualify for health insurance. All this needs to go away. You need to be able to buy your health insurance the same way you buy your other insurances, and bundle it with all your other insurance.
7. Taxes
I believe in the Fair Tax. We need to eliminate the income tax and enact the Fair Tax. Any economist will tell you taxes on consumption are superior to taxes on production. Income taxes are taxes on production. The Fair Tax is a tax on consumption. It is a kind of sales tax, but the regressive nature is mitigated by a prebate. The prebate is not determined by your income, so a billionaire gets the same prebate as a McDonald's employee. With tax expenditures and other manipulations of the tax code, our politicians can change your true tax rate without you noticing. Just ask your friends how much they paid in taxes last year. They will probably remember their refund amount, if they got one, but they will have no clue what their total tax was. Tell them to check line 24 on their 1040 for the past several years. They have no clue. With the Fair Tax, everyone notices and experiences a tax hike IMMEDIATELY. They pay more at the register at the grocery store. It's on their receipt. It can't go unnoticed.
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