Michigan Youth Political Alliance

You know, this past weekend the Republicans tried really, really, hard to paint John McCain as ‘two quarter-pound 100% beef patties of all-American goodness with two slices of AMERICAN cheese’ and to paint Sarah Palin as the out of nowhere ‘large fry and moose tracks shake of the everyman’.

Like the Baconator, America had never been hit with such a combo: Old, rich, military vet, P.O.W. white guy who loves America (Yay) that the GOP is familiar with BUT with a younger, attractive, Christian conservative woman, who’s just like us, and really loves America (YAY!)? “Delicious.” said the Republican convention. I was told Mr. McCain would bring the six ‘hickory smoked bacon strips of change’ and shake up the boring burger joint we call American politics.

Well I couldn’t taste it. Here’s why: beneath the tough talk about national security and the attempt to turn this into another ‘values’ election (I.E. which presidential candidate would you rather have a beer with?) there’s just no meat to this burger.

I was promised that McCain would lay out his vision for America by CNN. I expected to hear policy proposals, something to back up the airy rhetoric that every politician spews about the future.

I’d heard a good deal of this from Sen. Obama the week before. He explained his proposal on funding alternative energy ($150 billion over 10 years), he would eliminate capital gains taxes on small businesses to allow them to compete, raise taxes on only the top 5% of our nations population to get money for this stuff. He’d offer community service in return for college scholarships. Open access to health care to all Americans by extending coverage similar to the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program to everyone. Withdraw our troops out of Iraq within 16 months and transfer 4 brigades to Afghanistan.

None of these are goals, these are plans, these are actions. I was very impressed with this part of Obama’s speech, I expected to hear a rebuttal from Mr. McCain, for him to tell me how he wasn’t like George Bush the way the Democrats have been painting him. I expected to hear proposals. I didn’t.

In the entirety of his speaking time I heard a lot of what are called claims and very few warrants. I heard a lot of things like, “My tax cuts will create jobs. His tax increases will eliminate them.” and at the part where he should have said, “And they will do so because…” He didn’t. He then simply said, “My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance. His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government run health care system…” (2) Why sir? How sir? These are important questions!

A candidate can’t just have done something like “pledged yesterday that he would balance the federal budget by 2013, the end of what would be his first term in office.” (3) And then when asked how, give a bunch of nonsense. This goes to both parties: ‘Cutting wasteful programs within the government will not be an easy task, nor one that will balance out the budget alone.’ It’s a popular line, because it sounds really nice and logical on face, but come on. If this could be done, wouldn’t every president do it? What are they gonna cut? The Department of Education? Social Security? Military spending? Psshh, doubt it. But those could be considered wasteful programs.

Is anyone ‘pro-government waste’ or ‘pro-corruption’? In my experience, to balance a budget you have to…

1. Cut spending, which let’s be honest, neither candidate is going to do to the extent they say they will
2. Raise taxes to give you more money then you’re spending, which Obama is going to do
3. Eliminate waste, which they’ve both said they’ll do
4. Generally have a strong economy which most experts and people hand Obama’s way if polls and reports are to be believed

But okay, most of us knew McCain didn’t have anything on the economy or health care. How about energy? I heard the Republicans want to turn this election to security and drilling. After all, who knows more about oil drilling than Sarah Palin? Well, drilling isn’t really an energy policy it’s just the status quo. When did ‘Energy independence’ get twisted into ‘energy independence from foreign oil’? When did oil become a good thing again as long as we produce it? It’s a near consensus that oil drilling won’t have any effect on lowering gas prices for several reasons. The St. Petersburg Times gives several compelling reasons in their article:

…experts say it would take at least 10 years to realize any significant production. And even then, they say, the U.S. contribution to the overall global oil market would not be enough to make a significant dent in the price of gas…

It takes years to bring new oil wells online, said Mike Rodgers, a leading oil expert…

Shipyards that build platforms, a two to three year endeavor, are already booked solid…

“Opening off-shore drilling would have no impact whatsoever on gas prices today.”… But even long term projections on the impact of offshore drilling don’t promise much relief at the pump…

An analysis performed by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the independent statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy, found… opening up the outer continental shelf… would result in production no sooner than 2017, and would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil production before 2030…

Are these numbers obvious to anyone else? To say this will reduce gas prices is just a lie. Why is this worth the time and money we’d have to invest and the environmental damage it’d be sure to cause?

To be fair he also supports the expansion of alternative energies, most notably nuclear power, but he failed to tell me how. I’ve heard the ‘We’ll increase nuclear power!’ act from W. and Cheney during the EPA of 2005 deal. And that never happened.

But to say McCain didn’t give me any specifics would be a lie. He did give me one thing, he says he’d push legislation, “Doubling the child tax exemption from $3500 to $7000″. (2) Oh. Cool. What if the person doesn’t have kids? Then what’s their relief? Why didn’t he go deeper into his tax plan? Could it be because a study by the Tax Policy Center confirmed, “Middle-class families get tax cuts that are three times larger from Obama than from McCain,” Furman said. “And the McCain plan gives nearly one-quarter of its benefits to households making more than $2.8 million annually – the top 0.1%.”? (5) Who’s cutting taxes?

This election can’t come down to which candidate is the most patriotic this time. It can’t come down to which one we’d trust more with a personal secret. It can’t be the most relatable guy. It must come down to policy. I don’t care about how many houses they own or whether or not they wear a flag pin, I just want someone who can tell a large national audience what they expect to do to solve our problems.

The person we elect needs to be the person with the best plan for America. Both these men are strong leaders, and I feel they can pass policy as president. But, if one candidate doesn’t have any policies to pass, it just kills them in my eyes.

I gotta ask, ‘Where’s the bacon’ Republicans?

2. http://meaningfuldistractions.wordpress.com/2008/09/05/news_john_mccain_acceptance_speech_96907

3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/07/07/ST2008070702343.html

4. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/19/MCCAINOIL/

5. http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/11/news/economy/candidates_taxproposals_tpc/

One of these photos is of a bunch of old meat that is bad for America but it has been packaged to look good and for some reason we buy it anyways...

The other photo is of a burger