Let me be clear that I strongly believe that, given no better option, Obama or Clinton must be the next president of the United States. While I personally voted for Obama and while I truly hope he beats Clinton, last night’s debate strengthened my belief that neither one of them is going to be a great president. As you will se below, on issues of serious national significance both Obama and Clinton are more interested in pandering than they are honestly trying to solve our problems.
Throughout the primary season, questions have been asked about the fitness for either Obama or Clinton to be our nation’s commander in chief. At last night’s debate both candidate’s responses to a question about bringing our troops home from Iraq were little more than attempts to pander to the Democratic base—and as such were at best naive and at worst irresponsible.
When asked if they would bring our troops home from Iraq in as little as 16 months, something both of them had previously pledged to do, regardless of the conditions on the ground in Iraq and the recommendations of military leadership both Clinton and Obama said “yes.” Furthermore, both candidates indicated that they would ignore the opinions of the military leadership because as commander in chief it would be their responsibility to make the ultimate decision.
We can debate the wisdom of predetermining that you’re going to ignore the best judgments of our military leadership if elected later, because the biggest problem that I have with both of their answers is that I don’t believe them. As hard as Clinton and Obama try they are not going to convince me that if they are elected president they are going to bring our troops home within 16 months—no matter what the current evidence suggest is the most prudent course of action. But the problem is that John McCain—and other less-regulated Republicans—are going to use the foolish quotes of Clinton and Obama to show just how unqualified either of them is to be president. I mean haven’t we spent the last few years killing Bush because of the arrogant way he refuses to listen to others? Haven’t we been killing Bush because once he decides on a course of action he blatantly disregards reality and hopelessly follows that course? If Clinton and Obama keep their promise to withdraw from Iraq in 16 months the possibility exists that they will do so at our nation’s peril.
So my question is if neither Clinton nor Obama really believes that they’re going to bring our troop’s home no matter what aren’t they acting like Bush? And if they don’t really believe what they said shouldn’t we be concerned that they value pandering to the Party’s base at the expense of providing the Republicans with some potentially very damaging general election material?
On the issue of taxes, something we no the Republicans will use to make many false charges about; both candidates were once again promising the moon and stars. Clinton and Obama have pledged to repeal the portion of the Bush tax cuts that benefited those earning more than 250 thousand dollars a year. While I agree with that both candidates made it clear that they are planning to offset the increase in tax cuts on the wealthy by supporting generous tax cuts for everyone else.
Senator Obama made what, in my opinion, was the craziest proposal/promise of the night when he mentioned that he would like to allow Americans to deduct the income paid in payroll taxes from their income taxes.
On its face this proposal would seem neutral in terms of its impact on the Social Security trust fund; however, since we know that Obama will not be balancing the budget right away he’ll have to borrow to make up the shortfall. As always, some of that borrowing will come from Social Security. So, if Senator Obama is serious about this proposal he’s going to have to show how he’s going to implement it without worsening Social Security’s cash problems.
For her part, Senator Clinton is proposing 100 billion dollars of new tax cuts for middle and low income Americans. During the debate she indicated that she has expressly said how she’ll pay for everything, but she didn’t tell us what she’s going to cut to balance the budget. As you will see, that will be an important question going forward.
On the related issue of saving Social Security, which is projected to be insolvent by 2041, Clinton and Obama once again battled over whether or not we should lift or remove the cap on payroll taxes. I was glad to see that, on this issue, Obama stood his ground in favor of removing or lifting the cap. Clinton, on the other hand, continued using Republican talking points by pretending that all kinds of educators and policeman would be hit with a tax increase if the cap is changed. Of course, the reality is that only the top 6.5 percent of income earners would be impacted if the cap is removed, and I for one don’t really care what profession you’re in—if your income means that you are in the top 6.5 percent of our nation’s income earners you should be paying your fair share of payroll taxes. By the way, the Cato Institute (a Libertarian think tank), Citizens for Tax Justice (a group advocating for a tax system that is fairer for middle income Americans) and the actuaries of the Social Security trust fund all agree that lifting the cap and doing nothing else would make Social Security solvent until at least 2081. So, isn’t it worth asking the wealthiest 6.5 percent of us to pay their fair share of payroll taxes if it can guarantee Social Security benefits for needy Americans for at least an additional 40 years? This just in: Clinton has promised us that she’ll appoint a commission to study the problem.
Lastly, neither Clinton nor Obama had the political courage to support a federal registration program for handguns. I know they are both really trying to get support from the gun-carrying crowd, but sacrificing principles that often times make the difference between life and death for some votes just doesn’t seem like a good choice. Just once I would like to see a Democrat with the courage to tell the truth about guns and the confidence to believe that they could convince Americans that under a registration program they could still go hunting and keep guns at home. I’m not crazy enough to believe that America will anytime soon do the right thing and ban handguns all together, but requiring them to be registered just doesn’t seem to be asking too much.
What did you think about the debate? I’m interested in hearing from you.
