Tiptoe to the Horizon

If only we could tiptoe to the horizon and take a look over to gain at least a glimpse of what the future holds for us. None of us have that gift (or curse, depending on your point of view), but it doesn't take much imagination to see enormous potential for growth and strength in the American experience.

It seems clear that alternative fuels will soon power our automobiles, thus decreasing our dependence on foreign sources of oil.

It seems clear that alternative and renewable fuels will be used to generate our electricity, including clean coal technology (which really will be clean).

It seems clear that advances in nanotechnology will soon transform the way thousands of products are manufactured, and the products thus made will be in the millions.

It seems clear that computers will become increasingly more sophisticated, faster and more powerful, and even more integrated in our lives, not just to help us play video games or to keep us better connected to each other, but including, especially including, providing better health care.

The capitalist system is perfectly suited to take advantage of the innovation and invention that flows from American ingenuity. The problem for this country has been that, for the past eight years, there has been no leadership at the White House. The Bush-Cheney cabal was never able to address "that vision thing" -- as Bush 41 described it -- because they were not, and are not capable of it. With Obama taking the helm, at last we will have a chance to take advantage of the real potential in America that has been suppressed by this incompetent Administration.

If You Need a Clue...

The front page of today's The Washington Post displays the best clue to still unknowing Republicans why their candidate will not win on November 4.

The headline says: A Last Push to Deregulate. Here are the first three paragraphs:

"The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.

"The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

"Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining."

There you have it. That's more of the Bush legacy that Americans have grown tired of.

THE PEOPLE ARE NOT IN CHARGE.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THE PEOPLE.

THEIR GOAL IS TO DISMANTLE OUR GOVERNMENT.

Who among us does not look forward to lower "drinking water standards?" Won't that be special?

It's Bill Clinton's Fault

What is it with Republicans? Why do they hate Bill Clinton so much that they HAVE to attach every misbegotten deed that has adversely impacted the nation since he left office to something he did or didn’t do during the 8 years he was in office?

Mmmmmmmm…?

Was it his success as a President? Was it the balanced budget he submitted to Congress which Republican Presidents in recent history were want to do? Was it the enormous prosperity the country enjoyed during his presidency? Was it the record jobs created during his years of federal stewardship?

Or was it those moments of immoral behavior, moments of personal failing that have caused them to hate him so? If so, where is the Christian spirit of forgiveness they supposedly learned in church school each Sunday? Where were these “Christians” when THAT lesson was being taught?

I’ve heard Bill Clinton blamed for Osama bin Laden’s attacks on America. To hear Pat Robertson tell it, 9/11 was a direct result of Bill Clinton’s presidency. I’m sure he must have thought up that Mission Accomplished banner, too, knowing all the while the grief it would cause Bush 43.

I’ve heard him blamed for the mortgage crisis. One of the talk radio nuts said it was Bill Clinton who came up with the subprime lending scheme.

The next thing you know the Republicans will blame global warming on Bill Clinton. I guess he is to blame also for all those terrible hurricanes visited upon the Bush Administration. And surely he is to blame for those high prices at the gas pump which had us all running for Japanese hybrids.

Male pattern baldness will be next. Just ask Rush Limbaugh.

I’ll bet Bill Clinton was the one who gave John McCain the idea that Sarah Palin would be a good choice for a running mate.

We must never forget...

As hard as it may be to believe, a few voters remain undecided. If you know one, remind him or her of a few of the painful days indelibly printed on the Bush legacy:

I hope we never forget the day the bridges collapsed in Minnesota, reminding us that the Bush administration would not support spending dollars from the Highway Trust Fund to repair and maintain our federal highway infrastructure.

I hope we never forget the day the Bush appointed head of the Consumer Products Safety Commission shrugged as she testified before Congress, confessing she could not remember whether or not the Commission had recalled a single toy made in China that was unsafe for our children.

I hope we never forget the near misses by aircraft at Reagan National Airport, and the fact that the FAA does not have the money to install current state of the art systems to keep planes from colliding on taxiways because the Administration does not support such spending.

I hope we never forget when the USDA announced the biggest meat recall in US history, partially because they cannot afford enough meat inspectors to do one of the basic jobs Americans expect from their government.

I hope we never forget that the FDA permitted unsafe drugs to enter the prescription drug market because of lax oversight, and because the FDA cannot afford the experts needed for proper testing in a timely manner.

I hope we never forget the inept reaction of FEMA to the catastrophic damage to the Gulf Coast caused by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.

I hope we never forget that $500 million in federal support for development of a clean coal-fired electric generation project that was withdrawn because such spending would add more dollars to an already bursting federal deficit, even though such spending might result in cleaner more breathable air for all.

These are but a sampling from a very long list. There are many more from nearly every agency and department of our government where, over the past eight years, budgets have been slashed, staffs have been cut, and the delivery of services American taxpayers depend on has suffered.

Then there is the complete meltdown of our economy under the Bush Administration. It should come as no surprise that the Bush administration was not minding the store. They never did.

John McCain says he and George Bush share the same philosophy of government. Is there anything else you need to know?

We will strengthen our republic when we go to the polls next week remembering the failings of the current administration and determined not to forget what it did to our country these past eight years.

John Lewis called it a movement

There's something going on in America, said Rep. John Lewis a few months ago. Indeed, there is something going on. It is Americans taking back their government. It is ordinary citizens surprising even Barack Obama with their passion for redressing the wrongs of this administration as is their right under the US Constitution.

And here they are: in Portland where 75,000 came to see him, in Houston, where 25,000 came out the night Obama won the Wisconsin primary, in Philadelphia where 35,000 came to show their support the next day, in New York where 60,000 cheered, in Pittsburgh where 50,000 showed up, a 100,000 in Denver, a 100,000 plus in St. Louis, even Boise where 14,000 supporters showed up to hear his message of hope and belief in America's future.

American can't wait for the change Barack Obama will bring. It is nothing more than restoration of the underpinnings of this republic.

Higher taxes on higher profit or lower taxes on lower profit?

"I'd rather pay higher taxes on higher profit than lower taxes on lower profit."

That comment by a businessman in today's news sends a clear message to Republicans: "we're not buying the same old line this year." Did you hear that, McPalin team? We are not buying.


I think Americans finally understand the GOP's game. Every four years for at least 44 years, the GOP walks out the same old line: "Vote for us because we will lower your taxes and reduce the size of government. The only problem: they never do. It's a nice promise and they count on the voters with short attention spans and even shorter memories buying it.

I remember when Barry Goldwater and Bill Miller tried to sell it in 1964. Even Nelson Rockefeller, the acknowledged leader of the liberal wing of the Republican Party in the early 1960s was promising not to raise taxes. (Yes, there was a liberal wing of the Republican Party in those days.)

Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew tried it, too, in 1968 and 1972 with better success. They even threw in a promise of victory in Vietnam with, "Peace is at hand." (They were smart enough not to say "victory is at hand" as John McCain does today.)

In 1976 Jerry Ford and Bob Dole would have used it to better effect if the aftermath of the Watergate scandal had not cleared the way for Democrats Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale to be elected.

Then came Reagan in 1980. The former Democrat, former actor turned Republican, understood what to do with the old line. He and George H.W. Bush got elected twice on the line. Voters generally have forgotten that Reagan/Bush tripled the national debt as they lowered taxes (because they did nothing to reduce spending) and the size of the government almost doubled on their watch. Oh well, maybe nobody noticed.

Reagan -- the fiscal conservative -- never balanced a budget. He never came close to balancing a budget. He never came remotely close to even thinking about balancing a budget. Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of the GOP, paid for his massive expansion of the federal government by pawning off the expense on the next generation. And he used his communication skills to tell us this was all somehow OK.

Bush 41 and Dan Quayle got their chance in 1988 and simply continued the Reagan "borrow and spend" years but Bush made one fatal mistake. He emphatically stated, "Read my lips: no new taxes." He forgot that you are not supposed to lay that sacrosanct campaign tenet in concrete, you are only supposed to promise lower taxes. But those Bush boys were never very good with the English language. When taxes went up and Bush 41 did not veto them, voters turned him out because he could not erase the words he had put in the consciousness of every voter.

Democrat Bill Clinton was the first President since Lyndon Johnson to present a balanced budget to the Congress and the American people. When he left office after two terms of consistent growth and prosperity, he left a $230 billion surplus for the next administration.

In 2000 Bush 43 came into office with his co-president, Dick Cheney (still hard to know who was the real President but that's another blog entry). Bush 43 and Cheney went back to 1964 and picked up the mantra: "we promise you lower taxes and smaller government." And they added, "Who knows better than you how to spend your own money? Certainly not the government." Sounds so sweet, doesn't it? They didn't believe it, of course, but sure thought the electorate would.

The GOP must think we are all infants...or idiots? 91.4 PERCENT OF THE FEDERAL BUDGET GOES TO DEFENSE, SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE, MEDICAID AND INTEREST ON THE NATIONAL DEBT. The GOP will not speak of these locked in spending items. Only Defense can be called discretionary but the GOP certainly does not see it as discretionary.

It is up to us -- as Sarah Palin likes to say -- to "call them out" when they promise something we and they know they can't deliver and indeed, have no intention to even attempt to deliver.

As Obama says, it's time to declare, "Enough."

The truth is this: The fiscally conservative party has indebted this country since 1980 with a mammoth amount of debt. Bush 43 will leave office on January 20, 2009, having doubled the national debt from 5.4 trillion dollars to 10.6 trillion dollars.

Just typing those record debt numbers is depressing to me. I'm ready for someone who will speak the truth to us, not the tired old mantra of discredited political ideology.

Not one of us wants to pay higher taxes, we just want to pay our fair share of taxes when it is warranted. That is patriotism in action. And we are all patriots -- at least we believe we are -- when we ask government to keep greed in check by regulating financial markets, care for the elderly by providing a small measure of support through Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid programs, pay for the infrastructure that provides safe roads and bridges and levees, secure our borders from those who would do us harm, and most importantly, provide for the common defense. There's more, much more we Democrats AND Republicans expect of our government, but you get the picture. We will pay taxes, we will pay higher taxes if needed, but we insist they be taxes fairly apportioned among the citizens and expended only in ways that are transparent and fully accountable.

Where Have All the Young Votes Gone?

Yesterday, again I walked the neighborhood in my precinct, urging a vote for Barack Obama by every person I saw. And I found something very discouraging. A young man in his early 20s was busy washing his car and said he couldn't stop to talk, "I don't have time." Another young man in his late 20s answered the door, "I still haven't decided and probably won't until election day." Another came to the door after his mother got him off the sofa where he was watching a football game, "I think I'm going to be out of town on election day." When I told him he could vote absentee, he said, "OK, we'll see."

Here's the sad truth: the odds are great that none of these young voters will vote on November 4.

Some young people will tell you they don’t vote because they believe their vote isn’t going to make a difference. Of course, it does. Of the 110 million votes cast in the 2000 presidential race, just 537 votes in Florida made the difference in the outcome. That’s 537 powerful citizens!

Maybe our youth don’t vote because they spend too much time listening to the idle barber shop conversation of their elders. On any given Saturday morning, you’ll hear someone getting a clip explain away his lack of personal involvement with “It doesn’t matter who gets elected; special interests control government anyway.”

But it does matter. It matters very much.

In the introduction to her recent book, Be the Change, Michelle Nunn wrote “We stand at a time of enormous potential but also of danger – environmental hazards, nuclear proliferation, global poverty, and terrorism are all very real threats to our world and the promise of progress. But perhaps the biggest obstacle of all is apathy.”

If our youth don't bother to vote, we have bigger problems than determining just who will sit in the Oval Office. We have our future at risk. Please urge every young person you know between the ages of 18 and 34 to "bother" to vote.