(Arthur requested this article to be posted on Wednesday, the 8th. We didn't find it amongst the mail clutter until this afternoon, the 10th. We post it now with apologies to Arthur, and are currently flogging the drunken transient we hired to slog through the spamandcrap. Party on Wayne.)
Okay, so you are going to ask, can the Obama Knife also cut through b.s.? We all know that it can smile, charm, inspire, engage and collect massive sums of money, but you will ask, "Roger, can it cut to the chase?" Yes it can.
It can recite a song that John McCain sang at a meeting, forcing him to desperately blather that it was something he said when he was "joking with an old friend" even though the actual campaign event is captured on one of those new-fangled video thingies, something that John McCain should be painfully aware of because of how popular that video clip has become on youtube. The problem is, John McCain is too out of touch to really have a clue. The extent of McCain's awareness of the real world seems to be that he vaguely understands that his backer Meg Whitman started something called eBay that the underclasses can use to sell their possessions to help stave off eviction and pay for their healthcare costs. Healthcare costs? Tom Brokaw asked if it should be seen as a right, a privilege or a responsibility. McCain thought it should be a "responsibility", but his answer was so rambling that I defy anyone to tell me WHOSE "responsibility" he thinks it is. Society's? Government's? Individuals'? McCain has no idea what he is talking about, no clear plan, no sense of what a burden healthcare costs can become for the American people.
He is talking through... well, let's say "his hat". I'm not. Due to a family illness our family had out-of-pocket healthcare costs of $27,500 one year and $28,000 the next, for a family of four. We have those costs under control now, but that hurt during that five year period when we had a lousy insurance policy, due to a pre-existing condition. When I say "out of pocket" I mean, that was the total of our insurance premiums and co-pays. We could handle it, other families could not. John McCain wants to give everyone a five thousand dollar tax credit? What does that even mean? Here is a link to Wikipedia: Click Here
Does anyone have any idea which meaning of the term "tax credit" McCain was talking about? Does he? Okay, let's be charitable and say that he meant the second, more generous use of the term, which means that those who are employed will get a $5,000 payment, to help them buy health insurance and pay their co-pays. But what if it is a two-income family? Will they then get two $5,000 checks? And what if two children live at home and work? Would each of them get a $5,000 check to apply toward a family insurance policy? Gosh, this could get expensive, couldn't it? or not. Since we know little or nothing about the McCain "Plan" I think we can safely assume the benefit will be $5,000 per family. In some parts of the country that might be helpful, in other parts of the country it would not. But McCain is just going to send out checks and let the taxpayer "do the right thing". With many families living paycheck to paycheck, my guess is that many of those checks would find other, more immediate uses, while a McCain administration would argue that government did its part, that it was the fault of the taxpayer that they did not purchase an insurance policy. Wonderful. Yes, there is "responsibility" but McCain does not feel it is a social value to work to unravel the health care nightmare. And if a $5,000 credit is given, but the employer-paid insurance benefits are to be taxed, then what is the net effect on small businesses and individuals? $5,000 would not have gone far towards paying our $28,000 costs that one year, would it?
One estimate is that the cost of providing corporate healthcare coverage for their employees and retired workers adds roughly a thousand dollars to the cost of making every car built in the United States... which is part of the reason that Detroit is moving manufacturing to Mexico and Canada. Our government's horror of enacting anything resembling universal healthcare, our government is helping to hobble our manufacturing base and send it overseas. And to put it bluntly, John McCain is either too much of a conservative ideologue to understand, or else he is too dumb to understand. You decide. Myself? I think he probably is a bit of both, which is the same lethal mixture that George W Bush represents: just smart enough to get elected, but to dumb to govern. Oh, and that Sarah Palin line about Ronald Reagan talking about "waving the white flag of surrender" and losing our freedoms? that was an antique quote from before Reagan was even Governor of California, and the subject? He was talking about how horrible Medicare would be. McCain is cut from the same cloth. He told us that we should not expect "the same level of benefits" that current retirees enjoy. Oh really? So this is all about hobbling Medicare and Social Security, because they are Socialist? Think about it for a minute. To get the Bailout package passed, Congress inserted $150 Billion in pork to bribe some stubborn members of Congress. No problemo. But does anyone remember the "crisis" in Social Security? The crisis so terrible that the only hope to save it would be to privatize it? Or else we'd have to find the staggering amount of $75 billion to fully fund Social Security, as it exists? That was simply impossible! No can do! But when it comes to blowing up Iraq we spend that amount every seven months and when we needed to bribe some Congressmen, suddenly without any public discussion an amount TWICE as large appeared. Like magic. If anyone ever needed proof that Bush administration has a strong resemblance to a pack of lying weasels, they should think of those two events and what they really tell us about this ideological and dishonest administration. Bush is a lot like Nixon, except he doesn't break a sweat when he tells a lie.
Oh, and the debate? That's it. You saw John McCain at his best. That's the best he's got, that's the sarcastic and homicidal codger that you will be electing if you vote for him. There are no uncertainties left in this election. I voted yesterday before watching the debate. For me the election is over, except for sending in donations. My youngest son who is far from being a political wonk told me yesterday he re-registered in Austin, Texas where he is in school because he thought his vote was more important there than in California. What is happening on college campuses this year is astounding. Passion is back in style.
If I am right, it is downhill from here on out. The only question is how slanderous the McCain campaign is going to get before it is over and how large the margin will be, how much of the Senate we take control of, and what a new President will discover when they take office. My guess is that when he takes office the new President will be told about a host of financial problems that no one knows about, that the Bush administration has been keeping a lid on to try to keep things looking rosy until after the election. Did anyone else wonder how the financial crisis that necessitated the bailout/rescue package seemed to sprout up like a mushroom? How come there was almost no advance notice? My guess is that the Bush administration tried to keep it all quiet, hoping that it would (a) go away, or (b) not collapse until after the election. It didn't work out and instead of having time to make good policy and explain the need for it, the legislation had to be done in a panic. That's not responsible governing, that's incompetence. Rather than taking more measured and intelligent steps earlier on, this administration kept talking up the economy as "fundamentally strong" (a Greenspan era term that has been tainted forever) while it was sliding into what we are now told is the greatest financial crisis since the great depression. Is it that bad? Who knows? Do you trust ANYTHING the Bush administration tells you? I don't. My assumption is that anyone Bush speaks well of is most likely a co-conspirator, someone whose name will show up on the January 19th Presidential Pardons List.
Arthur
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