Hey Joe, don’t vote for these guys

This nearly two year election is coming to a close, and very soon there will be a new person elected president. To win over the last few undecided voters, both Senators John McCain and Barack Obama are making their case to the common man: Joe the plumber. Since one of these two men will inevitably become our next president, let’s take a look at some of the major issues in this election cycle and decide which candidate is better.

Government Expansion: Both John McCain and Barack Obama voted in favor of the $700 billion bailout package. Not only is that $700 billion that the federal government doesn’t have, but it’s also one of the most egregious interventions into the free market in U.S. history.

But, both candidates say they had to in order to avoid a total economic collapse. Let’s assume that these two career politicians were right instead of the 192 leading economists (including most recent Economics Nobel Prize winner, Paul Krugman) that were against it according to NPR. If the $700 billion bailout were working, then the government should be able to sit back and wait for the economy to recover. But John McCain knows this bailout won’t be successful. According to CNN he’s already proposing an additional $300 billion to buy up bad mortgages. In other words, people buy houses they can’t afford, banks give loans they never should have given… and every taxpayer is left to pay for it.

That’s not my definition of small government. And neither is Barack Obama who has made 188 proposals during this campaign, only 111 of which have estimated costs. What are the costs for just those first 111 proposals: a whopping $1.4 trillion over five years, according to Zogby. America has a national debt of over $10 trillion dollars, and we’re running major deficits every year. Yet, Barack Obama and John McCain think we should be shelling out hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending?
Civil Liberties: Both Senators McCain and Obama have a poor record on civil liberties. John McCain voted for the Patriot Act and to allow wiretapping by the federal government on U.S. citizen’s calls without a warrant.

According to Senate.gov, John McCain voted in favor of the Real ID Act of 2005. The ACLU released the following statement on the horrors of this legislation, “The Real ID Act creates an unprecedented national identity card and mandates that states expose the personal and private information of their residents to heightened risks of identity theft and data fraud, has a national price tag in the billions of dollars, and fails to establish real security.”

Unfortunately, Barack Obama is no better on each of these issues. Like John McCain, he voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act in 2006 and voted in favor of the FISA warrant-less wiretapping. Both votes were complete flip-flops from previous positions. I’m not sure which is worse, to be consistent and wrong like McCain, or be inconsistent, and still wrong, like Obama. According to a 2008 Washington Post article, Obama also voted for the Real ID Act, but did have concerns that it was an “unfunded mandate” that would shift the cost to the states. In essence, Obama isn’t worried about you losing your civil liberties. Instead, he’s worried that the federal government won’t be spending enough of your tax dollars on this program that will take away part of your right to privacy.

These three bills are just a few of the ways that Senators McCain and Obama have trounced on your civil liberties. Given more time in a more powerful position, I’m confident they could find more ways to take away your freedoms.

Foreign Intervention: Many Americans are afraid of extending themselves into a third concurrent war.

John McCain has a song he likes to sing that goes “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.” It’s catchy (because it’s a parody of the famous Beach Boys song “Barbara Ann”), but it’s also a scary glimpse into his foreign policy. Needless to say, war with Iran should be avoided if at all possible.

But, Barack Obama is no better. Unlike McCain, in a non-joking manner, Barack Obama has mentioned the possibility of sending ground forces into Pakistan. Pakistan is arguably our biggest Middle East ally in the War on Terror. How would we react if Pakistan, or any nation, stated they were considering sending armed military into America?

Joe the plumber, do you care at all about keeping government small enough that it can actually make ends meet? Do you care at all about your civil liberties, or a really old document you heard about in your high school civics class called the Constitution? Do you care at all about living in a nation that will not preemptively start another war?

Joe, if you care at all, then don’t vote for these two career politicians. Find a third party candidate you agree with, or even write in a candidate. Because, no matter who wins, whether it be McCain or Obama, we will have all lost.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 31 2008. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry