I am not a registered voter with either party. I attempt to stay open-minded and ultimately vote for the best candidate. I will admit, however, that my voting tends to trend Republican due to my beliefs on welfare, affirmative action, taxes, and international affairs (military spending).
So, as promised, here’s my take-aways from the GOP convention:
1) I want to watch Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention. I haven’t seen more than a few minutes at a time of him speaking and I hear that he’s phenomenal. I’d like to see if his speaking skills marry up with equally good content when he has the opportunity to be thorough.
2) McCain is genuinely a nice person. I was really moved by his POW experience and his decision to honor the “first in first out” policy, even when he had the chance to leave early. Choosing 4 more years of torture and not letting that break your American spirit is absolutely amazing.
3) Lisa’s right, Palin IS hot. And how frickin’ cute was Piper licking her hand to fix Trig’s hair?
4) McCain has a better policy on corporate taxation when it comes to off-shore production. Obama’s plan is to penalize businesses who send jobs overseas with higher taxes. While “spanking” companies seems justified, I think that this will actually hurt the American people. If a company has to incur additional expense they’re not just going to eat it, they’ll pass it on. And when they do, who do you think will be ultimately paying that additional cost? The consumer (us!!). We will all end up paying more for the things we buy via two rounds of taxation – once on behalf of the companies who were originally taxed and then again via a sales tax.
I feel very strongly that McCain’s plan is better – incentivize companies to keep jobs in America by LOWERING corporate taxes. If companies are paying less to do business here they have more reason to keep jobs here. They also have less reason to raise prices on the goods they sell. With this combo the economy should do better – people will pay a fair price for the items they buy and they’ll have the income (JOBS) to have money to spend in the first place.
5) The war still needs a lot of attention. Obama has, from what I’ve heard, a good plan for gradually pulling out of the war. I’ve also read online that his plan is very similar to Bush’s plan (which seems strange). I have not heard the specifics on McCain’s Iraq strategy. I need to research this a lot more to better understand it.
6) I also need to do more research on socialized medicine. I did not like paying a 12% sales tax rate while in Canada (part of their financial resource to pay for their nation-wide healthcare), but I don’t fully understand the implications on how something like this would affect company-sponsored health insurance plans. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad?
7) Both candidates talk a lot about cleaning up Washington. I'm now more skeptical of our representatives in general. How bad is it really? I hope they both follow-through on this campaign promise.
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5 comments:
I agree that McCain's plan on corporate taxation sounds like it will work better.
I have a lot of things I need to look at more closely, but like you I don't vote by party, rather I vote by who I agree with more based on thier stances on issues.
The only thing I'd like to comment on is #2. While McCain may be nice, nice is not a qualification to be president. We need someone who is charismatic, professional, business minded, military minded, and knows what the America needs in order to be successful in the competitive world we live in. I'm not saying that one or both have none, all or some of the qualifications I listed.
I do agree with you for voting for the qualified candidate and that sometimes does mean voting over party lines if you registered with one.
Also, the "first in, first out" POW thing. Just because they found out who his father was they "offered" him release. The problem with that is if he had taken it he would have been court marshalled. Danny let me know this is a military offence and those guys are trained in this matter what to do if captured.
Ok, I'm sure that will continue some interesting comments.
The one comment that Sarah made that I'm not sold on (not to say it isn't true) is that McCain would be court martialled if he took the release they offered him. That makes no sense to me. I just researched the Uniform Code of Military Justice in respect to court martials and I can't find anywhere that it mentions this or references it.
You face penalties for desertion in the face of duty which taking a release from a POW camp would not be considered, and deriliction of duty, which that would also not be considered. Then there are violent crime offenses, treason, etc.
Interesting thought though.. I have family members in active (Air Force Rangers) and inactive (Navy SEALS) I could bounce that thought off of.
Random 2 cents - when I registered to vote here, I was not going to register with any party. Until the person setting up the registry said that by registering with a party, you get bombarded with mail primarily from that party. If you do NOT register with a party, you get bombarded with mail from ALL parties.
Therefore, I registered with a party to eliminate my junk mail.
I don't actually know if it is true or not, the amount of junk mail depending on being registered or not...but I decided to take my chances.
I think it's funny that Martha registered for a political party to avoid junk mail. LOL!!! I guess that backfired for our household because we both registered for opposing political parties. We have yet to see a piece of mail on a candidate though.
Also, just wanted to say that I am totally against socialized medicine....because it would cut into my husband's salary. There are already enough problems with our current way of providing health care to citizens that need it. I don't really think they can come up with something better right now. It's one of the major things I don't agree with in the Democratic party. Am I weird, or am I weird?
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