Categories
National politics

Ready to Vote

Votes will start to be counted this week. The Iowa caucuses take place on Thursday as a wide open presidential election promises to dominate the news coverage for another 10 months. I have already done individual endorsements of the candidates and an advance ranking of what candidates I liked best. Now, with actual votes on the line, here is my final position on the candidates I could vote for. In alphabetical order I could vote for:

    • Joe Biden
    • Mike Huckabee
    • Barack Obama
    • Ron Paul
    • Mitt Romney

The Republicans include a Small-Government Constitutionalist that the media does not understand, and hence does not cover (Ron Paul), a man who knows how to get things done (Mitt Romney), and a more articulate champion for “compassionate conservatism” than our current President (Mike Huckabee). The Democrats include a fresh face of optimism (Barack Obama) and a man who is everything that Hillary pretends to be – experienced and essentially moderate (Joe Biden).

Many people say this is a change election (I’ve heard that before but we’re still doing the same thing in Washington) and if your view is to change Washington then the order of candidates (from most change to least) would have to be:

    • Ron Paul
    • Barack Obama
    • Mitt Romney
    • Joe Biden
    • Mike Huckabee

Based on my positions (where change is not the only factor) I would support the candidates in this order (My support from 1-10):

    1. Ron Paul (10)
    2. Mitt Romney (7)
    3. Joe Biden (6 – I like his positions better than Obama)
    4. Barack Obama (6 – I like his tone and his chances in the primaries better than Biden)
    5. Mike Huckabee (4 – if you think our current domestic priorities are acceptable then Huckabee would be better able to sell them than Bush has been)

While everyone who doesn’t support Ron Paul will argue that he hasn’t got a chance, I argue that his real support is much broader than any other candidate (with the possible exception of Obama). The problem is that his supporters as a group may not be reliable about getting to the polls (it’s hard to say because they are such an unorthodox group politically). I think that if Ron Paul can place at least 3rd in Iowa behind Romney and Huckabee (I say third because the caucuses are more complex than a simple primary) and second (or possibly even 3rd) in New Hampshire behind Romney or McCain then the media will have to pay more attention to his showings in those states which will have surprised the media and the general public. This increased coverage will make those who might not have supported him before less apprehensive about voting for him and he will have a very real chance (unless Romney wins both of those states outright).

Obviously I want Ron Paul to win the Republican nomination but I would be extremely happy to see an Obama/Biden ticket in November. Then I could have a decent choice even if the Republicans choose an unacceptable candidate like Giuliani for the general election.

Categories
life

Good vs Evil

An interesting thought struck me today as my mind was churning in the background without any particular direction. The conflict between “good” and “evil” is the conflict between accountability based on personal choice and coercion or limitation based on the choices of others. Put another way, it is the difference between an opt-in situation and an opt-out situation. This seems to be true whether you are talking about the religious good vs evil (Christ vs Satan for example) or literary good vs evil (The Rebel Alliance vs The Empire from Star Wars for example).

Admittedly my thinking here is not fully developed, but I thought it would be worth putting out for feedback, and as a reminder to myself to pursue the topic further in my own thinking.

Categories
National politics

Ron Paul Running Mate

I have often wondered who Ron Paul would choose as a running mate. I got my answer from Phil Harris. Alan Keyes joined the race for the Republican nomination long after I stopped doing candidate endorsements, but when I looked at his positions I found someone who was ideologically very similar to Dr. Paul on most issues.

Dr. Keyes is light years behind Dr. Paul organizationally and financially, nor does he inspire the same fervor among his supporters, but he seems to bring a similar love and understanding of the Constitution. Another advantage would be that Dr. Keyes, being black, would quell the baseless fears of those who dislike the small financial support that Dr. Paul has received from members of some white-pride types of fringe groups. Dr. Paul would demonstrate that their prejudices are not connected to him.

I’m not saying that this would happen, only that I have finally seen someone who would seem like a good running mate for Dr. Paul.

Categories
National politics

Budget Math

I wish I knew where they got their deficit spending number, but KVNU’s For The People really caught my attention with the side-by-side listing of the deficit spending in the budget President Bush just signed. They claim that $240 Billion of the $555 Billion is deficit spending. That’s over 43% of the total budget being paid with imaginary cash. The original excuse for deficit spending (back in the Depression era) was that it could be used to fund emergencies, as a temporary measure to get us past tough times such as war or depression. The problem here is that no matter how great the emergency, if you are spending everything you earn plus another 76% of what you are bringing in it’s time to find a way to reduce your costs by 40% (which would still leave us with deficit spending this year of $20 Billion).

What really got me about all of this is that although we are in a war right now that war only accounts for $70 Billion so we could remove that spending completely and we would still have $170B out of the $485B being paid on promises. (That’s still 35% deficit spending.) There was $28B in domestic spending that the President didn’t want (only $142B to go) and $10B in pork earmarks. In other words, nobody even attempted to spend less than 30% of the budget with play money. If Congress had started with the budget proposed by the President and simply subtracted everything they didn’t like we would still have been spending more than $100 Billion dollars that we didn’t have. I think we can say that this government is numerically bankrupt – who cares that they exercised their power to raise their credit limit so as to prevent them from being financially bankrupt this year.

Categories
National politics

NCLB and Federal Education

My father-in-law is a professor at BYU and, like me, is very interested/involved in efforts to improve public education. As the voucher debate this year demonstrated, there are very different perspectives on how that improvement can be achieved. (Yes, I do believe that people on both sides of that issue were genuinely interested in improving education.) Such is the case with me and my father-in-law. Not long ago we were talking about educational issues and he said, “Many people do not realize that NCLB was a continuing step in a decades long effort to improve education. It was not born out of nowhere.” He referred me to a seminar given by Vance Randall discussing NCLB and that movement. I believe that he intended that statement to ease my distaste of NCLB. In fact, I was neither surprised nor comforted by the statement.

I finally went to see the video of the seminar, as he suggested, and found my position unchanged. It made me finally do some research asking what we have gained with the intrusion of the federal government in our education system. The answers are – the federal government has gained authoritative control over much of our education for the minimal investment of taking our money in taxes, attaching strings, and giving it back to us enough to fund between 3.9 and 15.8% (average of 7.3%) of our education spending. I don’t know where else an investor can get a controlling interest for under 10% investment. The country has gained, according to Neal McCluskey:

. . . national academic performance has not improved. Math and reading scores have stagnated, graduation rates have flat lined, and researchers have shown numerous billion-dollar federal programs to be failures. (See his full report which is partially based on the work of Vance Randall.)

I learned from the seminar by Dr. Randall that Congress turned a 26 page proposal by President Bush into the 1000+ page bill that passed as NCLB. Proponents of this increased federal incursion argue that states have the ability to opt out, but as McCluskey succinctly coutners:

[S]tates can refuse their share of billions of federal education dollars and thereby avoid having to adhere to federal regulations, but turning down the money is difficult, especially since the federal government took the money out of state taxpayers’ pockets in the first place.

The education lobby would seem to have this debate won handily since nobody wants to vote against helping kids learn. The only recourse for those who would like to return the control of education to its rightful place (parents and lower levels of government) is to make the facts available. It is easy to get caught in the trap of trying to argue that the federal involvement is the problem in our education (a case that is not easy to make in a way that the average voter would care to digest). Whether federal involvement is a problem or not is irrelevant, instead we need to take the ample data that we have which proves that federal involvement is conclusively not the solution.

Categories
life

The Holiday Spirit

Here’s a fun rendition of a holiday favorite.

Categories
culture

Second Guessing Good Works

I liked this story – Attorney offers to pay cab rides for people who have been drinking. Apparently this same attorney did the same thing last year too. Some people commenting on the story talk about all the free advertising that he receives through this. Surely had does receive the benefit of name recognition and improves his image through this gesture. I say, who cares what benefit he receives out of it. If this saves one fatality then it’s way more than worth it.

Categories
culture technology

Open Up on Blogger

This is an open suggestion to Bloggers who use Blogger – specifically those who are restrictive on allowing comments.

Once upon a time there were three options for who could comment (assuming that you allowed comments on the blog in the first place). The options were Anyone, Registered Users, and Members of the Blog. I can understand the drawbacks of allowing anyone to comment but not everyone uses blogger – that makes for less than ideal choices to be made.

Recently there has been a new option added. Registered users used to mean people with blogger accounts but that has become “Users with Google Accounts.” The new “Registered Users” option allows people to use WordPress, TypePad, AIM/AOL, or LiveJournal identities to make comments. This is nice because users like me are no longer forced to use a defunct identity to comment. Please consider using the new “Registered Users” option if you currently only allow Users with Google Accounts.

Categories
National politics

Platform of the American People

Newt Gingrich chose not to run for President because it would conflict with his movement, American Solutions (a good choice in my opinion). American Solutions has now published the Platform of the American People. They claim that the positions in this platform are supported by majorities from both major parties as well as a majority of independents. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at that platform. I have not come to any complete conclusions on the platform yet, but I have discovered that some of their majorities are closer to even than others. I did some objective, numerical analysis – taking all their data for granted – and here are the issues that appear to be the most widely supported.

    • It is important for the President and Congress to address the issue of Social Security in the next few years.
    • We have an obligation to be good stewards of God’s creation for future generations.
    • Children should be allowed a moment of silence to pray for themselves in public school if they desire.
    • Al Qaeda poses a very serious threat for the United States.
    • Our goal should be to provide long-term solutions instead of short-term fixes.
    • We should hold city governments to the same standards for cleaning waste water as are applied to private industry.
    • It is important to acknowledge today that the references to God in the Declaration of Independence – that we are endowed by our Creator with the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
    • When applying for a temporary worker visa each worker should take an oath to obey American law and be deported if they commit a crime while in the United States.
    • We approve of a Christmas tree or a Menorah being placed on public property during the holiday season.
    • Therefore we should dramatically increase our investment in math and science education.
    • There will be incredible possibilities to meet our country’s challenges in a variety of fields because in the next 25 years there will be 4 to 7 times the amount of new science and technology in the world as in the last 25 years.
    • We should give tax credits to homeowners and builders who incorporate alternative energy systems in their homes, like solar, wind, and geothermal energy.
    • We must rely on innovation and new technology if we are going to compete successfully with India and China.

Each of these is supposed to be supported by a ratio of at least 11 to 1. Does this look like part of an agenda that will help the country? Does it look like an agenda that we could pass? Are there any candidates or members of congress that would want to push these things through?

I’d love to get feedback from others as I look more closely at this.

To see my full spreadsheet where I sorted these issues out by popularity download it here.

Categories
politics State

Health Care Assistance

When I wrote about declining enrollment for CHIP in Utah I did some research on the requirements for CHIP. I learned that even though I am fully employed – meaning I make a comfortable living – my kids would be eligible for CHIP if I did not have the option of insurance through my job. More interestingly I learned that there is another program, Utah’s Premium Partnership for Health Insurance (UPP), which my family would qualify for if I chose a traditional insurance plan. (Actually, my company just switched insurance and I could have enrolled in a traditional plan that would have allowed me to have my full premiums paid – partially by my company and the remainder by the state.) This program helps pay the costs of health insurance premiums for working families.

As I looked at the requirements for UPP it shows some interesting biases that are not good for our health care system. The one that makes the least sense is that they explicitly will not cover High Deductible (HD) plans that qualify for Health Savings Accounts. This essentially discourages people from using the best vehicle we currently have for becoming cost conscious and driving down the real costs of health care. If they wanted to encourage people to get the kind of insurance that is better for the whole system they would give the same amount of money – deposited directly into an HSA – for those who have an HD insurance plan as they give for comparable coverage under a traditional insurance policy. Of course the rules would be the same for qualifying plans whether they were HD or traditional.