The Manifesto

My urge to start this blog began this summer as I watched Obama's rise in the polls with increasing disbelief. I started wondering what was in the Kool-Aid, and how so many Americans could support a candidate so far left of the mainstream. Before you write me off as a Limbaugh dittohead, you should know that I'm a moderate who has voted Democratic in two of the last three elections. I also have no problem with an African-American president. I supported a black female third-party candidate in '92, when Barack was a nobody. Now sixteen years later, as the most liberal Senator in America steamrolls his way to the White House, I feel compelled to vent my angst to the world.

I'm not going to bother with moral issues, because most people's views on those hot topics are impervious to facts. I'm sticking to the economic sphere, because you can't argue with numbers. Obama and McCain both say they want to increase jobs, enrich the middle class and balance the budget. I think McCain's plan for getting there is realistic, while Obama's is naive and misguided. Obama rails against trickle down economics, where the success of the rich trickles down to make everyone's life better. He thinks that approach only increases the gap between rich and poor.Obama plans to cut taxes for the middle-class and give rebates to the poor because it's the right thing to do, and thus cannot help but make the economy better. His argument is based on morality- If we do what's fair, we will be rewarded. Unfortunately the economy doesn't answer to our scruples. It answers to the ruthless demands of global competition.

I think that in trying to slice the pie more evenly, we will make the whole pie smaller. Punitive policies against the successful only depress competition and stifle ambition. Michael Savage coined the term "trickle up poverty," and I think that's what we're in for if Obama and a Democratic Congress get their way. We'll see what the facts bear out over the next four years. I hope they prove me wrong.