The Endorsement, Part I

Okay, time for the endorsement.

I’m endorsing John Kerry.

Just kidding.

I might endorse John Kerry for President, if I wanted to find out what it was really like to live through four years of Jimmy Carter. I was only six years old when Carter’s single term as President ended, and the memories I have of four years of malaise are rather limited – about all that I recall at the time was that Carter liked peanuts and I hated peanuts, while Reagan loved jellybeans. Pretty simple choice, if you were asking me. Even though Billy Carter must have been a godsend for comedians.

But John Kerry doesn’t even offer us the opportunity to mock a humorous brother. So far as I can see, there are no redeeming qualities to recommend him. Well, maybe that Vietnam thing… except having read Kerry’s speeches after he returned from the war, not to mention his pathological need to reference Vietnam’s effect on every decision he makes, I’ve decided that I frankly don’t care about anything having to do with Vietnam anymore. In fact, America would be a far better place if we collectively decided that anyone who brought up Vietnam in any context outside cuisine would be subjected to electroshock therapy.

But let’s get to the meat of all this. Whom should we elect?

If you’ve read this blog for more that two minutes, it’s pretty easy to see that I support George W. Bush. A better question might be why. I have plenty of friends who have asserted that their choices in this election stink – in an interesting parallel, many of them felt the same way in 2000. I haven’t felt that way in either election – to me, the choice has been clear each time. The choice has never been ideal, but I doubt it ever will be, unless I’m running myself, and I’m pretty sure those four years in college contain too many stories that would disqualify me. And if not, law school would finish the job.

Below, I’ve outlined the three areas I think are important in electing a President. Two are policy-related: Domestic Policy and Foreign Policy. The third category, which I’ll dub ICL (Integrity, Character and Leadership) may be the most important thing a person is looking for when electing a President, or it may be completely irrelevant. On the first two categories, I can make an argument for Geroge W. Bush, but your own policy views will color whether you find him the acceptable choice. In the ICL category, I think Bush is the clear choice over Senator Kerry. Everything each of them has done in his public life illustrates that George W. Bush is the better man. And I’d like to think that matters in this choice. But we’ll get to that in a moment.

Domestic policy will be covered in this post. Part II will address foreign policy. Part III will address ICL.

Domestic Policy

Let’s make this basic – the key domestic issues are taxes, spending, jobs, health care, trade, social security, education, tort reform, judicial selection and a host of social issues, including gay marriage, abortion rights, and stem-cell research. On almost all fronts, I prefer Bush.

Let’s start with taxes. Bush wants to make sure the tax cuts that are in place now will remain in place in the future. Kerry doesn’t give a rat’s sphincter whether the tax cuts remain in place, and he wants to raise taxes on a group he defines as rich, while promising a middle-class tax cut. Bush has promised to undertake efforts to fix the system and reform it in a fundamental manner. Kerry has said nothing of substance. Taking a look at their records, Bush has cut taxes with more vigor than any President in my memory, including Reagan. In twenty years in the Senate, Kerry has voted for tax increases seemingly every other week. I happen to believe tax cuts strengthen the economy and stimulate economic activity, and that our current tax structure is unfair and far too burdensome. This one’s simple. Advantage: W.

Spending is another category entirely. Bush has allowed Congress to spend like a group of drunken sailors, and he deserves to be roasted for not vetoing the pork-laden agriculture bill while setting up a new prescription drug entitlement. I will not defend Bush’s record on spending, save for the fact that I have no quarrel with No Child Left Behind, which regard as a signature achievement. But here’s what amazing: Kerry would be worse. His Senate voting record is an abomination for anyone who prefers fiscal restraint. The argument that divided government will produce less spending is close to insane – a GOP House and Senate may willingly do battle with Kerry on spending, but only on where to spend money, not whether to spend it. In the end, the solution to the problem of government spending will be entitlement reform, not temporary cuts in government programs.

The two biggest programs requiring reform are Social Security and Medicare. Kerry wants to expand the latter and do nothing about the former. Bush has bravely addressed the issue of Social Security reform in two consecutive elections, and has put the issue private accounts on the front burner. Kerry’s expensive new health care proposal, while it has little chance of passing the House and Senate, will simply delay the real free-market solutions put forth by Bush, such as the expansion of Health Savings Accounts. I believe in free-market reforms that will keep our health care system the envy of the world – every time one of these idiots points to Canada’s nationalized health care system, I think they forget that people opt to live in the U.S. rather than Canada for many reasons, and one of them is that nationalized health care stinks. Kerry would move us closer to nationalized health care. Bush would move us toward the free market and the fundamental reform of the system, where the costs are borne by the consumer and seen by the consumer, rather than concealed within the paycheck. As for Social Security – we all know it needs to be fixed. Bush is proposing a solution with significant short–term costs, but one which provides massive long-term benefits. Kerry is proposing nothing. Sounds like his twenty years in the Senate.

As for jobs, here’s an issue that’s intimately bound up in trade. I’m a free trade enthusiast, so I have my issues with President Bush’s decision to impose tariffs on steel, but it’s the only true blight on a pretty good record… and in comparison to Kerry’s campaign rhetoric about “Benedict Arnold CEOs” and the protectionist zeal of his supporters, Bush’s tariffs look tame. Kerry is caught in a fundamental paradox when he brings up jobs. He constantly derides the jobs created during the last eighteen months as lower-paying jobs, yet he promises to keep more jobs from going overseas. Are the vast majority of jobs that go overseas high-paying or low-paying? Since the answer is the latter, Kerry is basically saying he wants to bring more low-paying jobs home. Yeah, that would solve the problem.

I don’t think government creates jobs – it creates the conditions that will create jobs. That’s what Bush has done, but hiring has not jumped with economic growth, due in part to the increase in productivity of the existing workforce. Still, unemployment is at the same level it was in 1996, when Clinton ran for re-election. Seems odd to blast Bush for losing jobs in such a situation. But what do I know?

Education is a slam dunk for Bush. Kerry's promising more spending while kissing the ring of the teachers' unions. With Bush, we have a legitimate shot at advancing vouchers, an idea whose time has come.

Good luck with tort reform with John Edwards in the #2 seat. And if you really want to cut costs in health care and help keep business here, tort reform is a huge issue.

If John Kerry appoints the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, there's a good chance it could be Hillary Clinton. That alone is enough to terrify me on judges.

As for the social issues... I actually agree with John Kerry on stem-cell research, but he's chosen to demagogue the issue beyond belief. If Dan Quayle had told voters that George Bush Sr. would make crippled people walk when he was elected, the press would have destroyed him. Edwards makes the claim that Christopher Reeve would be able to get out of his wheelchair and walk under a President Kerry, and people forget about it as meaningless. Gay marriage means little to me as an issue -- I think it should be left up to the states -- and by that I mean state legislatures.

And I'm pro-life, whereas Kerry is not. I could respect his position, if he only had the guts to stand up and take credit for that belief. He professes to believe that life begins at conception, so as not to offend his Church and many other Catholic, yet refuses to fight for the unborn. He's either a moral monster or a disingenuous bastard. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say it's the latter.

Parts II and III are soon to come.