The Morning After

After a rocky 10 days for the McCain-Palin ticket, the GOP nominees took a step up last night during the Vice Presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis.

VP Nominee Sarah Palin showed America that she is articulate and intelligent, especially when she is not set up by the Katie Courics of the world. Looking at the debate as an impartial observer, I would give Palin the victory for form and Biden the victory for substance.

Palin deserves even that much more credit considering who she is up on the podium defending -- John McCain. That is not an easy thing to do considering his track record.

With just over a month to go until Election Day, I do fear for America that Obama will win by 4-6 points in the popular vote, based on a snapshot of today's environment. McCain had a good shot coming out of Minneapolis, but the economic situation, coupled with his poorly run campaign, brought him back down to pre-convention levels in the polls. He has been ineffective in getting his message out, whereas the Obama team, with a lot of money behind it, has done the job targeting independents in the key states.

To their credit, the Dems are speaking with one voice. All of the usual characters (Obama, Clintons, Pelosi, Reid, et al) blame Bush and the Republicans and no one else for the economic mess. Who does McCain blame during an interview on "60 Minutes"? Bush, the Republians and, oh by the way, the Democrats. This is not a way to win an election.

A few final comment on last night's debate:

(1) Global Warming -- Is Joe Biden actually being serious when he says that global warming / climate change is completely "man made"? Perhaps someone in the area of earth sciences can educate Sen. Biden on the two principal reasons why climate change is occurring -- (a) time and (b) the sun.

(2) The Obama Tax Plan -- So if ALL of us (95 percent of America) are not going to pay a penny more in taxes for all of Obama's spending plans, then who will? Oh, that's right, the big Corporations (how many times did Biden mention Exxon/Mobil during the debate?). Great, so let's tax the big Corporations. Gee, I wonder if those higher taxes will get passed down to the customer? Can anyone say higher gas prices??? Higher costs for Dell computers??? Higher costs for Apple I-Pods??? Actually, Apple will probably be spared since it is a Lib company...

"It's Morning Again in America"

In these days of political tv commercials that only bash the other side, let's take a step back to 1984 and watch the creative work of Hal Riney, who wrote and narrated this masterpiece for President Reagan's re-election campaign. It is generally considered to this day one of the most effective political campaign ads ever, mainly for its simple, optimistic message. The result - a 49-state victory for President Reagan!

Thank You, House Republicans

Here's the latest blog entry from Mark Levin on National Review Online regarding yesterday's failed House vote on the financial bailout:


I have read the posts here and elsewhere. Sometimes these things are made to look more complicated than they really are. From an economic perspective, if the problem is liquidity and credit, there simply is no need for the federal government to assume massive amounts of debt on its book by assuming loans in anticipation that their holders or borrowers will default. This seems to me like a brand new expanse of government power that is not justified (if it ever is) by the arguments made on its behalf.

The government controls monetary policy through supply and interest rates, among other things. It can further ease money supply and credit, thereby increasing the flow of capital. The government controls tax policy. It can increase liquidity and the flow of new money into the economy both from within the country and from foreign sources by eliminating the corporate income tax and the capital gains tax even on a mid-term basis. No matter what is done, some financial institutions will fail, as they did in the 1981-82 recession and have since. And the Fed and Treasury and other instrumentalities of government will have to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether to intervene and how to intervene. They will also have to determine whether other policies require modifying, such as the McCain proposal today, in which he suggests increasing federal insurance for individual depositors from $100,000 to $250,000.

Other smart suggestions include modifying the mark-to-market rule requiring financial institutions to downgrade the valuation of assets. If the goal is to prevent panic in the economy by investors and depositors, then increase credit, liquidity, and the flow of capital, and deal with problem institutions that are significant enough in size that their demise could resonate to the wider economy. But the Soviet-style, top-down five year plan a la Paulson's proposal, and to a significant extent the proposal that was voted down yesterday, could easily do more damage to both the economy and our governmental structure. So, in this respect, I must depart from NRO's editorial.

Also, count me among those few here who want to thank the House Republicans for taking a bold stand against what had been a stampede on a scale I have never before witnessed on matters of huge consequence. Conservatism is more than a quaint belief-system to be embraced and debated over donuts at Starbucks. It is more than a list of talking points. It is the foundation of the civil society. The liberal uses crises, real or manufactured, to expand the power of government at the expense of the individual and private property. He has spent, in earnest, 70 years evading the Constitution's limits on governmental power. If conservatives don't stand up to this, who will? If they don't offer serious alternatives that address the current circumstances AND defend the founding principles, who will? The House Republicans have done both. And I, for one, thank them.

Incidentally, if you want to buy a home or car today you can. And if your credit is decent, you can get loans at a good rate. Last week we were told that if a deal was not struck by last Friday, our economy would collapse. It has not. That is not to say the evidence of economic troubles or worse should be ignored. It is to say that now is a time for reasoned decisions based on tried and true principles, not for abandoning them. I notice that the socialist, who, for the last 30 years, has insisted that private institutions make risky loans based on non-economic factors, still has not abandoned his policies. Socialism does not work. We shouldn't support more of it.

"Let's Go to the Video Tape..."

Please spend a few moments and watch the video below with clips from the 2004 House hearing on the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Perhaps someone should forward a copy of this video to Madame Speaker!! I'm sure she would want to clarify her statements of the past few days blaming Bush and the Republicans for the financial mess. When will America learn?

Bailout Bill Fails to Pass House

This afternoon, the House failed to pass the most current version of the $700 billion+ financial bailout bill by a vote of 228-205. Kudos from the R.C. Blog to those Conservatives, led by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), as well as Democrats, who together saw the poorly-crafted and rushed bill for what it was -- a feeble attempt by the Bush Administration, the Democrat House leadership, and the moderate Republicans to keep the world's financial markets from falling further, not from solving the problem.

Today's defeat of the bill was a positive step and sent a message to the House leadership and the White House that most of America is not in favor of the government's plan to nationalize/socialize our country's leading financial institutions, at least not without some checks and balances and guarantees that once these firms return to strong performance, the taxpayers get the first rewards -- not the CEOs, lobbyists, or members of Congress.

The Congress and Federal Government need to get out of the business of providing unlimited financial support, bailouts, incentives, and plum financing to private enterprises. It has been going on for decades and is spiraling completely out of control with this latest problem. If Congress sets a precedent for federal bailouts of private companies that have a tremendous impact on the economy and stock market, who will be next? Ford? GM? United Airlines? The auto and airline industry already get significant "financing" and incentives from the government, but they'll come looking for much more after this bailout package passes.

Am I happy that the markets crashed and burned today? Of course not. But it was a small price to pay to be sure that the final version of the bailout bill, which will ultimately get through, has all the unnecessary "fluff" pulled out of it to ensure that my children and their children are not caught holding the tab for the greed of CEOs, traders, Congressional members, and citizens who got in WAY over their heads with mortgages and equity lines. Just because my neighbor decides to buy a $500K house and a $60K car with money he/she does not have should not put me in a position to pick up the shortfall.

Finally, I listened to House Speaker Pelosi both this morning and this afternoon (and laughed...)as she blamed the Republicans for (1) causing the entire financial mess and (2) voting against the bailout bill. Isn't she the leader of the Democratic party in the House? Today's vote only needed a simple majority, which the Dems hold comfortably. If she was doing her job instead of making excuses and blaming others, she should have been able to unify her own party and get this bill passed without even one Republican vote. Perhaps she should look in the mirror before throwing accusations at the other side (actually, she probably shouldn't...).

The real reason it didn't pass today is that the Dems are afraid, very afraid. They don't have the guts to attached their majority status to such an important and controversial piece of legislation. They loved taking over the majority, as long as it only meant getting basic and non-controversial legislation through the House. Time for Madame Speaker to stand up and lead her party. This should be fun to watch....