American Elephants

The heralded “Town Hall” format for the debate last night was a great disappointment. It reminded me immediately of how much I disliked the format last time. What it was not, was a town hall. The debate organizing committee needs to learn the difference between a “gotcha” game — a perennial favorite of the media — and the desire of the voting public to actually learn something about these candidates. Rick Warren’s Saddleback debate was far more informative than either of the debates moderated by media people.

Voters right now are understandably worried about the economy.  We have been told of drastic actions that will be taken to control things, we do not know how they will work. We must watch and wait, and that is nervous-making.

Voters, we are told by recent polls, are inclined to trust Senator Obama on the economy. Gasp! The fox, the fox! That is known as putting the fox in charge of the proverbial henhouse.

The current crisis had its origins in the well-intentioned Community Development Act from the Carter Administration which was meant to increase minority home ownership.  The Clinton Administration felt that it was not working well, or fast enough, and put laws into place to force bankers to increase lending to poorly qualified applicants as a kind of affirmative action.

Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center has been researching Obama’s Chicago connections and activities.  He writes at National Review about the disastrous results of Acorn’s activities, and of Obama’s connections to Acorn.  If you vote, you need to read about this background. See also our article below

Barack Obama, the senator from Acorn, trained Acorn staffers, represented Acorn in court, was elected to the state legislature with Acorn’s “non-partisan” help, and once elected was able to address through legislation Acorn’s particular interests.  He served on the boards of two of Chicago’s charitable organizations, the Woods fund, and the Joyce Foundation, and was able to funnel donations to Acorn as well as other organizations.

Acorn helped him in his campaign for the U.S. Senate, and recently endorsed him for the presidency, as he reminded them of his past connections to the organization. Here is a recent article of ours.  Obama’s involvement with this radical organization has been extensive, and Acorn’s involvement with the sub-prime crisis is even more extensive. The first “bailout bill” contained more taxpayer funds for Acorn.

Obama, in the debate last night, blamed “deregulation” by the Bush administration for the problems. This is nonsense. The problem was not deregulation or not enough regulation, but too much regulation of the wrong kind, and too little oversight.  Obama incorrectly believes that the work of congress is regulation (control) rather than oversight. It is an economy-killing error.

This article explains the 1933 Glass/Segall Acts that Democrats are trying to blame the sub-prime crisis on.  Obama claimed to have written a letter to Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke with a prescient demand for action in March of 2007, but 25 subprime lenders had failed in February and March.  His letter was a response to headlines, not a call to action.

Obama went on to further display his economic ignorance.  John McCain has continually, and rightly, called for a reduction in corporate taxes since U.S. corporate taxes are among the highest in the world. Obama sneers and calls it “corporate welfare”.  If you remember, Fred Thompson demolished that argument in his convention speech:

Our opponents tell us not to worry about their tax increases.  They tell you they’re not going to tax your family.

No, they’re just going to tax “businesses.” So unless you buy something from a business, like groceries or clothes or gasoline, or unless you get a paycheck from a business, a big business or a small business, don’t worry, it’s not going to affect you.

Senator McCain reiterated his opposition to earmarks and his record of never using earmarks. A reader over at Instapundit pointed out that:

Tonight Senator Obama said $18 billion in earmarks between 535 Congressional ne’er-do-wells isn’t that big a deal, but if we can only keep 500 CEOs from getting $350 million in tax breaks, that’s how we fix problems.

And, conversely, Obama wants to prevent business from going overseas or sending jobs overseas. Why does he suppose that businesses move abroad?

Obama claims that 95% of Americans will get a tax-cut under his administration, but less than 70% of Americans pay any taxes at all.  For those people, Obama plans to give them $1,000 or $500, derived from taxing small businesses. In other words, he wants to reinstate welfare, but he’s pretty cheap about it.

He really has it in for CEOs, which is a window on his anti-capitalist views.  He expects to solve the problems of America and of the world by throwing money at the problem, whatever it is.  Taxpayer money, for the government has no money of its own. And there is his big save the world vision of ending poverty by sending aid through the UN.  I ranted wrote about that one here.  You can see that I did not agree with Senator Obama on much of anything. I think he is remarkably unqualified to be President, and his ignorance of economics is frightening.  But Acorn will do its best to see that he is elected.  Be sure to do your homework before you vote.