I just received a phone call from the McCain camp telling me not to vote for Obama for two reasons: His relationship with Tony Rezco and the Democrats have driven the economy into the ground since they took control of Congress two years ago. The caller did not tell me why I should vote for McCain. I guess a vote for McCain is a vote against Obama and that should be enough to make me vote McCain.
The second point just made me laugh because the Republicans have controlled Washington (the White House and Congress) for the six years before the last one and a half. The Republicans oversaw the biggest increase in spending and the biggest increase in our deficit and debt. I would have given the Republicans some slack because 9/11 did set us back some, but they did not turn the ship around later. The last time the Democrats had control of Congress and the White House was the years between 1992-1993. Those were not nearly as bad of years as we have seen lately. Maybe Newt, who I love and would vote for in a heartbeat, has more to do with the prosperity of the 90s after the Republican Revolution in 1994, but McCain is no Newt.
McCain's economic policy seems to be to cut taxes and that will solve the problems. I am in favor of balancing the budget before cutting taxes. I have not heard how he will spend more wisely. He just says he will stop all spending increases. That's great, but what about the wasteful programs? Why not cut them more? What about the good and necessary programs? Why not increase them? I like Obama's position of decreasing spending where it is not effective and increasing spending where it is doing good.
Budgetwise, we actually have to go beyond balancing the budget and start spending less than we take in to start paying off the debt we have built up. We have a responsibility to the future generations of Americans to not leave debt behind. Our preceding generation did not care all that much about leaving debt, but we need to reverse the tide. I would much rather leave this nation better than when I was born into it rather than worse. Obama has talked about this responsibility. McCain has not to my knowledge.
Maybe the Democrats won't do any better than the Republicans if they have control, but I would be greatly surprised if they actually did any worse. Things are bad. When things are bad, change is necessary.
