By Joshua Chandler
Reason 1. Conservatives can say that he is a puppet of the Democratic party and that his unpopularity, supposedly at 70%, is a real reason to boot him, but their facts are simply wrong.
I’m not sure where the 70% number Ron Dalley threw out last week came from but the most recent Rasmussen poll came back with Angle leading the race by three percent with one percent undecided and a two percent susceptible to error. Not even the January 9th number, proclaimed as a “new low” by the Weekly Standard, painting Reid with a 52% unfavorable rating, comes close to 70. Also, Reid has nearly always voted consistently even on issues decisive in the Democratic Party like gun control. He voted for and sponsored nine critical gun right protecting initiatives including an end to the D.C. handgun ban and opposition to the Brady bill. That’s probably why he’s been consistently endorsed by gun rights’ activist groups.
Reason 2. Conservative’s main argument that’s doesn’t wrongfully assume that P.L. 111-148 establishes a national health care system, is that congress voted for it when most people opposed it. Their numbers are exaggerations and have promoted circular logic that culminated in the high opposition they claim. Rasmussen reported only 45% opposition to the initiative on June 29 right before Fox news told everybody to hate it. The March 21, 2010 report showed 54% opposition. While this does constitute a majority, it’s an anti-establishment majority that normally comes with the second year of a new administration, not the consensus of angry villagers with pitchforks some would have voters believe.
Another argument is that congress “didn’t read the bill,” but the sad facts are that bills rarely get read in their entirety at all. The Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind and the acts sustaining the war on terror were piled high with pork and nearly impossible to read.
Reason 3. Hating Heath Care Reform has been a real boost for Republican politicians, but so has loving what Health Care Reform and other supposedly “socialist” policies have done. All over the country, Republicans have been cursing health reform and the stimulus and then saying, “Hey look at this work project I brought to your area!” and “I fought to eliminate discrimination toward those with pre-existing conditions.”
The fact is that stimulus spending isn’t the complete failure conservatives, without actual backup, always claim. Many of the projects are one’s mandated by state governments’ electorates and simply needed the funding. It was either cut state programs and raise state taxes or prime the pump with new federal spending to balance the fiscal strain and restore federalist principles.
Reason 4. I’m tired of complaints about the debt. The U.S. has been debt free during only the Jackson administration and it has never culminated in a crisis.
Reducing the deficit is a reasonable goal, but cutting spending while cutting taxes federally accomplishes nothing. If American’s want lower taxes, they have to live with the deficit for a while. If we want a balanced budget, we need fiscal policy like that of the Clinton administration which ran the only balanced budget in recent history.
I know it’s hard to hear, my conservative friends, but something has to be done to keep Wall Street afloat when the road is bumpy, which brings me to my:
Reason 5. The lack of financial regulation caused the potential meltdown of Wall Street. Goldman and Sachs sold and resold millions of bad, spliced and packaged, but AIG insured, mortgages, until nearly everybody market minded had their hands on it and everything fell through. Capitalism is fantastic, but unrestrained it’s like boxing without rules. The people in the ring kill each other and nobody wins.
The bailouts were a try or die effort to stop things from being infinitely worse off. We need financial reform now.
The other bailout issue conservatives love to hate is that the feds “took over” banks and the auto industry. This didn’t happen. It would be ridiculous to just let the bailed out companies have the money free of charge. Europe was imposing a super tax to recover their bailouts, but Washington had a better plan. Instead of bankrupting banks with taxes, they asked for stocks which would pay the government back through market dividends as the economy recovered.
Reason 6. Conservatives complain the majority leader is only a national player who cares little about helping Nevadans. These conservatives have never been to a Reid question/answer session where someone has a problem and Harry has asked his staff member to take down that person’s name so the Reid office can personally be in touch with their bank, insurance company, etc., so Reid’s office can help that person use what is available to help them succeed.
We got a glimpse of it in the Senate debate. Angle complained that her parents were on Social Security and Medicare and still were paying thousands out of pocket on prescriptions. Harry asked her to have her parents contact his office to sort out their claim to change that.
Why I Am NOT Voting for Sharron Angle:
Reason 1. Her call for a restoration of values is a call to let religion dictate policy. This is coming from a woman who believes the Muslim faith promotes terrorism and that Mormonism is a billionaire cult that should be watched with closer scrutiny for its “illegal practices.”
This is why the founding fathers wanted religion to remain neutral in politics. I’m aware that separation of church and state isn’t in the constitution, but it’s not government’s responsibility to dictate what is and is not sin. If government can say being gay is illegal, government can say practicing Islam or Mormonism is as well.
Reason 2. She would let Wall Street run rampant and literally crusade to stop government from doing anything except be paid to be laissez.
Reason 3. She consistently lies about quotes from her saying she would do away with Social Security, while telling the truth about other extreme views.
She would “defund” in order to “phase out” the Department of Education. This would turn education into a massive unfunded mandate. When the federal government says to states, “educate” and then gives no funding to do so, federalism is dead.
She would privatize the VA, which is why Reid has the endorsement of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. She would end certain coverage under Medicare in order to prepare for a “personalized” Social Security and Medicare system which would gamble retirement savings in the stock market.
Reason 4. She is no “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” politician. Whether we agreed with them or not, as soon as she won the Republican nomination she changed her website and positions to what the Republican elections committee told her to. If elected, there is no reason to believe she would not just be a puppet of the GOP who does what she’s told no matter what. Harry Reid at least stands where he stands consistently.
This election has been only about Senator Reid and Obama. The Reid campaign has rightfully attempted to hold Angle accountable and make this election about what is best for Nevada and the nation.
I shudder to think what may happen if voters follow through with their fear and vote with their anger instead of their brains.
