Been burning up the Zombie chatlines for a while now with political issues, so I’ve decided to announce my thoughts of running for president in 2016! Sure, I’m currently underqualified, but there’s plenty of time to fix that!
In keeping with the political theme, I’m going to shift my political rants from the previous posts and try to start a semi-regular political post series detailing why the Government sucks, what it’s doing well, and what MY policies would be. My platform is currently going to be based on common sense, after all it’s something that’s very simple, but unfortunatley isn’t too common.
So here is a brief (as if anything I post is actually brief) synopsis of my current platform points:
Taxes:
Obama speaks of being fair to the American public, but I’d truly like to be fair. That’s why I propose we ditch the current tax code and move towards a “fair” / flat tax. There are several reasons for doing this. The obvious ones are that more money can be raised for the government while most people paying taxes will pay less. The down side is that millions and millions of people that don’t currently pay taxes will start paying. But the best reason to institute a fair tax is that it puts everyone on the same playing field. Everyone buys into the system. Everyone has a stake in what’s being done. It’s your money that they’re working with! And it prevents people from being a party’s bitch (should presidential candidates swear? why not…the American public does!!) and being forced to support that party for fear of losing their economic support!
Government Spending:
Obama wants to cut spending with a scapol. The ’D0g wants to cut government spending with a bazooka!! Gone are the days increasing the deficit. These are tough times, and we won’t truly propser if we’re relying on other countries to buy up our debt so we can pay for what we want. If you hired the government to run your household or business on its budget policy, you’d fire them in a minute! You’d be bankrupt before the first month was over! That’s why we need to cut government spending. Plus, we need a zero-based budget. But let me take a step way out into crazy-land….not only do we need a balanced budget, but we need to set asside serious cash for debt service payments. I’d like to be debt free as a government in 30 years!! So that means we need to cut out some serious pork. What would be cut out? Not going to say right now, but let’s just say that no are of the government would go untouched, but some might feel the pinch worse than others. A complete government streamline.
Voting Fraud/Issues:
ACORN is in the headlines a lot these days, and who can forget the mess in Florida that brought us ”W”? Currently, elections are monitored and run at the state/local levels. This provides an arena for missmanagement, fraud, and serious mistakes. I propose 2 serious changes to this system: 1. For national elections (president, house, senate) federal election standards must be followed. This will ensure that everything is handled the same way everywhere. 2. Except for military, no absentee voting can be done, and a valid picture ID must be shown to vote. The states can do what they want for local elections, but federal elections must be secure.
Economy:
No corporate bailouts. No nationalizing of industries or companies. I vow to allow for capitalism and free markets to reign free…but not allow for corruption! Current talk that regulations on Wall Street were removed over the past 8 years are a joke. If anything they have become more strict after Sarbanes Oxley and the infamous Enron/Worldcom, etc collapses. Now, enforcement is another issue. Regulation will continue, and will be updated, but more importantly we’re going to hold those people (the regulators) accountable for their jobs. Why add more regulation when we can simply enforce what we already have.
Healthcare:
I was pretty detailed on this in another post, and more to come, but the quick version is allow people to shop across state lines for policies and allow for transparency in the healthcare industry. No governement support of insurance companies. No nationalizing health care. But, affordable health care brought to you by the free market.
So this is just the beginning! Start your griping and criticizing now, because we’ve got another 8 years until this train wreck crashes into Washington!
09/10/2008 at 10:43 am Permalink
I think we need to start a political blog specifically for Scruffd0g. We’ll call it www.Scruffd0g-for-pres.org.
09/10/2008 at 11:11 am Permalink
I think you are off to a good start In eight years you’ll be past the minimal age for someone to become president and could have close to the same experience as Palin has currently.
In a world that is obviously entrenched in a global economy I’ll be interested to hear more about your foreign policy views.
09/10/2008 at 11:16 am Permalink
I’ll expand on FP at a later date…but my focus will be ensuring that America retains its economic identity in the globe and focuses primarily on growth inside the nation. Not that a global focus is terribly bad, but I’m currently not in favor of merging the world’s economy literally (although figuratively we’re basically in it together). So no Amero or world currency under the ‘D0gs watch. And no federal bailout funds going into international markets (I’d give it less than 6 months before our bailout funds are helping other economies).
09/10/2008 at 12:25 pm Permalink
Actually, I won’t have close to the experience of either Palin or Obama. Here are their respective resumes:
Obama: Illinois state senate from 1997-2004, US Senate 2005 to current.
Palin: Wasilla City Council 1992-96, Wasilla Mayor 1996-2002, Governor of Alaska 2006 to current.
That gives Obama 11 years of political experience, and Palin 12 years. If we take the “big” experience items, Obama has been a US Senator for 133 more days than Palin has been Governor of Alaska. BUT, Palin has had more executive experience, with her tenure as Governor and Wasilla Mayor, while Obama touts running his campaign as his significant executive experience.
I think they’re pretty much on the same experience level. I laugh when people criticize Palin’s experience when Obama’s is pretty much the same. I think of it akin to being a die-hard Yankees fan and complaining that the Red Sox have been so successful the past couple of years because they spend so much money on their payroll.
Experience is a non-issue. Just hate her because she’s a republican.
09/10/2008 at 1:56 pm Permalink
I just don’t consider being a mayor or being on the city counsel member of a city the size of Andrews South Carolina as being much experience to prepare someone for the type of duty they will have in the white house.
Just my opinion.
09/10/2008 at 2:02 pm Permalink
Agreed, and I feel the same way about being a state legislator. That leaves us with a 133 day difference between senate and governor.
09/10/2008 at 2:26 pm Permalink
As much as i think that being a state legislator is not the kind of experience i would like to see from a presidential candidate i do prefer it to palin’s background although your assessment that someone using Palin’s experience as the main reason she is not qualified for office is in poor taste. I personally have fundamental differences with her to fall back on.
I have to admit the first thing i thought when she was picked before i knew anything about her was that it was an odd choice for a campaign that seemed to try so hard to paint Obama as someone who did not have the necessary experience for the job.
Anyway I’m sorry I’ve taken your subject far off topic. I don’t think anyone can argue that a balanced budget would be a wonderful thing. The past 8 years we have seen things escalate out of control. Obviously some of that may not have been avoidable we have had a lot of things happen that have pushed us towards having to spend extra money on various situations. That said the current government really has been out of touch with anything near being called fiscally important.
09/10/2008 at 2:46 pm Permalink
You haven’t taken it off topic, experience could be an issue for me in 2016! I’ll be trying to pass by managing my fantasy baseball and football teams for over a decade as executive experience!
09/10/2008 at 2:50 pm Permalink
” I’ll be trying to pass by managing my fantasy baseball and football teams for over a decade as executive experience!”
Quote of the day! I love it. I am definately putting my Fantasy Baseball experience on my resume. I’ll probably leave the football off since i tend to suck at that.