The Political Inquirer

John McCain, Liar

Since John McCain started his presidential campaign (seems like forever ago), one of his main talking points has been to eliminate earmark spending and pork barrel spending. But oddly enough, on this subject, McCain is guilty as charged. According to the Chicago Tribune (generally viewed as conservative leaning), John McCain had some odd behavior in 2006:

Arizona Sen. John McCain is sponsoring two interesting pieces of legislation. One mounts a direct assault on congressional earmarks, those little morsels of home district pork that lawmakers slip into unrelated spending bills. The other steers $10 million to the University of Arizona to launch an academic center honoring the late Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Then comes the Wall Street Bailout Act of 2008, to which John McCain voted yes for. You know, that revised version with over $100 billion in extra pork, added by the senate. A three page bill turned into a 450 page bill. These additions were supposedly to sweeten the deal for taxpayers, but in most cases taxpayers won’t feel any sort of relief.

Of course, unless you are a child archer in training. The bill includes an exemption from excise tax for a certain type of wooden arrow used by children.

Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, and Gordon Smith, a Republican, were the initial sponsors of the arrow provision. According to Bloomberg News, the earmark provision would be worth $200,000 a year to Rose City Archery in Myrtle Point, Oregon.

No pork barrel spending or earmark–like behavior going on there. “The bottom line is, this is benefiting a very few manufacturers, and I think most Americans who are either concerned about the bailout package or concerned about the economy are going to be wondering why a provision benefiting wooden arrow manufacturers is catching a ride on the package,” a taxpayer advocacy group leader said. More debt, more spending, to benefit a small few, in order to address peoples concerns over a $700 billion socialist bailout bill.

He suspended his campaign, went to Washington with little to show for it. Then the Republicrats all voted for the bill, including McCain buddies Lindsay Graham and Joe “More Surveillance Cameras” Lieberman.

Bush and McCain: Biggest Taxers in History?

When one thinks of George Bush, or Republicans in general, high taxation generally doesn’t come to mind. But it should. Of course, the bills won’t come due during his term in office, so he’s all good in that department.

The Financial Bailout Tax: It includes more than just one single horrible piece of legislation. According to George, if the bill didn’t pass, the stock market would crash. Let’s go through some of the numbers: Financial Sector Bailout Package ($700 billion), Bear Stearns financing ($29 billion), Fannie and Freddie nationalizing ($200 billion), AIG nationalizing ($85 billion), Housing rescue bill ($300 billion), mortgage community grants ($4 billion), JPMorgan Chase repayments ($87 billion), bank loans via Fed’s term auction facility ($200 billion+), purchase of mortgage securities by Fannie and Freddie ($144 billion), loans from exchange stabilization fund ($50 billion).

Possible total: $1.8 trillion. Households per US census: 105,480,101. Cost per household: over $17,000.

The Iraq Tax

“If we don’t stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we’re going to have a serious problem.” – (the pre-Neocon) George Bush, 2001

As the Washington Post stated so eloquently, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and there certainly is no such thing as a free war. When all is said and done, it has been stated by some that the Iraq conflict will cost America $3 trillion dollars. Now let’s use the calculator again with the same household numbers as before. That’s $28,000+ per household. Don’t like that number? Well, the cost right at this moment is around $587 billion. About $5,565 per household, and it isn’t even over yet.

National Debt Tax: This incorporates a bit of the first two, and so much more. Including the massive increase in government like “Many Children Left Behind” the “Unpatriotic Act” and the creation of a new department. Most of which McCain went along with. The debt has doubled under Bush, to around $10.2 trillion. Each individuals share, not even household,  is now at $33,686. The national debt clock has even recently run out of digits!

Then there is the inflation tax, one of the few people are getting hit with right away. The printing press has probably been running 24/7 for a long time now, and that will not change with John McCain.

The Non-Republican Republican

John McCain truly is a horrible candidate. He’s un-Republican enough to annoy the base, and Republican enough to be tied with Bush. First we have campaign finance reform, then we have the changing of the Republican platform to “combat global warming”. Last, but certainly not least, is McCain’s brilliant proposal to buy up all the bad mortgages. As it has been rightly pointed out by conservative commentators, McCain spent much of his debate time attacking massive government spending, while his bombshell proposal of the night would throw about $300 billion into the mix. If Obama had claimed such, the right would be throwing a fit, but Obama is the one rejecting the idea. An expansion of the bailout.

Conservatives have been dumbed down by the McCain-Bush ideology (or maybe they’re like that naturally) .. it’s time to give McCain his 35-40% showing on November 4th, and let him and his buddies die a slow, painful, political death. Because even against a socialist, John McCain just doesn’t cut it.