September 14, 2004
Why Centrists/Moderates should vote Left in 2004
"People have got more money in their pockets because of the tax relief.
Our economy is stronger because people are keeping more of what they
earn." --George W. Bush in a recent speech
Huh? I haven't felt any real relief. The cost of living keeps going
up and wages haven't kept up with those increases. I think I could
afford an extra sody pop a week with the tax cut. I'll need that extra
caffeine now that I am working harder for less.
I am a centrist/moderate in part because I am a member of the
beleaguered middle-class. They say people "vote with their pocket book"
and in my case that is the case. There is no viable third party - which
in my opinion would have to come from the center, so I tend to lean to
the left in elections. I have voted Republican once - Arne Carlson, a
moderate Republicans running for Governor of MN and I have voted
Independent several times - including for Jesse Ventura. He wasn't as much of a centrist as I was hoping, but anyway...
Both parties are not doing enough for the middle-class and it is being
eroded year by year - no matter who is in office. A strong middle-class
is required to have a solvent Democracy and it cannot shoulder the tax
burden solely. The right generally works for tax cuts for the wealthy -
don't they have enough loop-holes? - and the left tends to concentrate
on helping the poor (granted that is a very noble idea, and I agree as long as it doesn't come at the expense of the middle-class). I believe you should
be able to raise the minimum wage, create jobs AND help the middle class
without "overtaxing the rich". I am not talking "pie-in-the-sky" stuff
here either.
It should be noted that taxes are not inherently evil. Without them we
would have no services or infrastructure to speak of. We pay less taxes
than most if not all industrialized countries - get over it! Pay your
share and vote and hold your representatives to task so they don't waste
money. If they do, don't vote for them next time. I know this
oversimplifies the issue somewhat, but I really hate it when I hear we
are over taxed. That's BS. This being said, steps do need to be taken
to help the middle-class and this could include shifting a portion of
the tax burden away from them. Increasing the minimum wage *could* help
- sort of a trickle up as opposed to Reagan's downward trickle (if the
rich pay less taxes, this will create jobs mumbo-jumbo). Granted, I am
not an economist. All I know is that is difficult for my family to make
ends meet and my wife and I have pretty good paying jobs and health
insurance! We do not live extravagantly. We don't need to "keep up
with the Jones' ". It wasn't so long ago that only one person needed to
work to support the whole family - and have money left over for
cocktails.
Day care and housing costs are partly to blame. Perhaps my wife and I
should have stayed in our smaller, impossible-to-child-proof home.
Perhaps we shouldn't have had children to begin with. But we wanted
children, shouldn't it be easier to afford them? I think so. We would
like to have another child, but we literally can't afford it. You'd
think those of the "family values" camp would have some ideas beyond the
child tax credit, but most of them don't seem to live in the same world
I do, which could explain things.
If only one of us had to work, that would save hundreds of dollars a
month - which could, call me strange for thinking this...be used for
savings?! The average person in the middle-class has what - $8000 in
credit card debt? Doesn't that tell those "in charge" something? If we
are struggling even slightly, I can't imagine what single parents, etc
are going through! Luckily we have been able to hold our credit cards
down considerably below the national average, but we've had to make some
interesting choices/sacrifices to do so and in my opinion any credit card debt is too much.
I guess these are some of the reasons I am leaning further to the left
than I normally do this election. The country has shifted farther to
the right in the past few years and I don't believe they have the right
ideas to fix these issues. They have proven this beyond a doubt to me
anyway. We centrists need to vote further left this time to try and
balance out the rightward trend - thereby shifting the government's
policies more to the center. Kerry seems closer to the middle than Bush anyway. Bush has been a lot farther to the right than he said he would be. He has misled the American People.
Other reasons other than economically-speaking include:
--erosion of personal freedoms
--the balance of the Supreme Court is right-leaning already and could
even shift further right if Bush is re-elected
--Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terror and the world is less
safe now than it was before the invasion. We should be focusing on Al
Queda and finishing our work in Afghanistan but now we have opened up
Iraq to chaos and anarchy. Saddam should have been dealt with, but the
timing was wrong.
--Bush has a double-standard with Putin in regards to Russia's Islamic
Fundamentalist problem - he asks Putin to negotiate with them even after
the recent barbaric atrocities they have committed. What happened to
"we can't negotiate with terrorists"?
--erosion of our alliances throughout the world
--erosion of precious and crucial separation of church and state
--gun control policies too lax
--lack of peace plan/efforts in Middle East
--etc.
Also note that Kerry is NOT a leftist: he supports the war in Iraq, opposes gay marriage, etc. He is the centrist candidate.
I'd prefer to vote for someone more lefty myself, but it's too important to get rid of Bush. I'm voting for Kerry.
A very good explanation/rant Phil. Your family is supposedly one that is supposed to be better off with the tax cut because you have a kid. Plus you now live in an area that suppposedly has lower taxes (outside the city of Mpls), but you don't seem to be better off with George's plan. Stacie and I didn't even get the kid check, didn't get much of a tax cut (it was laughable), had our health care costs go up, and now have higher property taxes so we're financially worse off tax-wise since the cuts W makes at the federal level (aid to states) "trickles down" to the local level. This is of course made worse by Timmy cutting city aid here in MN which makes Mpls raise property taxes to maintain services.
So all in all, we're paying more, the economy's worse, and we're stuck in a losing war that no one can get us out of. Thanks a lot...
Posted by: Doc Dregs at September 14, 2004 04:03 PMOf course I cannot claim to be a moderate/centrist.I also believe the Left should vote.I do believe that there is a Class War in America.I know that sounds Marxist in theory,that's one thing I am not,but I do believe Corporations and the rich use the middle class as a wedge to hurt the poor.Military expenditures fatten the pocketbooks of Bush/Chaney and friends.The poor are the ones that end up doing the fighting,in part because of fewer opportunities at home.Corporations get richer because of loopholes created first by Clinton,and continued by Bush.The burden goes to the middle class,causing resentment by the middle class,and the poor get unjustly targeted.I cannot vote for Kerry,but I do believe that it is in the interest of both the poor and the middle class to push for Corporate responsibility.In the 60's LBJ's War on Poverty was doable..unfortunately,the funding that could have made it most effective went instead to Vietnam.
Posted by: David at September 14, 2004 04:55 PMI certainly don't agree with all of Kerry's ideas. Gay marriage for one: I try to err on the side of personal freedoms and seperation of church/state. It isn't any of my business - let alone the government's! - who marries whom. What consenting adults do with each other is up to them.
Posted by: Philip Hunter at September 14, 2004 06:47 PM