Today's Advocate published an article with all of the candidates for the run-off talking about how they would vote on bills related to stimulating our economy if elected to Congress. The Advocate set it all up with this:
The Federal Reserve recently bailed out the nation's fifth-biggest investment firm. Housing foreclosures have skyrocketed, and the number of jobless in America is at a five-year high. Gas prices have soared past the $3-per-gallon mark.
We'll start off with the Democratic candidates, going alphabetically:
Don Cazayoux
Cazayoux told the Advocate he had "concerns" about the recent bailout of Bear Stearns, but also said that it may have been necessary. He also expressed support for looking into helping folks who are at risk of losing their homes:
We've reached crisis levels, so we do need to look at the process of intervening," Cazayoux
said.
I have those same concerns - why the hell should the government bail out the money managers who made some incredibly stupid bets and not the folks affected by the banks attempting to cover their incredibly stupid bets?
That's what playing the stock market is ... betting. And with sub-prime mortgages, the riskiest types of mortgage out there, the banks attempted to leverage their risk by selling groups of the mortgages on the stock market. When the banks couldn't cover the When the mortgages weren't being paid, due to the rising cost of the mortgages ... the banks couldn't cover their bets. Hence the bailout of Bear Stearns.
I would be very concerned if Cazayoux said that we can bail out the banks, which is unprecedented in American history, but not the people affected by the rising mortgage costs. My understanding of the mortgage crisis is that folks are being hit with rising monthly payments, and would rather lose the house than stop eating or paying for medical prescriptions and the like.
I LOVE this idea:
Cazayoux would encourage alternative fuel use by offering tax incentives to companies and people who use alternative energy sources.
He authored a bill in the state Legislature that would have provided tax incentives to homeowners who bought energy-efficient appliances. The measure didn't pass.
The tax breaks for alternative-fuel developers could be paid for by rolling back tax breaks for the top 1 percent of the nation's income earners, Cazayoux said.
"We're an innovative country, and we need to encourage alternative energy," he said.
I think we can find other ways to pay for this ... like bringing the troops home? Eliminating or reducing the tax breaks we give to oil companies, as they are making record profits?
Michael Jackson
Mr. Jackson also expressed concern about the recent federal government bailout of Bear Stearns:
"I feel very uncomfortable with the government stepping in because that's not the way business should be conducted. But it's probably the only way to stem the tide."
Mr. Jackson goes further than Mr. Cazayoux in saying that he would support the Democratic proposals in the House and the Senate (I believe in the Senate it's a bill written by Senator Dodd of CT) that would provide help to those with home mortgages that are in danger of foreclosure:
"Home ownership is the foundation of the economy. It's the least we can do to provide a backstop for owners to retain their homes."
Mr. Jackson also supports providing incentives to those who would help wean our economy off of foreign oil:
"You have to offer some incentives. It would be rational of us to ask companies that a portion of their profits go to developing alternative fuels."
Now for the Republicans ... Lord, they just don't get it. They still believe in voodoo supply-side tax cut-o-nomics. This is the mistaken belief that tax cuts to the wealthy, which is essentially what the Bush Tax Cuts both in 2001 and 2003 were, help stimulate the economy because those people provide the jobs. More often than not, those people just stick the money in their savings account, or go buy a foreign-made goods, so the American worker never sees the benefit of their spending. We've had 20 years to see how their tax cut-o-nomics works - 8 years under Reagan, 4 years under Bush, and 8 more years under Bush II - and at the end of the first 12 years (as Bush I followed Reagan), we needed a Democratic President to come in and clean up the mess left by the Republicans. Now, after 8 more years of tax-cut-o-nomics, we need a Democratic President to come in and clean up the mess yet again. Can we please stop voting for Republicans to occupy the White House?
The issue with tax-cut-o-nomics is that all Republicans everywhere believe in tax cuts for economic stimulus. This is evident when you see a country-club Republican like Laurinda Calongne and a Bible-thumper like Woody Jenkins agree on the need for tax cuts.
Let's start with Laurinda Calongne:
Ms. Calongne sees the stock market's bounce in the wake of the Bear Stearns bailout as proof that the bailout was necessary:
"It encourages people to invest."
However, she agrees with Republican nominee John McCain that there should not be any help whatsoever for ordinary Americans caught in the housing mortgage crisis:
"A mortgage, by definition, is backed by the value of your home. Everyone involved in the housing situation needs to take responsibility."
I see that compassionate conservatism is back with a vengeance these days. But I digress. Here comes the tax cuts plan:
Calongne, who owns a consulting firm, said making the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts permanent would be particularly helpful to small businesses like hers. Small businesses, she noted, provide most of the nation's jobs.
Calongne said the tax cuts can be paid for by reducing wasteful government spending. She said she recently saw a report by the federal Office of Management and Budget that listed 100 wasteful federal programs.
Does that report by the OMB list all the wasteful spending to the private security groups like Blackwater???
Woody Jenkins
Ahh, we have a free marketer here ... in discussing the bailout of Bear Stearns, he states:
"It's unprecedented, and we may be going down a slippery slope. Ultimately the free market has to be allowed to work."
He's also a compassionate conservative ... as he does not believe in helping those hit by the mortgage crisis. But he is for making the Bush Tax Cuts permanent:
"Making the Bush tax cuts permanent would be most helpful. That's going to do more to stimulate the economy than anything."
So, can the two Republicans running explain to me just what happened after President Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy 1% all the way back in 1993? Was it a disastrous thing to do, as claimed by every single Republican in the Congress back then, who all voted against the Clinton plan? Or did it lead the biggest peacetime expansion of the economy this nation has ever seen? You tell me. |
