The argument goes on about who’s more qualified, more fit, and who has the back of the middle class and the poor. But here’s what the presidential candidates from both parties don’t respect regarding you and me, the voters.
I don’t listen to the Republican debates anymore. Didn’t listen Saturday night.
And I never have listened to Hillary and Bernie Sanders when they argue over the issues between them. Their issues really don’t matter to me, and I suspect…to many of the rest of us. I guess it boils down to whether you’re an ideologue, or not.
And the reason that I don’t listen is because while my vote does matter, it’s not what matters most. Regardless of who wins the presidential race in 2016, Trump, Hillary, Rubio, Cruz, and especially Bernie Sanders…what matters most is my checkbook.
How much am I willing to fork over to prop up what Lyndon Johnson once famously called, “the great society?”
As I write this I’m thinking of the words of my kids, one intensely liberal and one moderately conservative, who always caution me not to mix political views with sports on Press Pros.
“It has no place,” says one.
“You’ll probably just p— someone off,” says the other. “Regardless if you’re right or not.”
Others tell me, “I wish you would write more, because you’re the only one with the platform to say what you do. And you have nothing to lose if you do alienate someone. A lot of us want to read the truth and what you say is irrefutable.”
Common sense always is.
But what the candidates miss, what Bernie Sanders misses, when he says that people should pay 52% of their income to support the government and those who live off the government, is that those who can do the math know better. There just aren’t enough people making that kind of money…that 1% he talks about…to pay for that many people to get free health care and free college education. The rest of it, ultimately, will fall on the very middle class that he and Hillary (and Trump, for that matter) vow to protect and help prosper.
What they don’t respect is…that a majority of people in America are still smart enough to figure that anyone with a business, with success, with inheritance, and with the energy and enthusiasm to create wealth are the ones that are going to end up paying what Sanders and Hillary call ”their fair share.” The problem is…no one in America can accurately explain what “is” fair, and justify it.
I’ve always held that it’s not fair to tax the rich until they bleed (or until they take their money out of circulation) just because they’re smarter, more committed, and more patient than others to create wealth and enjoy it. No, what’s fair is a flat tax. Everyone pays 15% and that’s it…period! When the money runs out, congressmen and senators do what the rest of do back home. They wait until more money comes along!
I’ve always held that it’s not fair (and un-American) to not allow people to opt out of those government programs that they don’t need. Social security, for instance, or Medicare. If people want to take responsibility for their own retirement and health care needs later in life, they should be allowed to save, invest for, and plan accordingly. And it would probably cost less money.
I increasingly hold that it’s not fair for government to mandate programs for the public schools (common core, testing, and no child left behind), when history proves that it’s man’s natural course that some will be left behind…by choice. YOU CANNOT MAKE EVERYONE EQUAL…if they choose otherwise. And they always have.
Yet, that’s what the politicians tell us they’re going to do for us, regardless of how much money it takes.
Most of us really don’t understand what the ideologues are saying up there on that debate platform. Most of us really don’t get the immigration problem, or the national security problem, except we see a lot of unfamiliar faces coming to our country that we’re being asked to pay for.
Most people don’t understand the entitlement mess being swept under the rug, except for the fact of making public schools so expensive that people no longer vote “yes” to send more money to pay for something totally out of their control. Believe it or not, YOU HAVE NO SAY over how your public school is run now, because the government’s paying for it. You buck the system on testing, opting out, common core, et. Al., and they pull the plug on the money.
What the candidates don’t understand, and respect, is that Ronald Reagan’s silent majority of taxpayers are willing to pay to support the Constitution of the United States, and nothing more. It was fair when the founders wrote it, so why isn’t it fair now?
Providing for a more perfect Union doesn’t mean throwing more money at it.
Apparently you can’t spend enough money to insure domestic tranquility.
It doesn’t seem like we’re doing much to provide for the common defense, through protecting our borders and policies regarding immigration.
Promote for the general welfare never meant promoting the welfare state we’ve become.
And securing the blessings of liberty are threatened every time the politicians tell us one more thing they’re taking away to make us all safer.
What they don’t understand is…there’s simply not enough people willing to pay to run America the way they want to run it.
And why make more money when all you can look forward to is giving it away?
The middle class they swear to protect can’t prove the other lies we suspect. But we know better when we consider our future, and checkbook, at the end of each month.
The only “great society” I look forward to is that which I can provide for myself, and pay for.
And there’s not one candidate running that’s willing to let you, or me, do that!