Junto Boys

THERE ARE NO SIMPLE QUESTIONS IN POLITICS

I was watching Hardball Sunday afternoon and Presidential Candidate, John Edwards was asked some tough questions:

Favorite Movie? Favorite Book? Favorite Philosopher?

After spending the entire episode explaining why Bush was out of touch with the American people, Edwards couldn't for the life of himself name a favorite movie. Does he not watch movies? Was he afraid that his answer would offend a constituency? He finally came up with that prison movie. Chris Mathews had to intervene and say. "Shawshank Redemption?" Edwards said Yes.

On favorite book, Edwards said he just read the DaVinci Code and that was good. Does that mean that DaVinci was immediately his favorite, or that he couldn't think of a favorite either.

On favorite philosopher he didn't have an answer, but still considered himself philosophical.

Are today's candidates so coached that they have trouble answering even simple things off script? Maybe it would have been easier if Mathews had asked Edwards to name some favorite movies and favorite books and favorite philosophers. Maybe it’s easier to name numerous things you like, but hard to single out a favorite.

Edward’s basic argument throughout the show was that if Bush were more in touch he would realize that the American people want more government services and they think that rich people should pay for them. Bush, of course, is a tool of the rich. Edwards, who is rich, has learned important lessons about the downtrodden in country clubs and courtrooms where he use to take big chunks of their tort winnings. Come to think of it, do we tax big tort settlements? Does Edwards favor taxing the people he makes rich or just the ones that get there through inheritances and work?

Edwards implied that Bush’s politics were self-serving his own wealth, while Edwards learned the right lessons about being rich. It would seem to me that we should be wary of any politician that tells you his policies are against his own best interest. The only time I know people to do something intentionally against their own best interests is when another of their interests are served in doing so. You might sacrifice for your friends or family, the people you love. You might sacrifice a small gain for a bigger gain later. But rational people never say, “I just have it too good. I need to set up some barriers to my future success.”

John Edward’s accumulation of wealth has always depended on taking advantage of defendants with deep pockets so it’s not inconsistent for him to expect those same deep pockets to fund his compassion now. I suppose this is also consistent with the semi-popular idea that rich people never gain their money through providing things other people want. Instead they greedily squeeze profit out of people. They don’t employ people who want to work for them, but enslave people by paying them less than they want. It’s no one’s responsibility to gain a skill-set and get a job that pays a desired wage, but it’s the employer’s responsibility to pay that wage at whatever job a person may choose to work.

Now Edwards has always feasted off the rich, but how do we explain guys like Kerry and Dean whose wealth was made the way Republicans make it? Unless you believe that these guys are so compassionate and love people so much they are willing to place barriers in front of their own success, you would have to think there is another reason for their “compassion.” If it were simply that they have no use for money then they would be giving it away or at least not attempting to make more. If John Kerry doesn’t win the presidency he could at least as a consolation give away the bulk of his fortune to those causes he is so ready to have you pay for. But rich Democrats never seem to be in the giveaway business when their own money is at stake.

Usually by the time they come to politics they have the money and their salaries are only a small percentage of their net worth. Their own fortunes will not be in peril with higher income taxes, because their incomes are not that high. It will be people who have to work long hours to earn that money that get to pay for these great ideas.

You ever notice how even regular guys who go to Washington and have to pay high living expenses and taxes seem to return home millionaires. Maybe when you’re in politics you get rich or stay rich regardless of how you try to social engineer productive people. Maybe that is the real trick. These guys aren’t self-hating at all, but trying to get a piece of the Washington pie. Although they might be rich, there is a whole consistency that wouldn’t be pandered to if the rich didn’t use class warfare arguments against their own. Has any rich politician ever left politics broke because his/her compassion got the better of him? How many businesses do you think have gone under when intrusive legislation mandates an entire level of new taxes and regulations?

Maybe Bush is just a tool of the rich. At worst, he is trying to defend a group of people who already pay for the bulk of government every way you cut it. But he argues that what benefits the rich also benefits all of us through job creation and growth of the economy. Do the Democrats ever argue that higher taxes benefit the rich? Do they ever stake out a position that argues that everyone benefits from their policies? They’ll claim Clinton’s tax hike on the belly of Bush 41’s tax hike created a bunch of new jobs, but they never actually explain how taking a higher percentage of money from us actually accomplishes that. Since Reagan’s tax cut also led to the creation of new jobs are we to expect that only static tax rates cause job loss?

Liberal politicians present themselves as tireless representatives of the downtrodden, but when these great men retire they leave with wealth in the 99 percentile of all Americans. They’re making no sacrifice bringing forth this socialist agenda, but they are gaining power.

I’ve been waiting for years to hear their theories on how large amounts of government spending allows businesses to create private sector jobs and provide high salaries. I’d like to know at what point do they think that more taxes and government spending will actually lead to fewer private sector jobs or if businesses will thrive at even higher rates when the government takes all the money.

This whole Democrat campaign seems to rest on the fact that Clinton showed the greedy rich who was boss by raising taxes in 1993. Wait! That actually helped the rich, because the economy improved in the 1990s, the story now goes. I remember this happening in the 1980s too, but that was the decade of greed. Why wasn’t the 1990s a decade of greed? People were abusing their credit cards in the 1990s, weren’t they? The whole point of their policies was supposed to be that poor people would gain at the expense of the rich people who really didn’t need the money. But instead, it seems that a rising tide lifted all boats. Was it trickle up economics?