What John McCain Wants to Do
The headlines are all focusing on McCain’s “victory in 2013″ statement, but his whole speech is a lot more important than just what he says about the war:
The size of the Army and Marine Corps has been significantly increased, and are now better equipped and trained to defend us. Long overdue reforms to the way we acquire weapons programs, including fixed price contracts, have created sufficient savings to pay for a larger military. A substantial increase in veterans educational benefits and improvements in their health care has aided recruitment and retention. The strain on the National Guard and reserve forces has been relieved.
Round about a century ago in what was then the world’s lone super power - Great Britain - Haldane in charge of the War Office and “Jacky” Fisher in charge of the Admiralty gave Britain a larger and more power army and navy, at less cost than the country had been spending. Waste was cut and organization improved and more powerful weapons and forces forged simply by intelligent application of good ideas. There is much wast an inefficiency in our defense sector - not the troops fault, but its there and it can be corrected by a man determined to confront the entrenched interests at DoD and Congress (ie, the Murthas of the world) who like things fine just they way they are.
After efforts to pressure the Government in Sudan over Darfur failed again in the U.N. Security Council, the United States, acting in concert with a newly formed League of Democracies, applied stiff diplomatic and economic pressure that caused the government of Sudan to agree to a multinational peacekeeping force, with NATO countries providing logistical and air support, to stop the genocide that had made a mockery of the world’s repeated declaration that we would “never again” tolerant such inhumanity.
Long time readers know that I’ve been in favor of something like the “League of Democracies” for years now - and I’m delighted that McCain seems determined to push forward with this…with the implied sidelining of the moribund UN and a resultant increase in the global community’s ability to actual do things about horrible problems.
Congress has just passed by a single up or down vote a tax reform proposal that offers Americans a choice of continuing to file under the rules of the current complicated and burdensome tax code or use a new, simpler, fairer and flatter tax, with two rates and a generous deduction. Millions of taxpayers are expected to file under the flat tax, and save billions in the cost of preparing their returns.
If this isn’t pure Reaganism, then I don’t know what is.
After exercising my veto several times in my first year in office, Congress has not sent me an appropriations bill containing earmarks for the last three years. A top to bottom review of every federal bureaucracy has yielded great reductions in government spending by identifying programs that serve no important purpose; and instigating far reaching reforms of procurement and operating policies that have for too long extravagantly wasted money for no better purpose than to increase federal payrolls.
You want government spending controlled? Then you’ve got McCain, or you’ve got nobody…and please note that McCain sees where a lot of this government growth comes from; a mere desire to increase federal payrolls. Given that the government employees union (AFSCME) is hopelessly corrupt and entirely in the DNC’s pocket, any increase in government payrolls helps the Democrats and thus the political left…anything which cuts the growth of government payroll works opposite.
Health care has become more accessible to more Americans than at any other time in history. Reforms of the insurance market; putting the choice of health care into the hands of American families rather than exclusively with the government or employers…
Once again, pure Reaganism…and in stark contrast to Obama’s semi-socialist and Hillary’s completely socialist plans for health care.
Scores of judges have been confirmed to the federal district and appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, who understand that they were not sent there to write our laws but to enforce them and make sure they are consistent with the Constitution. They are judges of exceptional character and quality, who enforce and do not make laws, and who respect the values of the people whose rights, laws and property they are sworn to defend.
This is the crucial battle for conservatives - if we get the judges, then we can eventually overturn the absurd liberal rulings, and then use the law to actually reform America back to the constitutional Republic originally intended. Fail to get the judges and everything else we do is worthless in the long run.
Border state governors have certified and the American people recognize that after tremendous improvements to border security infrastructure and increases in the border patrol, and vigorous prosecution of companies that employ illegal aliens, our southern border is now secure. Illegal immigrants who broke our laws after they came here have been arrested and deported. Illegal immigration has been finally brought under control, and the American people accepted the practical necessity to institute a temporary worker program and deal humanely with the millions of immigrants who have been in this country illegally.
I know a lot of you guys get burned up about the guest worker program - but the heck with you; and, at any rate, McCain has promised (again and again) to secure the borders first…so you’re going to get what you say you really want.
All in all, it is a progam that anyone who isn’t a kook lefty should love - and there’s more in it than just what I’ve noted. Failure to vote for McCain is not only dumb, but suicidal for conservatism.
10 comments May 16th, 2008
