What Does it Matter?

If you would pardon me for a moment, I’m going to use this space to ruminate on whether or not I believe that Mitt Romney’s absurd wealth makes him more or less a candidate for my vote -- or perhaps it’s entirely irrelevant? 

First, and foremost in my mind, the man is (roughly) self-made. His parents had the funds to send him to Harvard Law School, but his current fortune is his own, the results of a lucrative job out of college and dozens of years at the helm of a multi-billion dollar investment group. His tax bill (of only 13.9%) bothers me all but none because he hasn’t actively avoided the higher tax rates paid by most wealthy Americans, he simply falls into the category of people still receiving incentives from the government to invest (a long-outdated tax policy, if you ask me, but irrelevant to his moral standing and has no sway on my personal vote).

This Bain Capital bothers me, though. It’s an investment house, but not in the sense of Warren Buffet or the like, Bain profits largely at the expense of smaller investors -- buying faltering companies and either selling them piecemeal or cutting operating costs at the expense of jobs. For the longest time, I’ve thought of these people, using their advantages to create disadvantages for others, to be less than upstanding. If nothing else, they certainly fail to represent the face that I wish to show to the rest of the world.

Ultimately, I don’t believe that Mitt Romney’s financial success should play any part in this election. Even if he is wonderful at running a business, Congress is nothing like a board of directors, and the president is not a CEO. And the perception that he doesn’t understand the plights of the common man, while possibly true, really won’t impact his ability to understand the numbers that represent them if he makes it behind the guarded doors of the Oval Office. To me, the real question is whether or not Mitt Romney is the man that I wish was the face of my country. The answer is no, because he seems produced -- too spit-shined. I imagine he’s ready to burst at any moment, but I suppose I digress.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/moneymag/0712/gallery.candidates.moneymag/6.html

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/mitt-romney-paid-a-139-effective-tax-rate-in-2010.php

In Reply to Angela

I agree that Americans should hold our elected officials to a greater ethical standard, though I will propose a counterargument for both of our benefit -- to encourage empathy, I suppose.

A politician is a public figure, and subject to the constant scrutiny of the media and the citizenry that they represent. This is a good thing, but it also serves to both magnify transgressions, and cause extreme levels of stress. Even Martin Luther King, according to some not entirely unbelievable sources, was an adulterer (I link to wikipedia for expediency's sake, but the cited sources are listed). This is one black mark on an otherwise untouchable legacy, and I do not for a moment believe that it makes MLK any less of a leader. Similarly, John Kennedy is another unethical, but very well beloved, former President. I doubt greatly that many people would disregard the benefits that both of these men have brought to our nation due to the ethical shortcomings of their personal lives.

I argue that what is truly important for a president (and to a lesser degree, for a member of congress) is not necessarily ethical fibers stronger than the rock of gibraltar, but a sense of decency that transcends individual transgressions. With enough digging, and under enough pressure, any man, woman, or child will lash out at whatever happens to push their buttons. In a news conference, she’ll say something insensitive because she’s angry that no one wants to talk about the important questions, or perhaps he tried drugs in college and got caught, or she married the wrong man and found out two years too late and one drink too many. What I want from a President is humanity, plain and simple. I want them to have made mistakes in their past because if they haven’t made mistakes then they haven’t learned from them. I want them to have a temper, because if they can’t stand up for what’s right, then what good are they? Ultimately, I believe that the seat of power needs to have a small amount of volatility -- the President’s job is to be the tipping point of the nation and the voice of the people, and someone who’s never lived cannot speak for me.

Obama: Raising Taxes on the Wealthy?

You know, I recently went up a tax bracket. Had a bit of a windfall and now I earn additional income from investments plus my usual salary. I did very little to earn it, but it was a proud moment none the less; after taking for most of my life, I’m finally a real American, paying my due and complaining about how the government spends my money in a non-ironic sense, as they no longer give all of it back to me once a year. It’s like I’ve leveled up my life and now the experience cap has been raised. If I ever make it into the 1%, my chin will be high and I will gladly write the government a check for whatever amount they need to make the new players in the game have an easier time while they get their feet under them. That’s part of the American dream, and it’s what I expect our government to work towards.

So when President Obama says that he wishes to raise the taxes paid by the wealthiest fraction of a percent of Americans in his most recent stump speech to begin his reelection campaign, I say “Hell yeah, Big O; names are taken, you know what to do next.” All of the buzzwords were present and accounted for -- schools, loans, one percent, taxes -- and more and more President Obama is returning to the platform that propelled him into the White House in 2008. We shouldn’t perpetuate the status quo, he says, instead we should move forward and fight for progress. It’s great that now that we have an election coming up, he’s back into the rhetoric that brought him here, but what of it? Can the President even make such things come about in a divided congress? I don’t think so. Can Obama unite the Democrats to take back the House and Senate? Again, I don’t think so. So what does all of this accomplish? Do the speeches and the fancy language and backhanded compliments to his opponents even result in a blip on the American conscience? In a way, that last bit is the only positive outcome to expect -- conversation in the form of pundits and watercooler chatter disseminating through the American public until everyone has the idea of financial equality planted in their heads and no longer recalls where the seed originated.

National Review: Faith-Based Energy

Victor Davis Hanson has written an interesting editorial over at The National Review concerning President Obama's seeming distaste for expansion of domestic oil drilling. For the most part, he barks up a one-sided tree, as most opinion pieces seem to do, but he has valid questions and comments, until they're probed more deeply than most Americans care to bother.

Hanson's largest criticism of the Obama Administration's energy policy is their lack of expanded domestic oil production, but he also raises questions about the true power of OPEC in relation to the international oil market, as well as the possibility of the complete elimination of America's dependency on foreign energy. That final comment -- that America needs to reduce our intake of non-domestic product -- is entirely accurate. We are currently operating on a decades old energy policy that dictates an incredibly lopsided intake of crude oil compared to our domestic production, and that policy could only realistically be changed if the policy began at the White House. The other complaints mentioned by Mr. Hanson are, frankly, near-sighted. American oil reserves are less than 10% of the total reserves on the planet, and that number would only increase marginally if extraction was increased to allow for the exploitation of oil sands or further offshore drilling. The reality is that OPEC holds a monopoly on oil -- other sources may undercut their prices, but the supply of that cheaper oil would be so limited that it would have a minimal impact on the price per barrel.

Also, it bears mentioning that while the economic benefit of expanded drilling is questionable, the environmental impact is well-documented. In this time of increased global awareness, America would be best represented as a leader in internal environmental policy, as well as a proponent for cleaner energy sources.

It is true that the United States could be a short term powerhouse in the production and distribution of fossil fuels, but that policy would see us wrung dry in decades, with no recourse but to purchase fuel at whatever price it was offered. Once everything is said and done, I take solace in knowing that my gas is a fraction of the price that drivers in Europe pay (in Ireland, for example, a liter of gasoline is over one and a half euros, which translates out to over $8 a gallon).

“Needful Things,” or “Birth Control Boogaloo”

Does the federal government, in its hotly contested plan to offer a national health insurance mandate, have the constitutional power and, frankly, the cajones to break a fundamental tenant of our society -- religious freedom? The debate rages on, fueled by rhetoric from pastors and congressmen that rally either side unto the day of reckoning. USA Today’s Editorial Board have one foot firmly planted in the conservative heartland, claiming that forcing employers who hold religious beliefs that do not allow the use of contraception to provide said contraception to their religiously diverse staff is a step too far. These shadowy, and apparently diverse, editors go on to claim that these rules, complete with exceptions for institutions that are entirely made up of individuals opposed to contraception, such as the Catholic Church, are an affront to the freedom to practice any religion, any way the practitioner sees fit.

I find this argument flaccid, at best. Freedom is the ability to choose how to live your life, not the ability to deny the choices of others. If an employer were to deny coverage of birth control, that employer would essentially be denying their employees the freedom of choice. It is true that the government wishes to deny that same “choice” -- namely, that employers would be required to offer birth control coverage, regardless of their own personal beliefs -- but that denial is in no way detrimental to the practice of religion, nor does it force immorality onto the employer. Even in the most extreme of circumstances, the enabler would most certainly be the federal government, and I think God would be sympathetic.

To be perfectly honest, I see no reason to articulate such one-sided rhetoric. These pieces are written solely for the benefit of those people who already agree with the opinion, especially in this instance, where so few facts are given, and the tone is that of moral outrage rather than logical reasoning. Likewise, the refuting editorial by Kathleen Sebelius was not written to change opinions, but to explain the reasoning behind the clause, which is common sense in the face of aggrieved morality, and that does not have a history of flowery outcomes. These pieces, that simmer the intricacies of moral topics down to a simple black and white argument, are the reason that we can no longer discuss politics or religion amongst polite company.

NYT: Rick Santorum Thinks People Who go to College are Snobs?

Likely not. The quote was actually, "President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob." As a college student myself, let me say this: Right on. How could anyone wish collegiate life on the voting public? The President should be ashamed, as should this other person, also named Rick Santorum, who campaigned to allow every person in Pennsylvania the ability to attend institutions of higher learning when he was running for the Senate in 2006.

Photo by Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

But what the article in question truly makes apparent is not this one buzz word heard throughout the blogosphere, but that politicians will say anything to anyone if they think that it will earn them either publicity or a vote. Does Rick Santorum think that people who encourage education are elitist jerks pushing their own beliefs onto unsuspecting fry-chefs who are entirely happy with their lives? No. What Rick Santorum believes, as do any and all politicians in this particular election, is that the voting public prefers extremism over moderation.

This article -- which is simply a recap of a week in the Republican Primary -- is American politics at its most refined. A working system gamed by broken men. Santorum said something ridiculously anti-cultural (as mentioned above), and lambasted one of the most (incorrectly?) beloved Presidents of recent years, all while claiming that the religious majority is being stifled into silence by the over-powering might of the non-religious minority. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, used the week to question Santorum's judgement using hindsight as a sort of barometer for the man's conservative values, as if any of the Republican candidates are lacking in that regard. The Primaries have essentially boiled down to a he says/she says battle to discover which candidate is the most ludicrously un-electable.