We consider ourselves to be moderate Republicans, but pride ourselves on our political independence. Many who read this have financially or otherwise supported Ken’s local political reform efforts over the past two and one-half years through his former political action committee Vote For Integrity.  Ken’s former reform efforts were recognized and respected for impartiality and integrity. Also, Ken has twice voted for Democrats for President.

We have never before distributed a communication like this; however, we feel the economic, political and national defense stakes are so high this year that we should do our best to communicate our beliefs and recommendations. We are supporting the McCain/Palin ticket and following are seven of our many reasons why. In summarizing these reasons, we have tried to not get bogged down in minutia or political spin; rather we are trying to shoot straight and make our case as simple to understand as possible.

Since this piece is somewhat lengthy, you may wish to scan the topics and only read the ones of most interest to you. If you find our reasons honest and persuasive, please feel free to pass this on to your friends.
 

Federal Income Taxes

We believe that on balance, McCain/Palin will do a better job than Obama/Biden of either reducing federal income taxes or holding any necessary federal income tax increase to a minimum.  Obama and Biden are respectively rated as the most and third most liberal senators in the Senate. Obama is on record as saying to “Joe the plumber” that he wants to redistribute income and Biden is on record as saying that it is “patriotic” to pay higher income taxes. We believe that at heart, Obama/Biden are at the far-left of the political spectrum. They strongly believe in the socio/political agenda of the far-left, including the redistribution of income. As the Wall Street Journal editorial of October 13, 2008 indicated, Obama’s tax cut for 95% of all Americans is an “Illusion”. We will be even more frank, the plan is nothing more than the redistribution of income.

Without getting into the mind-numbing minutia of the candidates’ respective tax plans, as a former Certified Public Accountant with Price Waterhouse & Co., Ken can state with confidence that Obama’s redistribution plan does not reduce income tax rates. His “tax cuts” would primarily take the form of an addition to or expansion of a mind-numbing number of tax credits, many of which are to be “refundable.” In tax jargon, “refundable” means that certain people get the credit even if they owe no income taxes at all – which means the government cuts them what in effect is a welfare check. The most distressing result from Obama’s plan would be that his refundable tax credits are projected to increase the  share of Americans who pay no federal income taxes to an estimated 48%, from an estimate 38% this year. 

Historically, our federal income tax system of raising revenue for necessary government programs has, by and large, relied on honest compliance by taxpayers believing the overall tax system to be relatively fair. With increasing numbers of workers paying no federal income taxes, these people will not only not have any vested interest in how tax dollars are spent, they will also come to rely on continued and increased support from those that do pay income taxes – not a good thing in a democracy, the majority of which believe that all people should be treated equally.
 

Government Spending and the Deficit

We believe that on balance, McCain/Palin will do a better job of reducing unnecessary and wasteful federal government spending than will Obama/Biden. We believe that McCain has a far superior record of attacking wasteful government spending and that Palin’s brief executive career is promising in this regard. 

Conversely, nothing in Obama or Biden’s careers remotely suggests any deviation from welfare-state programs. Quite the contrary, even Obama’s campaign pledges and programs strongly suggest substantial increases in spending. With the economy headed into what appears to be a serious recession and our national debt exceeding $10 trillion dollars and growing, we need serious reductions in many wasteful and possibly unnecessary government programs.
 

National Defense

We believe McCain/Palin will continue to support world-class national defense efforts, including a strong and more effective Central Intelligence Agency, effective missile defense systems, increasingly effective NASA programs and a uniformed military second to none. This national defense capability is essential to safeguard our national interests (including our world-wide economic interests) from the threats of Islamic Fascism, rogue regimes such as North Korea and Iran and, more importantly but longer-term, China and Russia. 

Obama is on record as to the national defense programs he would cut and his far-left liberal base, including the “über” liberal “MoveOn.Org” will insist on these cuts. 

Conversely, McCain has been battle tested and has proved his mettle. If the North Vietnamese could not break his will over five years of unimaginable torture and suffering, the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong il are not going to make him blink. 

Expanding on the foregoing, Obama has not spent one day in the military service of his country and has no experience whatever in military strategy or tactics and more importantly, the consequences of getting the strategy right.  He and Biden evidenced their lack of political and military judgment by opposing the “Surge Strategy” in Iraq advocated by General Petraeus. 

Senator McCain vigorously supported that strategy which Senator Obama now reluctantly admits “has been successful beyond our wildest dreams”. The success of this strategy is laying the groundwork for the next president of the United States to conclude the liberation of Iraq and to bring our brave men and women in uniform home with the honor and sense of accomplishment they have earned.

Two final notes on the importance of national defense: In 1990 Senator Biden opposed the legislation authorizing the liberation of Kuwait from Saddam Hussein’s invasion. Had the United States not led the coalition that liberated Kuwait in 1991, the entire geopolitical and world-wide energy situations may be dramatically different today. Also, Hillary Clinton’s campaign commercial asking who do Americans want answering the White House “Hot Line” at 3:00 in the morning was right on; she was imfering that Americans should not want Barrack Obama answering that phone. We agree with her!
 

Energy Independence

This year, Americans were subjected to the economic realities of having an economy that consumes approximately 25% of the world’s oil, while having only approximately 3% of the world’s proven reserves of oil. One of these realities was $4.00/gal. gasoline for the first time in our history. A world economic reality contributing to higher energy costs is that the people of India and China (as well as many other “developing” countries) want to have the same standard of living that Americans enjoy. These countries will do everything in their power to see that their economies continue to grow. In so doing, their economies will consume increasing amounts of oil and natural gas, thus continuing the long-term trend toward higher costs for these sources of energy. 

An American reality is that our economic and transportation infrastructures (and these are not mutually exclusive) are heavily dependent on petroleum-based products. Indeed, even with an all-out national effort, it may well take something on the order of 20 years to convert our economic and transportation infrastructures to cost-effective alternative sources of energy. Until that time, America will need oil, natural gas and nuclear energy in order to maintain a world-class competitive economy and maintain our standard of living. Also it is imperative that we achieve some semblance of energy independence since this is a national security as well as an economic concern.

McCain/Palin have endorsed an expansion of environmentally sensitive offshore drilling and a dramatic increase in nuclear power for the generation of electricity. These are short-term but necessary actions to help (but only help) achieve cost-effective energy independence. 

Democrats, including Obama/Biden have a long record of opposing offshore drilling and nuclear power, although Obama has recently said he is willing to “look at” increasing offshore production of energy sources…..whatever that means? The comparison here is reasonably simple and clear: McCain/Palin are far more likely to navigate a shorter path to cost-effective energy independence than are Obama/Biden.
 

One Party Domination of Federal Government

It is widely believed that the Democratic Party will gain seats in both houses of Congress. Many times in our history one party has held all of the reins of power. However, with the trend over the past 10 or more years of both political parties  becoming increasingly partisan and polarizing, the potential consequences of one-party domination are troubling. The Democratic party today is not the relatively moderate Democratic party of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt (NY), Harry Truman (MO), John Kennedy (MA), or of former Senators Henry “Scoop” Jackson (WA), Lloyd Bentsen (TX), Sam Nunn (GA), or former House members Speaker "Tip" O'Neill, Jr., (IL) and even more recently, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (MO).  The Democratic Party today is, by and large, dominated by far left politicians, mostly from the East and West coasts, such as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (CA), Chairman of the House Banking Committee, Barney Frank (MA), Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Charles Rangel (NY), Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Henry Waxman (CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV), Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Christopher Dodd (CT), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick J. Leahy (VT), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden (CT) and the very influential Senate Democrats, Hillary Clinton (NY),  Charles Schumer (NY), Barbara Boxer (CA) and John Kerry and Edward Kennedy of MA.

Accordingly, should two of the three most liberal senators be elected, our federal government will be dominated by far-left leaning politicians and their supporting interest groups (trial lawyers, unions, environmentalists, special interest groups like ACORN, the higher education establishment, the welfare establishment in its broadest sense and the immigration establishment. Collectively, these interest groups have, over the years, achieved budgeted programs consuming hundreds of billions of dollars of spending annually. 

Without the check of a president representing, at least in part, the interests of average Americans who oppose unnecessary and wasteful spending, we can see no end to the spending supported by those dedicated to redistribution of income and an increasing array of social programs. The Wall Street Journal published an excellent summary of the very real possible consequences of an unchecked super-liberal agenda in its “Review & Outlook” section on October 17, 2008 titled “A Liberal Supermajority”. 
 

A Balanced Judiciary

We believe that our federal and state judges should stick to interpreting laws and regulations legislated by officials elected by the people and not make laws or regulations. Nowhere is this more important than on our Supreme Court and our Federal Appellate Courts. Many Supreme Court decisions in recent years have been split decisions, with five justices voting one way and four justices voting another way. Justices for the Supreme Court and Federal Appellate Courts are nominated by the President, subject to confirmation by the Senate. 

The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is Senator Patrick J. Leahy (D.-VT). Senator Leahy, together with Senator Biden have voted against every Justice nominated by President Bush for the Supreme Court. In addition, Senator Biden has vigorously opposed Justices nominated for the Supreme Court by Republican Presidents, going back as far as his opposition to Clarence Thomas in 1991 when Senator Biden was then Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Biden led what Justice Thomas at the time described as a “high-tech lynching”

As an example of Senator McCain’s past bi-partisan efforts, it was the leadership of John McCain and Senator Liberman (D.-CT) to form the “Gang of 14”, the bi-partisan group of 14 Senators (7 Democrats and 7 Republicans), who successfully negotiated a Senate compromise in the Spring of 2005 to avoid the so-called “nuclear option” (or constitutional option) over continued organized use of filibusters by Senate Democrats to block President Bush’s judicial appointments. Senators Obama, Biden and Leahy have never exhibited any such bi-partisanship.

Senators Leahy, Biden and Obama are expressed believers in what is called a “living (or evolving) Constitition”; namely one where provisions of the Constitution are interpreted as social changes occur. With Supreme Court nominees having liberal social agendas controlled by a President Obama and pushed through confirmation by a Democratically-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee led by Senator Leahy and supported by a Vice President Biden, we can expect many more Justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and none like the present Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, John G. Roberts, Jr.

Even more troubling is Obama’s apparent long-term belief in achieving the redistribution of income for social and civil rights purposes (also see under Federal Income Taxes, above). In a telling Chicago Public Radio interview in 2001, Obama stated that “One of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change”. In other words, Obama  flat-out said it is a tragedy that the civil rights movement did not achieve redistribution of income to benefit certain classes of people.
 

The Real Obama?

Who is Barrack Obama and does it matter? 

We know that Obama is a 47 year old, first term junior senator from Illinois.  We also know he has been judged the most liberal senator in the Senate and that he does not have a record of accomplishing anything of substance in the Senate since being elected to national office.

In addition, a number of questions have arisen regarding his past associations with a variety of controversial individuals. One prominent mid-state Pennsylvania journalist characterized John McCain’s campaign as “nasty” for raising doubts about Barack Obama and justified his characterization by saying: “Whether or not such doubts are warranted”. It seems to us that as a matter of fairness, voters have every right to fully evaluate every important aspect of Senator Obama’s past. Moreover, the media has a professional responsibility to impartially examine all possible areas of “doubt” and bring such matters to the voters’ attention, together with all relevant facts.

While any one of the disclosures regarding Senator Obama’s past associations with controversial individuals may not be a game-changer, we find the cumulative effect of Obama's various alliances with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Minister Louis Farrakhan, convicted Chicago corruption peddler Tony Rezko, ACORN and the former, unapologetic, Weathermen terrorist Bill Ayers, to be troubling. Many of these alliances existed over various periods of many years, including his work for and support of ACORN (the community action organization to which Obama’s campaign this year is reported to have contributed $850,000 and which organization is reported to currently be under investigation for extensive voter registration fraud in at least 11 “battleground” states), his close relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright and the direct and indirect financial support for the Senator from Tony Rezko.  Minister Louis Farrakhan has even gone so far as to refer to Senator Obama as the “Messiah”.

A lot of smoke arises from these alliances and many Americans do in fact believe that you can judge a person (in least in part) by the company they keep. What makes the Senator’s past alliances doubly important is his brief experience and lack of any substantive accomplishments as a U.S. Senator. Indeed, it is said that since his election to the Senate in 2004, he has spent less than 100 days actually on the Senate floor doing what he is paid to do.

Many Americans have been impressed with Senator Obama’s soaring rhetoric and his authoritative sounding pronouncements of what is wrong with our country and his prescriptions for a cure. He surely is an impressive speaker, but so was the fictional evangelical preacher, Elmer Gantry. Gantry, like many more modern-day real-life hustlers, could bring crowds to their feet shouting ‘Halleluiah’ while separating them from their money. 

By contrast, Senator McCain is not a particularly gifted speaker, but neither were President’s Truman or Eisenhower. If, in this age of TV sound bites, limited attentions spans and political spin, spin, spin, elections can only be won by the most talented speakers, then a lot of our country’s talent will be excluded from elected office.

Few Americans will evaluate all of the Senator’s patented campaign speeches and highly-nuanced debating and interview responses. However, as reputable members of the media should attest in bold print, the Senator is a master of authoritative-sounding hyperbole and his record is one of nuanced changes in his position and his many promises to every interest group imaginable. Perhaps the most memorable example is how Obama, after attending the Reverend Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ for approximately 20 years and being on record that he attended church approximately twice per month, he flat-out denied ever being present during any of the Reverend’s well-documented, social diatribes. When the political heat intensified, Obama gave a major TV speech on race in which he condemned Reverend Wright’s inflammatory diatribes, but said, and this is a paraphrase, that he could no more disavow his relationship with Reverend Wright than he could disavow his relation to his white grandmother. When the political heat surrounding Reverend Wright and his comments continued and intensified, Obama threw the Reverend to the wolves and resigned his membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ. So much for Obama’s loyalty and his believability.
 

Conclusion

We have taken the time to summarize our rationale for supporting the less glamorous and less effective public speakers in this election, because the stakes this year are particularly high given the current economics climate and the threats to our national security. If you agree with only four of our seven reasons, hopefully you will be persuaded to vote for McCain/Palin. 

As you decide how to cast your vote for president next week, please don’t be influenced by what Senator Obama says he is going to do; please take the time to look hard at what he has actually said and done and understand who he really is.
 

####