Let’s just get this out of the way. I voted for George W. Bush not once, but, twice. I formally apologize to everyone in the United States. I was wrong. While we are in confession mode, I likely would have voted for Bob Dole, too, had I been old enough. As you have probably guessed, I have been a pretty dedicated conservative for my whole life.
In fact, I guess you could say that I fall right in the core Republican demographic. I am a white male who lives in Alabama. Many of my friends & family members root for Republicans in the same way that they root for the Alabama Crimson Tide or the Auburn Tigers.
I was raised Baptist and spent some of my older years in the Church of Christ. I am the son of a small business owner, and while I certainly wouldn’t consider my family among society’s upper class, we were always pretty comfortable from a financial standpoint. I graduated from a local university with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. If you were imagining the typical Republican voter in my late 25-34 demographic age range, you would probably imagine someone much like myself. Southern, white, male, married, Christian, in good financial standing, working in business management, I am the embodiment of the stereotypical Republican voter.
But, over the past few months, I have experienced an awakening of sorts that made me question and, eventually, denounce my conservative leanings. I wish I could tell you that there was some grand moment of realization that made me turn away from Bush and the conservatives, as it would make a much better story, but, I can’t. This was more of a gradual realization over time as I uncovered facts about current events and discovered history that I had missed and realized that I had some mistaken notions about Republicans in general.
What made a lifelong Republican voter take a step back and re-evaluate? Well, my first child was born recently and, as anyone who has a child can tell you, this makes you look at the world very differently than before. Politics took a new meaning when I considered the long-term effects that political choices might bear for my daughter. So, after years of casual following of politics, I finally sat down and spent some time researching presidential candidates for ‘08 with truly open mind, for the first time. This led to further soul-searching and research into all manner of political information, including our current state of affairs as a nation.
As I took my first completely objective and in-depth look at the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress in a long time, I realized what a truly unmitigated disaster the whole thing has become. Don’t get me wrong, I had become disillusioned much like everyone else over the past two or three years. I had heard the headlines on Iraq, the concerns with Karl Rove, the rumblings over issues with the Patriot Act.
But, as I was looking more deeply into what I have missed out on, I was a little shocked to find out about a less mentioned, but, in some respects, more shocking & serious problem for the Bush administration - complete and total financial mismanagement. The kind of mismanagement that speaks to a complete lack of coherent planning, restraint, or responsibility. The kind of mismanagement that I never expected from Republicans, the supposed “small government” party. The kind of mismanagement that would put even the strongest business out of business and would make the richest family bankrupt. As I mentioned, I studied business and, now, I am currently running my family business, so something about this struck a special chord with me in a way that more abstract issues like foreign policy did not.
Consider this - the Bush administration entered the White House with just over $5 trillion in national debt. The national debt sits at over $9 trillion today. That is over $30,000 worth of debt for every man, woman, and child in this country. This was somewhat staggering to me. Especially considering that the debt has continued to rise 1.5 billion a day since 2007. (Check out the National Debt Clock for up to the second numbers). This looks even worse since it turns out that Bush entered office with a government budget surplus in hand - that is the government was actually paying down the national debt every year, not increasing it. The amount on the government “credit card” has nearly doubled in Bush’s term. And we all know what this means - not just do we owe more money, but, we are writing bigger interest checks than ever. A bigger portion of your taxes than ever are going to countries like China in the form of interest payments.
The financial mismanagement quickly got more sickening when I discovered the facts about the Bush tax cuts, particularly the capital gains & dividends tax cuts in 2003. The facts are that the wealthy are, by far, the greatest beneficiaries. Take a look at this report from the Citizens for Tax Justice. The wealthiest 1% of the tax bracket reaped over 70% of the financial benefit of the reduction in capital gains & dividends taxes. Meanwhile, the bottom 60% of the tax bracket received a mere 2.1% of the benefit. This tax cut achieves the double whammy of, not only sending the federal government further into debt, but, also further exacerbating the already growing gap between rich and poor in the United States. Nice going, guys. Anyway, this could (and probably will) make another blog entry on its own, so, I will leave most of this ground to be tread another day.
But, the biggest problem is not the tax cuts alone. No, the problem is that these large tax cuts for the rich took place at virtually the same time as a dramatic increase in spending by the federal government. Raw federal spending has grown during the Bush administration at a rate that hasn’t been seen since the days of Nixon/Ford. And, when looked at as a percentage of GDP, we have seen the greatest federal spending increases since Roosevelt (USA Today). In other words, the Bush administration and the Republicans in Congress have been behind the greatest spending increase since the New Deal. Let that sink in for a minute.
Back with me? Good. Certainly, some of this spending was likely warranted after 9/11, the ensuing Homeland Security spending and the Afghanistan invasion. Those costs would have occurred under any other administration as well. But, that argument only gets you so far.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if you are at war or at peace - the federal government must be fiscally responsible. Sure, if we are under imminent threat of being destroyed, then maybe caution goes to the wind, but, otherwise we must keep some level of restraint. While certainly a strong military & strong national security are vitally important, a strong economic & financial situation is at least equally important, perhaps even more important for a superpower. Just ask the U.S.S.R.
If a war must be fought for national security and it will cost a lot of money, then something has to be given up back home. We cannot do everything at once like a shopping junkie with a credit card and just plan to “pay for it later”, because, for us, “later” never seems to come. If we let terrorists scare us into bankrupting our nation and destroying ourselves from within, then the terrorists have really won.
The Republican combination of policies over the past 8 years - bigger government programs, astronomical increases in spending, lower taxes for the super wealthy - are a mix that just cannot work together and no sane person would think that it would. In fact, you get the idea from looking at everything that there is no overall plan, instead policies seem to be getting set by disparate groups with no communication or consideration of what else is going on. If we continue down our current path, I am afraid that it leads to ruin.
Between Iraq, our national debt, terrorism, our worsening economic situation, our disastrous oil dependency situation, & a host of issues, it seems that we are surrounded with major problems on all sides. For many of us younger voters, this is probably the most precarious situation we have seen our nation in. I think it is fair to say that the 2008 election represents a critical juncture in our nation’s history.
I am here because I hope to share information with more conservatives like myself who have been betrayed by their own politicians, but, may have not realized it yet. I hope to also share information with liberals & independents & anyone in-between. I hope to not only share information with you, and I also hope to gain information from you because I certainly don’t have all the answers.
Information is the weapon with which this war for our country’s future must be waged. Too long has our country wallowed in political apathy. Too long have many of us cast uninformed votes for candidates who have manipulated us to their own ends. I have been as guilty as anyone, but, it must stop today.
Politics must once again become a subject of interest again for Americans, young and old, for it is a subject that will determine our collective fate. The time has come for Americans on both sides of the aisle to take our government back from extremists, lobbyists, special interest groups and multi-billion dollar corporations. The power in this country must move away from corporate boardrooms and back to where it was intended - the people.
And, in case you have any remaining doubt, yes, I plan to vote for Barack Obama, not John McCain, in the 2008 election. The reasons why are numerous, and I will cover them in the future, rather than further lengthening this first entry, which is already longer than I had hoped.
Over the coming days, weeks & months, I will be blogging on a variety of political issues and news topics. I have plenty more in-depth discussion planned on everything from the country’s financial crisis to the modern mainstream media & their culpability in where we are today to news & opinion on the Presidential race. I hope you will continue to join me from time to time and will share this blog with your friends and relatives. In the end, only one voice cannot accomplish much in a country this large. But, when we join together with others and spread information & awareness then we can truly make a difference.
I am no longer a conservative. I am now an ex-conservative. An Excon, if you will. Join me and let’s try to make a difference.
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