"This is the most important election of our lifetimes. . .This is the most consequential election of our lifetimes. . . This is the most critical election of our lifetimes. . . This is no ordinary election." These are all comments I have heard about the election, & in this case, I'm not talking about the presidential election of 2024 - I'm referring to the one of 2012: BO versus Mitt Romney.
You'll remember that Republicans were worried @ the time about whether or not the country could survive four more years of BO after it was thought, with good reason, that BO had worked against the interests of the country by deliberately undermining the founding principles - or fundamentally transforming the country in BO's words.
Laura Ingraham was so upset that she said that Republicans should shut down the party if they could not beat an incumbent with BO's dreadful record of government dependency, never recognizing that the majority of the citizenry was very happy being government dependent.
Did you vote for Mitt Romney? If you did, how happy have you been with that vote over the last twelve years as Romney, first as past Republican presidential nominee & since 2018 as U.S. senator from Utah, has taken one anti-American position after another? During Biden's first two years in office Senator Romney voted with Biden's legislative positions 56.5% of the time. This converts to a Liberty Score of F @ 44%. Every time Carol & I would hear of one of Romney's anti-American votes that were so unbecoming for a man who had previously been entrusted with his party's nomination for our highest office, we were so glad that we didn't vote for Romney for president in 2012.
But in November 2012 Romney was regarded as the firewall against the existential threat seen in BO. Although I couldn't bring myself to vote for Romney, Sean Hannity & Larry Kudlow shamelessly endorsed Mitt & his policies no matter what they were or how far they strayed from what these men professed to believe. They were against ObamaCare but had no trouble with RomneyCare in Massachusetts which was the prototype for ObamaCare. This post will provide some similar parallels between Trump & Harris.
Now in 2024 we hear again it is the most important, consequential, & critical election of our lifetimes - first Biden & Trump were our choices in this election of greatest importance & now Harris & Trump. And once again Hannity & Kudlow are shamelessly backing the Republican no matter what he says or does.
Over recent weeks the two presidential campaigns have deteriorated into seeing which candidate can offer the most benefits from the public treasury in order to buy votes - a process with eight stages duplicated in every failed democracy known throughout history as Death Of Democracy. The stages are:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.
Harris's benefit bonanza includes no tax on tips, $25,000 down payment assistance for first time home buyers (with more generous support for those whose parents did not own a home), restoring & making permanent the $3,600 per child tax credit, $6,000 baby bonus for child's first year, universal pre-K, paid family & medical leave, & most recently long-term care coverage through Medicare for seniors who are unable to live independently but want to stay in their homes.
All of the above benefit bonanzas are mentioned on Harris's website although the long-term care issue needs better definition.
It seems that Trump adds a new vote-buying benefit @ every campaign rally he holds (as I write this Trump is promising for the first time a tax break for family caregivers as he starts his speech @ MSG on Sunday night.) Similar to Harris's plans the Trump website also says that Trump will provide a long-term care benefit "to help Seniors remain in their homes* & maintain Financial Security" & will "promote homeownership* through tax incentives & support for first time buyers." Also, no tax on tips* (presented in Las Vegas), no tax on Social Security (presented to seniors), no tax on overtime pay (presented to unions), no tax on car loans (presented in Detroit), unexplainably wanting to restore the SALT deduction that was capped by the tax law he signed in December 2017, & lowering taxes on U.S. citizens who live abroad.
Trump thinks he would benefit American workers by pledging 10% to 20% across the board protective tariffs on all imports* & 60% or higher protective tariffs on Chinese imports all the while ignoring that importers & consumers pay most of this extra burden plus not acknowledging that tariffs hurt businesses that rely on imports & countries reciprocate with their own tariffs on American exports. The Constitution (Commerce Clause - Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 & Export Taxation Clause - Article I, Section 9, Clause 5) emphasizes making trade regular, not imposing across the board protective tariffs that would hinder economic growth. The Founders intended tariffs to be the exception not the general rule as Trump intends.
Except for the * marked items none of the above tax reductions or the 60% China tariff imposition are mentioned on Trump's website - so is all of this just blather shooting from the hip to attract voters?
The nonpartisan "budget watchdog" Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) issued a report on October 7 entitled The Fiscal Impact of the Harris & Trump Campaign Plans that studied both candidates' policy proposals & concluded that Trump's plans add $7.5 trillion over the 10 year budget window while Harris's plans add $3.5 trillion meaning that both candidates "further increase deficits & debt above levels projected under current law." Maya MacGuineas, President of the CRFB, said "Neither has anything close to a plan to deal with the overall debt, but clearly the Trump agenda would be significantly worse than the Harris agenda," in part because Trump is even more anti-free-trade than Harris.
People receiving Social Security benefits should be interested to know that the CRFB also found in a report dated October 21 entitled What Would The Trump Campaign Plans Mean For Social Security? that Trump's proposals would move up the date by three years from 2034 to 2031 that Social Security will run out of money to pay full benefits & would also require larger benefits cuts than currently anticipated when the Social SecurityTrust Fund is exhausted (i.e., the accounting gimmick runs out of money). Specifically the CFRB found Trump's planned elimination of income tax on Social Security benefits coupled with the deportation of workers who pay into the program, the tariffs' propensity to increase the annual cost of living adjustments, & the elimination of payroll tax on tips & overtime pay all would reduce revenue to pay benefits. See graphic below.
Click on graphic to enlargeBoth Trump & Harris claim to protect, or want to protect, Social Security & Medicare. Neither knows what they are saying & we have enough information, like that provided above, to know they don't.
None of the above Harris or Trump giveaway programs increase economic growth. Accordingly, each will contribute to a less robust economy & to the extent that the FED monetizes the deficit spending of the programs inflation will increase. As such America will be less prosperous as a result of the adoption of any of these programs. For all the bragging that Trump does about his economy during his first term there never was a full year of 3.0% economic growth while he was president.
Both Trump, directly through his first term, & Harris, as VP to Biden, are proliferate spenders. Trump is the biggest one term deficit spender in American history & Biden (Harris by extension) is the second biggest & may even overtake Trump - that race will be closer than the presidential race. See table below with actual results from 1789 through 2022 & projected results through Biden's term.
There is not a dime's worth of difference between them regarding the propensity for increasing federal government spending. Spending is what drives the country down the Death Of Democracy path. Not taxes. Not the budget. Not even the deficit itself. But spending. If we can see & understand this neither Trump nor Harris should be president.
There is a reason that three quarters of the country did not want a Trump-Biden rematch & when Biden dropped out Harris was a vapid upgrade. It is a choose your poison election. Do you prefer strychnine, arsenic, anthrax powder, phosgene, or Tylenol made by McNeil Laboratories in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania in July 1982 that was laced with potassium cyanide? Either way you get the same result with any of these poisons & Trump & Harris.
All things considered I would rather concentrate my efforts on the good senators & congressmen who need our support & will be needed to hold the line if Harris wins. Senator Rick Scott of Florida has improved his Liberty Score to B @ 86% & has offered many ideas that have been rejected by the Republican establishment, especially Mitch McConnell, who Rick is looking to replace as Republican senate leader. Rick has won his last three elections by very narrow margins & the Democrats are targeting this seat as a flip.
Please do not mistake Ron DeSantis's gubernatorial win by almost 20 points in 2022 as a sign that Florida is no longer a swing state. DeSantis's victory was impressive but his opponent was terrible. Democrats stayed home. DeSantis's 2022 opponent received over 940,000 fewer votes than his 2018 opponent (4,043,723 - 3,100,603 = 943,120 fewer votes) meaning there are still plenty of people in Florida capable of voting for a Democrat senate candidate, especially when Florida has a contentious abortion initiative on the ballot that will extend legal abortions from the current recently passed six week ban to allowing abortions up to the time of fetal viability. The ballot initiative needs 60% to pass so expect a large proabortion turnout that will not favor Republicans.
Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party nominee in 2012 & 2016, said that a wasted vote is when you vote for someone you don't believe in. If there ever was an election other than 2012 to break away from the two party system 2024 is it. With Trump & Harris you can't win. I'm looking for an election like Ronald Reagan versus Steve Lonegan where you can't lose.
But even beyond the ruinous deficit spending that both Trump & Harris are capable of there are countless issues over the last four years documented on RTE as to why neither of these people are worth voting for.
Harris has nothing but abortion, people's hatred of Trump, & the Democrat party's get out the vote machine - that is her campaign & is all she can talk about
Trump has the disgraceful way he conducted himself after losing the 2020 election that persists even today. What Trump, in violation of his oath to the Constitution, asked Pence to do - to not accept electoral college votes when no state had asked for their electoral ballots to be returned so they could recertify them showing Trump the winner - is so egregious that it alones disqualifies him from ever holding office again. Just like in Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro lost the election but has stayed in power - that is exactly what Trump tried to do. In our case our glorious Constitution & the institutions that it created & supports held.
People who overlook Trump's actions or dismiss them are making a great mistake in judgment.
Harris is the person in January 2025 who will be in the position to do what Trump wanted Pence to do & she will be in that position with the support of the hostile anti-American media. If Harris really loses, like Trump did in 2020, & throws out enough electoral votes to show her the winner we will have a terrible constitutional crisis on our hands. And a little thing like Harris declaring the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 unconstitutional on her way to perfecting the lawlessness that Trump tried last time is a mere formality.
I have used an interactive map of the U.S. to plug in various combinations of who wins the seven swing states & congressional districts ME-02 & NE-02 to see the paths to victory (270 electoral votes) for both candidates. The map starts with Harris winning 20 states plus DC for 225 electoral votes & Trump winning 23 states & three congressional districts for 218 electoral votes. If this election really is as close as the polls say there are several paths leading to a 269 to 269 electoral vote tie in which case it is possible to have a President Trump & VP Walz or a President Harris & a VP Vance.
But one of them is going to win the presidency. And I make it a practice to always try to like the new president when they are sworn in on January 20th @ what Robert Frost called "noonday's beginning . . . hour" referring to JFK's inauguration in 1961. If I hadn't supported the new president during the campaign, I am hoping that the weight of responsibility they feel taking the oath of office will make them see the momentous undertaking that lies ahead.
It's my way of seeking unity every four years in the tradition of the great Founding Father Patrick Henry.
In Bill O'Reilly's book "Confronting The Presidents" he ends the chapter on GW Bush by providing the message that Bush gave BO on January 20, 2009. It reminded me of my above described sentiments @ the start of every new president in my adult life: "There will be trying moments. The critics will rage. Your friends will disappoint you. But you will have an Almighty God to comfort you, a family who loves you, & a country that is pulling for you, including me."
