McCain

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve noticed that Obama and McCain have started to beat upon one another on various dimensions of the issues of taxation and Social Security.

Annoyingly, real life has prevented me from offering my €0.02 worth until now.

Oversimplifying, the discussion seems to be focused around Obama’s various plans to increase taxes on individuals earning more than $250,000 year, both through income/capital gains taxes, as well as Social Security payroll taxes.   McCain is publicly calling for making the Bush tax cuts permanent, reining in spending, and promising to work across the aisle on Social Security reform.

A few thoughts come to my mind:

• A hat tip goes in Obama’s general direction for daring to broach the subject of Social Security.  It takes political chutzpah to touch such a sensitive subject on the campaign trail and daring to make a specific proposal, and I respect Obama for having done so.  It’d be nice if McCain would offer some specific ideas, rather than just railing against the hit to the $250k+ income crowd.
   
• Having said that, I can’t help but wonder if anyone’s thought through the potential implications to the economy of imposing such a potentially large shock to the super-affluent crowd.  Granted, such folks are already making plans for the lapsing of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2011, but I do wonder about unintended consequences of major, short-notice changes to tax law.
   
• I am disappointed that so much of the public debate seems solely focused on the tax side of the equation.  Surely I’m not the only person concerned about the unsustainability of our current spending spree.  Yet I don’t think I’ve heard much discussion on just what the two candidates are thinking of doing about that problem, other than bickering over tax policy.

This afternoon, Hillary was overheard to say that she’d be willing to accept a nomination for Vice-President.

That statement got me to thinking:  What if McCain tapped Hillary for the number two slot?

Even though they differ in politics, McCain and Hillary are good buddies.  I’d bet that Hillary could draw enough support to deny Obama the win.  

Would McCain and Hillary want to win badly enough to set aside their political differences, and share a ticket to maximize their odds of winning, I wonder.

I doubt it…but it’s an interesting thought, isn’t it?

There’s been quite a bit of banter around the net, since the reemergence of McCain’s primary campaign, about whether he satisfies one of the Constitutional qualifications for becoming President — that he be a “natural-born citizen”.

McCain, of course, was born in the Panama Canal Zone to American parents.

Most reasonable folks seem to accept that McCain passes the Constitutional test.  He’s a citizen, has never been naturalized, and he was born (as opposed to having been manufactured and programmed by Cylons….or so we believe).

Nevertheless, there has been an observation that “natural-born citizen” is not a well-defined term, and perhaps there is some interpretation which would cause the intent of the Framers to be that McCain doesn’t qualify.

Well, I saw on a mailing list, something that should put even that speculation to bed.   It turns out that one of the early acts of Congress provides the missing definition, and indicates our early leaders’ intent.

From the Immigration Act of 1790:

And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens….

So, can we put this silliness behind us?

One of the threads in media-covered political discussion over the weekend has been the comparing-and-contrasting of capital gains taxes in McCain’s and Obama’s economic plans.   McCain wants to maintain the reduced capital gains tax level (along with the other Bush cuts) to maintain stimulation to the economy.   Obama wants to roll back the tax due to stimulation not offsetting the revenue loss.  Obama argues that capital gains taxes impact primarily the wealthy, while McCain rebuts that 100 million Americans had capital gains income.  Et cetera, so on and so forth.

Parallel to listening to that banter, an old bit of mental gymnastics dusted itself off and resurrected itself in my mind — the question of whether American business suffers from nearsightedness.  From a spectator’s point of view, it seems like many investment decisions and corporate operations are geared primarily towards optimizing quarter-end or year-end financials.  Yes, some effort is given to planning next year, but beyond that….

When you consider that many of today’s problems seem to be either aggravated by a focus on relatively short-term profits (consider oil-and-grain commodities speculation, or investment in mortgage-backed securities which didn’t look beyond the real-estate bubble), or are challenges with no quick answer (energy and food supply issues, preparing for the risk of climate change, the graying of America, etc.), the emphasis on short-term returns by investors seems to be in conflict with a societal need for longer planning horizons.

So, an idea has occurred to me — if politicians must muck around with capital gains tax, rather than debate maintaining or raising the tax rate, perhaps some thought should be given to altering the division between “short-term” and “long-term” capital gains.

Currently, gains on investments held longer than one year receive preferential treatment over gains on shorter-termed investments.   I wonder if shifting that division out to, say, five years, would maintain the incentive to invest, increase tax revenue, and perhaps incent businessmen and investors to put more emphasis on long-term results rather than the chaos and randomness of current-year numbers.

So, Friday afternoon, Hillary Clinton, whose strength among Dems lies among lower- and lower-middle income blue collar types, finally heeded the calls for openness, and released her and her husbands’ tax returns since they left the White House.

During that time, they show income of $108 million.

I won’t begrudge anyone’s success…but I’m sure that I’m not alone in thinking:

Both the Clintons’  and Obama’s tax returns are available for download from several locations, including the Washington Post.

A couple of thoughts come with seeing that level of income:

First, it’s a little harder to wonder whether relatively low pay for political leaders is keeping the country’s  best and brightest in private industry.   True, there is still better money to be made by being a pointy-haired white collar type high upon the totem pole, but the ancillary income associated with being a politician or an ex-politician doesn’t seem too shabby either.

Second, while I tend to agree that the Bush tax cuts were horribly irresponsible, and that reversing them would be one way to begin to address that fiscal madness…wouldn’t it be nice to see some of the politicians who call for the tax’s reversal to voluntarily donate any benefits they see from those tax cuts back to the U.S. Treasury?

Maybe the IRS ought to start including a line item for voluntary contributions.  It’d be interesting to see who among the folks who disclose tax returns would make such a contribution.

At least it looks like the Clinton’s voluntarily contributed to the public presidential campaign funds (the $3 checkbox which I thought nobody ever checked…).   Obama didn’t even do that.

So, when do we get to see McCain’s returns?

One of the advantages…or disadvantages, depending on your point of view…of listening to the news on the radio is that your mind is left to provide the illustrations.

For example, consider Bush’s designating McCain as his political heir at a White House news conference today.  I’d bet it looked a little like this:

Meanwhile, over among the Dems, there’s word that rather than fight a bloody battle all the way to Denver this August, Hillary and Obama might agree to a unity ticket….kind of like Kang and Kodos together again:

(Why yes, fighting with damned state filing transmittal forms all day has left me in an odd place mentally.  Why do you ask?)

It’s not fair! 

There are so many things I’d like to blog about, but I have several piles of work (which I’m taking a lunchtime mental health break from) preventing me from doing much more than issuing a round of congratulations:

• Congratulations to folo and Rossmiller for so vigorously discussing the second person plural pronoun, “y’all”.  Having grown up in Memphis and also having spent time in L.A. (Lower Alabama), I feel perfectly comfortable observing: All y’all yankees seem to have a hard time with simple grammar.
   
• Congratulations to John McCain for clinching the GOP nomination to run for President.   And, Congratulations to Huckabee for finally acknowledging the inevitable, doing so very graciously without damaging his prospects to campaign for a kinder, gentler theocracy in the future.
   
• Congratulations to Hillary for winning the Rhode Island, Ohio, and Texas primaries.
   
• Congratulations to Obama for winning the Vermont primary, for likely winning the Texas caucuses, and for having emerged from yesterday’s contests without having lost too much of his lead in the delegate count.
   
• Congratulations or condolences are in order for Pennsylvanians, who will now be rewarded for their stalwart refusal to jump on the bandwagon for ever-earlier primaries.  They will likely receive the brunt of Hillary’s, Obama’s, and the media’s attention from now until their primary on 22 April.
   
• Condolences for Americans; considering word of irregularities in Ohio and Texas, it seems we still don’t know how to hold an election.
   
• Congratulations to the vast right-wing conspiracy for so effectively keeping the Dems’ battling over their nominee likely until the convention this summer.
   
• And finally, congratulations to Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina, for sticking to their guns so far, and resisting the unfunded mandated privacy intrusion of Real ID.

I think the New York Times has declared war on McCain:

When Lincoln went bankrupt in 1989 — one of the biggest collapses of the savings and loan crisis, costing taxpayers $3.4 billion — the Keating Five became infamous. The scandal sent Mr. Keating to prison and ended the careers of three senators, who were censured in 1991 for intervening. Mr. McCain, who had been a less aggressive advocate for Mr. Keating than the others, was reprimanded only for “poor judgment” and was re-elected the next year.

Some people involved think Mr. McCain got off too lightly. William Black, one of the banking regulators the senator met with, argued that Mrs. McCain’s investment with Mr. Keating created an obvious conflict of interest for her husband. (Mr. McCain had said a prenuptial agreement divided the couple’s assets.) He should not be able to “put this behind him,” Mr. Black said. “It sullied his integrity.”

Gee, and to think I was worried that Hillary’s falling behind in the Dems’ race would mean we wouldn’t be treated to reminiscing about old scandals….

Last night’s results:

Wisconsin (99% reporting)
Dems — Obama 58%, Clinton 41%
GOP — McCain 55%, Huckabee 37%, Paul 5%

Hawaii (100% reporting)
Dems — Obama 76%, Clinton 24%

Washington
GOP Caucus (9 Feb, 96% reporting) — McCain 26%, Huckabee 24%, Paul 22%, Romney 15%
GOP Primary (19 Feb, 57% reporting) — McCain 49%, Huckabee 20%, Paul 20%, Romney 7%

If I’m not mistaken, that means that Obama has swept all the primaries/caucuses since Super Tuesday, that we can expect some ugly campaigning by Hillary between now and the Ohio & Texas primaries in two weeks…and that Washington Republicans can’t count votes.

I realize that given the vagaries of superdelegatedom, it’s very difficult to keep an accurate running count of how many delegates the Dem candidates have ahead of the convention.  However, could we perhaps get some consistency in the reckoning?

PoliticalWire has a comparison that highlights the discrepancies:

NBC: Obama 1,078, Clinton 969
CBS: Obama 1,242, Clinton 1,175
ABC: Obama 1,232, Clinton 1,205
CNN: Obama 1,215, Clinton 1,190
AP: Obama 1,223, Clinton 1,198

Over on the GOP side, Reliable Politics quotes McCain’s campaign manager as observing:

The results from [Tuesday's] primary elections in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC, make it mathematically impossible for Governor Huckabee to secure the Republican nomination for president. He now needs 950 delegates to secure the required 1,191. But in the remaining contests there are only 774 delegates available. He would need to win 123% of remaining delegates.