My dad and his brothers are all variously politically interested. There's the hard core economic conservative (who is too anti-democrat for his own good, in my opinion), there's the, I guess you'd call it, social justice guy, there's the slightly left leaning moderate (my dad), and the slightly right leaning moderate. One of the uncles had a house warming party this afternoon and the boys, being the only ones in attendance, got into the political discussions that their mother and sisters usually stop. I actually enjoy listening to the debates because the two "wingers" are very passionate while the moderates have their bullet points of, well, moderation. You can hear all the sides of the role of government argument without leaving the combination of Mother and Father DNA.
It's no wonder that I ended up, politically, where I did. And since I'm a product of the slightly left moderate primarily, I can't help but disagree with the right winger on a few key points, which I shall share here. I love my uncle, but he's too narrow minded when it comes to taxes and government.
For instance, he blames Obama. Period. End of statement. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. When my left-ish uncle blames Congress for the current economic climate, he blames Obama for supposedly signing off personally on companies like Solendra. (Point 1: I don't like using one example to describe everything--it makes a person look uninformed if they cannot name a fair few examples (of anything) and be comfortable saying that this is a majority of cases). I pointed out that at least the money was getting spent, which, since this is my dad's biggest gripe, is a good thing. The rebuttal was that the money went into the pockets of a few rich, which is debatable since I'm sure there were a few engineers involved who took a paycheck at some point before they went out of business. It is shallow-minded to ignore the role of Congress since Congressmen will throw the President under the bus if they don't like him and that it isn't the President's job to write laws, so you really can't get mad at a man who has no control when a budget with who knows what comes onto his desk at the last possible moment. Granted, we need a president who is going to walk into congress, stand at the podium, show a video of a group of kindergarteners solving problems, and explain why calling Congress a bunch of children because they can't work together is insulting to the children. (Much like calling murderers animals is insulting to animals since animals do not kill for vengence or anything more than defense or food.)
And I'm going to write this now before I forget: Romney, working for Bane Capital bought failing companies and either turned them around or eased them out of business. So it's okay for business to work properly under him, but not in the case of when government is involved? The rule of business is that many businesses will fail. Period, end of statement, yadda, yadda, yadda. But if government uses their self-imposed rules to choose which businesses to support, and said businesses fail, it's suddenly a problem? It's like telling government that they can only fund sure-things, but every gambler (and investor) knows that there's no such thing as a sure-thing. I don't know how my uncle feels about governmental investments, but by the previous logic, he shouldn't support any. That includes investing ANY money in schools, roads, or anything since there's no garantee that it will work out the way that it was intended. My libertarian self can agree with this ideology, but my, dare I say it, smart self, says that that is ridiculous.
And that brings us to point number two. The three not right wingers are in favor of a government which encourages the super-rich to spend their money. My left-leaning father is in favor of an 80% tax bracket with deductibles a mile long, much like we had until Reagan. I can agree with this (though we disagree where the top bracket should start), but of course, my uncle says that it's not government's job to point industry towards the future (hence his opposition to Solendra). The three others say that this is EXACTLY what the point of government is. I mean, the guy who is heading one of the space-adventure companies thanks NASA because without them, there would be no industry. And what if we were to wait until the last possible moment to seek energy independence because THAT is when there will be economic incentive to do so? Do the benefits outweigh the risks? Because gas skyrocketed in the 1970s and we made how much advancement until the government stepped in with incentives?
The market (which isn't capitalist and you wouldn't want a capitalist market) can only go so far. Look at how the automobile industry squashed electric cars until the government was like "hey, why aren't you doing this?" Can you imagine where electric cars will be in 100 years? Now imagine where they'd be if we'd spent the past 100 years inovating them instead of sweeping them under the rug.
It's no wonder that I ended up, politically, where I did. And since I'm a product of the slightly left moderate primarily, I can't help but disagree with the right winger on a few key points, which I shall share here. I love my uncle, but he's too narrow minded when it comes to taxes and government.
For instance, he blames Obama. Period. End of statement. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. When my left-ish uncle blames Congress for the current economic climate, he blames Obama for supposedly signing off personally on companies like Solendra. (Point 1: I don't like using one example to describe everything--it makes a person look uninformed if they cannot name a fair few examples (of anything) and be comfortable saying that this is a majority of cases). I pointed out that at least the money was getting spent, which, since this is my dad's biggest gripe, is a good thing. The rebuttal was that the money went into the pockets of a few rich, which is debatable since I'm sure there were a few engineers involved who took a paycheck at some point before they went out of business. It is shallow-minded to ignore the role of Congress since Congressmen will throw the President under the bus if they don't like him and that it isn't the President's job to write laws, so you really can't get mad at a man who has no control when a budget with who knows what comes onto his desk at the last possible moment. Granted, we need a president who is going to walk into congress, stand at the podium, show a video of a group of kindergarteners solving problems, and explain why calling Congress a bunch of children because they can't work together is insulting to the children. (Much like calling murderers animals is insulting to animals since animals do not kill for vengence or anything more than defense or food.)
And I'm going to write this now before I forget: Romney, working for Bane Capital bought failing companies and either turned them around or eased them out of business. So it's okay for business to work properly under him, but not in the case of when government is involved? The rule of business is that many businesses will fail. Period, end of statement, yadda, yadda, yadda. But if government uses their self-imposed rules to choose which businesses to support, and said businesses fail, it's suddenly a problem? It's like telling government that they can only fund sure-things, but every gambler (and investor) knows that there's no such thing as a sure-thing. I don't know how my uncle feels about governmental investments, but by the previous logic, he shouldn't support any. That includes investing ANY money in schools, roads, or anything since there's no garantee that it will work out the way that it was intended. My libertarian self can agree with this ideology, but my, dare I say it, smart self, says that that is ridiculous.
And that brings us to point number two. The three not right wingers are in favor of a government which encourages the super-rich to spend their money. My left-leaning father is in favor of an 80% tax bracket with deductibles a mile long, much like we had until Reagan. I can agree with this (though we disagree where the top bracket should start), but of course, my uncle says that it's not government's job to point industry towards the future (hence his opposition to Solendra). The three others say that this is EXACTLY what the point of government is. I mean, the guy who is heading one of the space-adventure companies thanks NASA because without them, there would be no industry. And what if we were to wait until the last possible moment to seek energy independence because THAT is when there will be economic incentive to do so? Do the benefits outweigh the risks? Because gas skyrocketed in the 1970s and we made how much advancement until the government stepped in with incentives?
The market (which isn't capitalist and you wouldn't want a capitalist market) can only go so far. Look at how the automobile industry squashed electric cars until the government was like "hey, why aren't you doing this?" Can you imagine where electric cars will be in 100 years? Now imagine where they'd be if we'd spent the past 100 years inovating them instead of sweeping them under the rug.
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