I Voted! That's what the little stickers they used to give you on your way out of the polling place said. I haven't gotten a sticker in several years, though. I'm thinking about not voting any more.
Just kidding. I'm not considering that at all. Furthermore, if you live in a state in which voting is taking place today, get your ass to the poll (unless it has already been there, in which case you, too, deserve a sticker)!
I don't mind telling you that the ZiggyBackRide editorial board has chosen to endorse Barack Obama. We feel that of the two Democratic candidates (they were the only ones in the running for this prestigious statement of support), whose policy positions are really rather similar, his campaign is the one most successfully promoting what ZBR likes to call "the America of our dreams."
A brief glimpse at the two websites tells the tale of one candidate charging forward and pulling citizens with him toward our goals and dreams and values, and one candidate pettily quibbling over semantics, fighting not to lose a race, rather than fighting to win as a nation. Of course, their positions as underdog and frontrunner, respectively, contribute to their ability/need to run the campaigns the way they are - the underdog free to play without the pressure of expectation - but in the end, a campaign is the reflection of the candidate that we have to work with, absent a personal conversation with him/her.
In November, the entire ZBR staff will proudly vote for either of these candidates, but for now, Obama gets the nod.
In other news, did you see the President's budget? I mean, did you see this?!? A final (I hope, but at least budgetarily final) testament to his fiscal irresponsibility/incompetency (it's one, the other, or both, and I don't know which is worse), his lack of compassion (cut services to Americans in need to try to convince anyone still stupid/bored/blindly committed enough to listen that tax cuts for the wealthy should be permanent), and his lack of desire to actually accomplish anything (no one on either side of the Congressional aisle wants to support this). Once again, sir, well done.
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2 comments:
I, too, put on my "O face" and voted for Obama, but it was a difficult decision--it's easy to make lofty promises, but that's entirely different from actually accomplishing something. But we'll see...
Oh my dear Michael, my dear brother you know I love you. But as the die-hard defender of freedom, I cannot let your budget comments pass unchallenged.
"cut services to Americans in need" -- PUH-LEASE...show me the cuts and at least a fiscal conservative like me could be happy. There are no cuts. If there's even a slowdown in the rate of growth, it would be shocking. Cuts would be nice. But they're just not there.
"tax cuts for the wealthy should be permanent" -- first, I'd do a doublecheck on what standard of living officially makes one wealthy. Second, an across-the-board tax cut disproportionately benefits the "wealthy" because -- guess what -- they pay the taxes. Facts:
The top 0.1% by income pay 17.4% of all federal taxes (earning 9.1% of the income).
The top 1% by income pay 36.9% of all federal taxes (earning 19% of the income).
The top 5% pay 57.1% of all federal taxes (earning 33.4% of the income).
The bottom 50% pay 3.3% of all federal taxes (earning 13.4% of the income).
So I'd say even with those tax cuts, we "wealthy" are still more than covering our share.
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