Progressive is Pragmatic, Not Punishment

There has been a lot of talk about taxes lately, as in a desperate attempt to regain control in the election John McCain is accusing of Barack Obama of raising taxes on the middle class while simultaneously claiming that his tax cuts on the middle class, which he insists won’t exist, paid for by rolling back tax hikes of the Bush administration, which he was originally against, are some form of socialism.

Of course, the American tax system has been a progressive tax system since the passage of the 16^th Amendment in 1913. There were two income taxes prior to that, during the Civil War and the 1880’s, which had flat rates. However, both of those taxes were only levied on the wealthiest of individuals in America, and therefore still adhered to the principle of the progressive tax which claims that those who make the most should shoulder the largest burden.

The historical battle between America and communist/socialist governments has made throwing around the terms “communist” and “socialist” very attractive. But I don’t know anybody in this country who is completely against any government program which dabbles in socialist ideology. I would have very little respect, and suspect very, very few Americans would oppose this view, of those who wanted to eliminate some of our programs which are quite socialist in operation, such as Social Security, Medicare, the postal service, the military, or Major League Baseball. But I digress . . .

There are two prevailing arguments against any sort of tax increase on the wealthy. The first is that the rich already pay far more than their fair share. You hear all sorts of statistics like “the wealthiest six Americans pay more in taxes than the rest of the US population, the crew of the Starship Enterprise, and every Chinese person since the beginning of time combined.” The part they leave out is that they make much more money than everybody else. So I set out to find some statistics which compare income distribution with tax burden. And I stumbled upon a very cool Excel spreadsheet (if there was ever a such thing) made up by the Congressional Budget Office. Check it out here. Unfortunately, it evidently takes two years to come up with this data (as a government employee, I should not have been as surprised as I was), because the most recent data was compiled in December 2007, but is only through 2005. Still, more recent data would actually prove my point better, because Bush helped push through another tax cut on the wealthy in 2006, as one of the Republican Congress’s last actions.

Instead of spouting a mountain of numbers, I decided to create some graphical evidence that our tax system is merely progressive and not some punishment for making money (click on the graphs to see a larger, more legible size):

I stumbled on another interesting little tidbit. Since the other popular argument among the right is that decreasing taxes for the rich increases wealth for all individuals, al la trickle down (I prefer the term “voodoo,” originated by someone whom I’m sure was ultra-liberal) economics, I decided to see how damaging increasing tax rates on the wealthiest individuals was for their earning power. Turns out, it’s not much damaging at all. In fact, their pre-tax income follows their tax rate much more proportionally than inversely:

And mean tax rates vs. mean income follows the same trend:

So it looks like demand side economics isn’t such a bad idea after all.

Of course, I’m not advocating for WWI tax rates, when the richest were taxed at about 70%. But it would appear that rolling back Bush’s tax cuts on the wealthiest while providing breaks for those who can least afford their taxes would hardly be the fatal mistake some would imply it would be.

Many argue for the flat tax as a way to eliminate the “redistribution of wealth.” But since we currently have a progressive tax system, doing so successfully could only result in one of two outcomes: either tax rates on the lower and middle classes would sharply increase, with the increase most severe on those making the least amount of money; or a drastic cut in government spending, inevitably targeting the most drastic cuts in programs designed to support the poorest individuals. Either way, it would also be a massive redistribution of wealth, this time from those most incapable of affording it to those who need it the least.

Palin’s Fiscal Hypocrisy

As (hopefully) everybody in America knows, McCain picked Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as his Vice President nominee.

I really did not think this was coming.  Word had been skewed about the political lair for a while, and over two months ago I wrote a response to a comment about why Palin would not be a very successful VP pick.  Which I stand by.

People asked me how I felt about Biden.  Excited I was not, but neither was I disappointed.  He is a safe pick, one that will help Obama in a general election in several ways, and who won’t convince any Obama supporters to defect to McCain.  I was going to write a post about the man, but didn’t.  Work has been busy lately, and they expect me to keep up at the expense of my blog.  Horrible.

But I am very excited about Governor Palin.  She’s given us more dirt in the last week than McCain and Obama have all summer.  As an Obama supporter, it’s hard to imagine a better McCain Veep pick to help achieve the goal of an Obama Presidency.

After watching highlights of the Democrat and Republican Conventions (the Cubs have been playing a lot of night games lately), I’m certain of two things.

1. If I hear the term “red meat” one more time I’m going to start systematically incorporating pundit carcass into the actual material.
2. Palin is a liar.

I don’t want to rehash on stuff that’s been said for a week.  So I won’t get into the vetting process that didn’t, or the irony of Palin’s pregnant daughter, or the ethics investigation which could conceivable recommend her impeachment less than a week before the election.

Though I have to point out that Palin named her children Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig.  Can you really trust this person’s judgment??

There’s not much material to pick through, as Palin has only had one real speech enter the national conscience, and that was Wednesday night.  But she spent a considerable amount of her time speaking of her grand accomplishments enacting fiscal responsibility in Alaska, which should work well in the party of fiscal responsibility.  Even though the U.S. Government reports Republican administrations seem to be the only ones which increase the national deficit, Bush’s tax “cuts” didn’t do anything for most people but were targeted towards the wealthiest individuals (linked figure taken from this story), and Obama intends to decrease taxes for most Americans.

And even though Palin wasn’t nearly so responsible.

First, she has talked in great lengths about killing the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere.”  Sounds good – it was turned into a symbol of government waste and McCain has used it on more than one occasion to show how bad earmarks are.

Problem is Palin was not only hesitant to cancel it, she supported it in the first place.  In a questionnaire by The Anchorage Times she said she supported using state funds to build the Gavina Island bridge.  Tonight she said she told the nation “I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere.”  But a year ago she said, “Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island.”  And she didn’t exactly tell the government “no thanks” on the money they were willing to spend, anyway, but rather spent half of it on other road projects before officially axing the bridge project.

In related news, it turns out that the pipe line she droned on about her Governorship created hasn’t actually been created yet.  It’s still in the planning stages.  And by “planning stages” I mean still awaiting approval from the people who are actually going to build the thing.  But if she works real hard, it’s estimated to come online sometime around the year 2020.  So worry not; McCain/Palin has energy assistance on the way – you just have to wait about twelve years.  No big deal.

She also got things a little fuzzy when she said she enacted massive budget cuts which brought the Alaskan budget to more responsible levels while creating a budget surplus.  This is not exactly accurate – Alaska had a budget surplus in 2006 (she was elected in November 2006 so you do the math).  The reason for the surplus?  Not budget cuts, but oil.  Oil taxes, royalties, and fees account for at least 80% of the state’s revenue.  This makes sense, since it’s the leading oil producer in the nation and its next best export is tundra.  Of course, it should be noted that gas prices in Alaska are the highest in the country, which could say something about McCain’s plan to drill to lower gas prices.

Oh, the surplus was also due to federal government spending, since Palin asked for more federal money to Alaska in earmarks per capita than any other state in the union.  Of course, Palin claims to be against these earmarks.  She just doesn’t mind asking for them, spending all the money before saying “no thanks,” and then taking credit for the surpluses they helped achieve.

And not only was Alaska’s surplus not due to Palin’s budget cuts, but Alaska’s 2007 capital budget was one of the largest in the state’s history, and the $6.6 billion operations budget escaped veto-free as the largest Alaska had ever had – despite a promise to cut $150 million from it.  But she had a good excuse; there’s not enough time between her becoming Governor and the passage of the budget.  So let me get this straight:  when she’s in Alaska she didn’t have enough time to adequately cut the budget, but when she’s in Minnesota she’s a shining example of how to do so?

Though to be fair, she did cut money from the capital budget in 2007 and 2008.  Programs that were cut included housing for homeless and runaway youths, grants to schools and nonprofit organizations, a learning center, a library, and a government transparency program (seems kind of counter to McCain’s government transparency arguments).  She also cut spending on youth sports, but allowed full funding for sport fishing hatcheries.  Probably because sport fishing brings money into the state, but youth sports only bring money into individual schools.

My two favorite program cuts?  A 20% cut in funding to help support teenage moms, and a 62% cut in special needs education funding.

So she may not be completely honest, but she seems to be winning major points for hypocrisy.

A Comparison of the Obama and Clinton Environmental Policies

I was planning on writing two environmental blogs; one detailing Obama’s plan and one detailing Clinton’s, so people could have a good understanding of the differences.  There was just one problem:

Obama and Clinton have very similar environmental plans.  In fact, they’re almost identical, with a few notable exceptions.  They both want to achieve about the same automobile gas mileage standards over almost the same period of time (Clinton would legislate an average 55 gpm compared to Obama’s 50 gpm, but would take four more years to accomplish it) by providing various economic assistance to develop technology to achieve their goals, both would create energy matrixes which produce 25% of our electricity by renewable resources by 2025, both would modernize our power grids by incorporating a “10 Smart-Grid” program, both would create “Green Job Corps” (Obama’s words) to create “green-collar” jobs (Clinton’s words) and environmentally friendly innovation, both would reduce carbon emission by 80% by 2050, and both would use the G-8 summit to promote global environmental policy.  Further, both would spend large amounts of money and resources to increase production of bio-fuels, such as bio-diesel and ethanol.  Bio-fuels are great for the environment because the carbon released by their burning was created a short time ago, allowing the earth’s carbon cycle to adjust much more quickly and effectively to their releases.  If an ear of corn is grown, nature “knows” it’s carbon is going to be released somehow; whether it’s by decay, digestion, or energy consumption, nature “knows” it’s coming.  The problem with fossil fuels is that nature “forgets” the carbon is there (since it’s been buried underground for millions of years, or 6,000 years if you’re a creationist), and when it’s burned off the modes to reintroduce it back into the cycle are not present, resulting in an unhealthy build-up of excess carbon.  This excess is the main cause of global warming.

One major agreement which I am pleased to see is a focus on “cap and trade” policies to reduce emissions from industry.  Both plans use this as a cornerstone to decrease pollutants and both plans are more or less identical.  Cap and trade can be a very valuable tool to decrease emissions by providing economic incentives for industries to do so.  Essentially these incentives take two forms.  First, companies which invest in conservation and innovation to decrease emissions are rewarded financially by selling the emissions they are allotted but not producing, providing extra profit to the company.  Secondly, companies which do not invest in conservation or innovations to decrease emissions are penalized by being forced to purchase shares of emission allowances.  If there are no shares available or the company does not purchase any, they pay a steep fine.  Since shares are auctioned, the prices of the shares become higher as less become available, further rewarding responsible companies and further penalizing irresponsible ones.

The common complaint against this system is the obvious illusion that companies which are polluting irresponsibly are allowed to circumvent law by just purchasing more pollution rights.  However, good cap and trade policy does not allow this, because geographical areas have pollution limits.  If the city of Chicago, for example, decides that “x” tons of an air pollutant is acceptable, than it doesn’t really matter if company A produces ½x-y and company B produces ½x+y.  As long as (½x-y) + (½x+y) = x, the effects of the pollution is the same as if they both just produced ½x (obviously there are more than two companies producing the pollutants; the point is total amount of pollutants is at or below the limit deemed allowable).  Both candidates plans ensure that this is the case by requiring 100% of the pollution credits to be auctioned on the market, removing the capabilities of companies to “account” their way around the total pollution allowances for any particular geographical area.  And as time goes on, the total pollution allowance is decreased, resulting in lower amounts of air pollutants.  If the system works in this fashion and is stringently enforced, it works very, very well.

However, there are some significant differences which I would like to discuss.  This is by no means exhaustive; there are some minor differences which are interesting but not necessarily important enough to include in this already-too-long comparison.  For example, both candidates have goals to replace incandescent lights.  Obama’s plan would seem to phase out incandescent bulbs more quickly, but Clinton’s plan would seem to increase use of LEDs.  Is this difference going to save the world?  Probably not.

I will say that, from an environmentalist’s view, Obama’s plan seems to be much more complete.  While Hillary Clinton seems to focus almost solely on the role of energy in our environment, Obama lays out “EPA” solutions.  That is, he provides plans to ensure air and water that is clean and free from toxins, as well as plans to preserve our lands and natural treasures.  Though I’m sure Clinton cares about these issues, they are not mentioned in her environmental policy.  Since I am personally concerned about the environment first, and energy policy second, this is pretty important to me.

A difference in which Hillary Clinton seems to be ahead of Barack Obama is forcing all new federal buildings to be “carbon neutral” by the end of 2009.  Obama says he will force all new federal buildings to be “zero emissions” by 2025.  That is a big difference in timing; though a cynic could say the difference illustrates that achieving that goal by 2009 is not possible, I believe we have the technology to accomplish this goal if we allocate enough resources to achieve it.  However, Obama’s plan does actually have its benefits over Hillary’s.  Obama is going to increase the energy efficiency of new buildings by 40% over the next five years, and that coupled with the longer time for “zero emissions” goals is going to make the manufacture of new federal buildings much cheaper.  He’s going to use this saved money to retrofit existing buildings with energy-saving updates to decrease energy use in these buildings by 25% over the next five years and ensure 30% of the federal government’s electricity comes from renewable resources by 2020.  Hillary Clinton claims the federal government pays $5.6 billion a year to “heat, cool, and power” federal buildings, so the savings would be $1.4 billion every year.  Hillary Clinton also vows to “install cost-effective retrofits in all federal buildings within five years.”  However, she does not say whether this would begin or be completed within this time, and gives no indication as to what her goals would be in regards to energy savings over this time.  A stated goal is important; it gives an objective measure for success as well as provides a definitive destination to strive toward.

But the biggest benefit Obama’s plan has over Clinton’s is Obama goes farther by striving to achieve zero emissions in all American buildings by 2030.  To accomplish this, he is going to make a national goal of making all new buildings 50% more energy efficient and all existing buildings 25% more energy efficient with the next ten years.  Hillary Clinton makes no goals to ensure that all buildings are carbon neutral in any time frame, and does not provide any specific goals for energy efficiency over any time frame, either.  Clinton claims there are 500,000 federal buildings.  Obviously, this is a small portion of all American buildings.  Making all building in the whole country carbon neutral by 2030 is certainly a much bigger energy saver than making all new buildings carbon neutral by 2009 and helping to subjectively improve energy efficiency in existing federal buildings over the next five.

However, if I stake the claim that specifics matter more than vague promises, I must give Clinton some credit here.  Though she does not give any specific goals to increase energy efficiency for existing buildings, she gives much more specific policy goals on how to achieve it, including spending money to “weatherize” 20 million low-income homes over 8 years, creating standards for energy efficiency for types of appliances which currently do not have them, and creating a “Connie Mac” program to assist home owners with updating their homes.

Another positive aspect of Clinton’s plan is she would “require corporate disclosure of financial risks posed by global warming.”  In and of itself, this is pretty meaningless.  As I see it, the only real difference it would make is providing corporate admission that global warming is real and effecting stockholders and businesses in a tangible way.  Essentially it’s a way to win an argument against a small and ever decreasing portion of the population which still argues that decreasing the effects of global warming would cost more than its benefits would provide.  Plus, if a large portion of corporate America decides to claim there are no significant negative financial impacts it could actually help fuel the argument against improving global warming.  I don’t think that would happen, but it’s possible.  It could also minimize the already ignored impact of externalities, which are the environmental costs of an activity which do not show up in the cost of the product (such as destruction of a forest or extinction of a species of animal).

That being said, this seems like the first step in forcing companies to disclose financial statements regarding their impact on global warming.  Europe already does this; companies have to take cradle-to-grave responsibility for waste their products produce, which decreases wasteful packaging; increases conservation, reuse, and recycling programs (often paid for by the companies, since that’s cheaper than allowing consumers to throw their products away); increases manufacturing of goods made out of materials which could be conserved, reused, or recycled; and creates products which are more energy efficient.  This is a very important step in improving the environment which I feel the U.S. government must take.  Since no candidate seems to endorse the idea, at least this could begin that process by making companies provide a tangible link between business practices and the financial loss caused by harm to our environment.

The last thing which jumped right out at me is the difference in how Obama and Clinton would try to get energy companies to enact programs designed to improve energy efficiency.  Both campaigns state the obvious link between energy companies’ profits and the amount of energy used.  Clinton says she will help break this link by enacting regulatory legislation requiring energy companies to initiate or participate in energy efficiency programs and innovations.  This is good.  But Obama wants to enact policies allowing companies to make more money in the future by increasing energy efficiency then they currently make by higher energy consumption.  This is a much better plan.  It’s much easier to get companies to agree to a plan that provides real financial incentives than to ask them to take a financial hit because it’s the right thing to do.  It’d be nice if that wasn’t necessarily the case, but that’s capitalism and I see nothing wrong with forgoing punishing companies when we can  reward them financially for beginning to conduct business more responsibly.  Ultimately, it entices companies to work with the government, instead of against them, which saves precious time and money wasted waging legislative and legal battles against policies they (justifiably or unjustifiably) deem unfair.

Finally, I would love to compare the Obama, Clinton, and McCain plans on energy and the environment.  There’s just one problem.  McCain doesn’t seem to have any.  McCain’s website has a half a page “discussion” explaining he feels we have a moral obligation to be “proper caretakers of creation” but does not offer anything even resembling specifics on how to do so.  He also offers an eighty second video clip (including several seconds which shows his logo but no other visual or oral material) in which he states that he believes global warming does exist and we need to take responsible actions to confront it (again, no specifics).  Oh, and he also uses that time to say we were right not to sign the Kyoto Treaty and the U.S. should dictate the terms by which the rest of the world enacts global environmental policy.  He only uses the word “energy” twice, both in the same sentence:  “He has offered common sense approaches to limit carbon emissions by harnessing market forces that will bring advanced technologies, such as nuclear energy, to the market faster, reduce our dependence on foreign supplies of energy, and see to it that America leads in a way that ensures all nations do their rightful share.”  As Republicans go, I honestly believe he’s a forerunner on energy and the environment.  Of course, this is a party which believes “climate control” is adjusting the temperature of their air conditioner.  In fairness, he probably can’t mention responsible energy or environmental policy specifics without abandoning his base.  But we would expect more from the “Straight Talk Express,” wouldn’t we?

Dead In the Water, But Still Splashing Around

Last night Obama won big in Wisconsin and Hawaii.  Hawaii was pretty much a given; so much so that neither candidate made a personal stop there.  But the Clinton campaign was hoping for either a win in Wisconsin or a close loss, and they were blown out of the water via a 17-point defeat.  It really says something about the state of the campaign that people in her camp are saying the seventeen point loss showed the negative ads were starting to work or that Obama’s negatives have “nowhere to go but up.”  (Also that Clinton is giving speeches in high school gymnasiums while Obama’s giving them in college arenas.)  They’re obviously running scared and Obama has the victory about wrapped up.  Clinton’s hope has changed from needing to win Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to needing to win those states big (probably bigger than 17 points).  However, Obama has come within two points in Texas in a CNN poll, and some are saying that Ohio is close enough to Wisconsin that Obama might end up winning that one as well.  If Hillary wins Texas close and Ohio big, no doubt she will feel like she has a legitimate chance of gaining enough superdelegates to win.  If both are close than it’s going to be very, very difficult.  If Obama wins Texas it’s all but over and if he wins Texas and Ohio I think we’ll start hearing calls for Clinton to concede the race and quit.  At that point it will be virtually impossible for her to win.

One thing that’s amazing to me is that Obama did better in Wisconsin than McCain.  They both won by 17-point margins, but Obama actually got a higher percentage of the vote (58% to 55%).  Further, Obama not only got more votes than all the Republican candidates combined, but the difference between his votes and the entire GOP total is larger than the number of votes McCain received.  The vote total, I’m sure, is partly due to the fact that McCain already has won the nomination for all intensive purposes.  However, for that very same reason it’s remarkable that Obama’s margin of victory was equal.  McCain really should be pulling 65% or 70% of the vote by now.  And who’s still voting for Ron Paul?  Honestly!

This really bodes well for Obama heading into the general election.  What’s even better is that McCain is borrowing from Clinton’s playbook; last night he made the claim that “I may not be the youngest candidate, but I’m the most experienced,” and said that he needs “make sure Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call to change.”  Evidently his old age is causing a bit of dementia; these are the exact same arguments Clinton has used, and the more she has used them the worse things have gotten for her.

McCain also made a huge tactical error that I really hope Obama calls him out on.  In pointing out his foreign policy inexperience during his victory speech last night,  McCain asked “Will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperience candidate who once suggested invading our ally, Pakistan?”  This morning,  on “Good Morning America,” McCain said that “Obama wants to bomb Pakistan without talking to the Pakistanis.  I think that’s dangerous.”  Evidently it’s okay to hunt for bin Laden and al Qaida in enemy territories, but not so much in allied ones (assuming a rather loose interpretation of the word “ally”).  But as I pointed out a few days ago on my blog, this really isn’t that deviant from American policy now.  You don’t have to take my word for it.  On Monday, that’s “Monday,” as in two days ago, America did, in fact, bomb Pakistan without asking the Pakistanis.  I’m not a war hawk by any stretch of the imagination.  I’m a peace-at-all-costs guy.  But I do understand that sometimes forceful actions need to be taken to preserve peace; that failure to disturb the peace in a controlled method now may result in less peace over the long-term which we cannot control.  And I’d like to think I’m a long-term thinker.  I’d like to think McCain is, too.  Which is why I’m sure he doesn’t object to Bush’s use of drones to bomb outlaying areas of Pakistan where al Qaida may be hiding, and without permission if the Pakistani government won’t give it.  It’s just baffling that he would attack Obama for holding this view the day after the United States took such action.

As for Clinton . . . what can I say about Clinton?  As the race moves on she’s getting more and more panicky and taking more and more extreme actions and she keeps losing worse and worse.  I thought that Obama had a good chance to win all the states between Super Tuesday and March 4^th.  I thought it probably wouldn’t happen; that Clinton would win at least one or possibly two (namely Washington and Wisconsin), yet I had hope.  But I could not have imagined he would win these so convincingly.  Yesterday’s 17-point win was actually his smallest margin of victory since Super Tuesday. 

Clinton is not doing herself any favors.  She’s really starting to show her true colors, and it’s putting people off.  I hate to admit it, but I really think the left (me included) is starting to see the Clintons for what the right has been telling us they are for sixteen years.  I haven’t changed my opinion of the Clinton presidency.  He did some good things (obviously the economy, or increasing the use of computers in schools, or increasing the number of children who could afford to go to college) and he did some bad (NAFTA, selling the radio waves, and giving secrets to China come to mind).  But this election cycle has made me realize that he’s just a petty individual hell-bent on maintaining power in any way he can.  And Hillary Clinton’s stock has fallen just as dramatically, but she didn’t have as much to begin with.

Last night she gave a terrible speech, which included the oft-championed vision she has of “insuring every single American.”  I HATE how she acts like she’s a champion for health coverage, and everybody just allows it.  The way she went after health care changes in the 90’s pushed us back decades in the fight for universal health care.  And her plan won’t cover every single American, at best it will leave out tens of thousands and at worse tens of millions.  She makes exceptions for the very poor who can’t afford coverage, just like Obama does, and just like Edwards did.  I will admit that it may cover more people than Obama’s plan, though I like Obama’s plan better because I believe it will do more to lead to single-payer coverage, which I think is ideal (which is why every other civilized, and some not-so-civilized, countries embrace it).  But here’s what really got me about the speech:  She asked, “Who are we going to leave out?  Would we leave out the mother I met who grabbed my arm and said the insurance company wouldn’t pay for the treatment that her son needed?”  Senator Clinton’s “universal health care” plan would mandate that all Americans buy health insurance.  If you’re going to argue that more people will be covered under your plan, fine.  That’s fair, and I’ll admit it.  But don’t lay a sob story on us about the currently insured and act like your plan is going to magically save those being hurt by the insurance companies.  The truth is she changed from single-payer to mandated purchased insurance about the time the insurance companies started loading up her coffers.

Not to mention that, though her plan would mandate coverage, she’s all but admitted it won’t pass.  Her claim that Obama’s plan is not good enough is that she knows if a plan that starts out covering all Americans is not introduced, by the time it’s whittled down by Congress it won’t help anybody.  Again, you can make that argument if you want; it’s a fair argument (though I think it says more about how she perceives the failures of her leadership than its accuracy across the board).  But don’t say you’re going to use universal coverage as a way to negotiate to an Obama-esque plan and then claim it’s so much better than his.

McCain also made a swipe at Obama’s plan, saying it would “bankrupt the country and ruin the quality of American health care that is the envy of the world.”  He has a point there.  The American health care system is the envy of the world, which is why the World Health Organization, a part of the UN, ranks the U.S. health care system at 37^th.  Right below Costa Rica and right above Slovenia and Cuba.  Evidently the U.S. is the envy of the world because it’s so close to Costa Rica.  Get sick?  Just fly down to the Caribbean; health care and a vacation in one go!  McCain says Obama can’t solve our problems with speeches; well, you can’t solve our problems with your head in the sand, either.  Denial is not a solution, it’s the problem.

Speaking of solutions vs. speeches, have you noticed that Hillary Clinton says she’s in the “solution business” instead of the “speech business,” but all her speeches are about how she offers more solutions without actually providing any information on what those solutions are?  Saying that you’re in the “solutions business” for twenty minutes does not actually offer any solutions.  If you can wade through the seven pages of NT Times trascripts, do so.  Obama gave a lot of examples on things he will do to change America.  Clinton only complained about how Obama can’t change it.

Finally, I want to vent about how much a sore loser Clinton is getting to be.  Yesterday she gave her speech without mentioning her loss or congratulating Obama on victory.  Even McCain congratulates Huckabee for doing so well.  And it’s not just that she ignores the fact that she’s getting killed.  Every loss comes with an excuse.  “This state has a large black population,” or “Caucuses aren’t democratic,” or “We knew we were going to lose anyway.”  She’s been constantly trying to change the rules to make her losses less impactful for a month.  She said the delegates in Michigan and Florida need to be seated though she agreed with the DNC’s decision not to seat them when she thought she was a shoe in.  She thinks that caucuses are not democratic because they force people to show up at a certain time, even though they’ve been in use for hundreds of years and she didn’t seem to have a problem with them until Obama started winning them handedly.  She tells the super-delegates to support and push her to the nomination, even if she loses the popular vote, the delegate vote, and the majority of states.  Now she wants to try and pick-off Obama’s pledged delegate votes.  You try to change the rules before the game, not after you start losing.  She’s acting like a manager complaining that balks aren’t “baseball-enough.”  I’m still bitter about the 2000 election, but it’s because rules were not followed (i.e. a recount mandated by law was halted).  I don’t think Gore lost unfairly because of the Electoral College or because of Nader and Buchanan siphoning votes.  Like them or not, these rules were in place in November of 2000 and we have to abide by them.  Now she should have to abide by the rules she agreed to play with.  Obama vs. Clinton is starting to be less of a choice between leaders and more of a choice to defend the democratic system the U.S. is based upon.