10 Areas of Contention: John McCain
Ten Issues I Can’t Agree with McCain On
Because I still haven’t decided who I will vote for on Election Day I decided to sit down and take a look at all of the major candidates. I have issues with all of them of course, but didn’t want to focus too much on the negative. There is too much of that already. I was going to write up a list of reasons to vote for McCain or Obama, but found that people were always asking me why I wasn’t planning to vote for Obama or McCain. Since that question was always in play this list just seemed easier. Don’t consider it a negative list or an attack on McCain (There will be a similar list for Obama.). It is a list of issues where I disagree with the candidate. Some of these will be broad and others will be very specific. Before anyone reads this list and starts to type that the other guys is “the same” or “worse” on some issues know that some of the issues listed on this list WILL appear on the other list as well. I have done my best to research the candidates’ policy on the following issues. My takes of course are my own and you are more than welcome to take issue with them. Since they are my views though you might not hold a difference against the candidate.
1. Illegal Immigration: This has long been one of the primary areas where I disagree with Senator McCain. His proposed amnesty bill was an unforgiveable betrayal of the American people. This is such a huge issues and McCain is wrong on so many aspects of it. Where do I start? How about with his proposal that illegal immigrants should be allowed to participate in Social Security? Excuse me? People who shouldn’t legally be working in the country should not be allowed to pay into a system for citizens. Unless of course you want to use the information gathered when they report the income to the IRS to round them up, deport them and fine the living shit out of their employer. (And yes I realize that while McCain is VERY bad on this issue, Obama is WORSE. We’ll get to him later.)
2. War on Drugs: John McCain supports the continued drug policies in this country. I realize that virtually every politician in America believes in the “war on drugs” in one way or another, but I do not share their views. In the past he has supported the death penalty for drug kingpins. This is a complex issue of course, but spending billions of dollars and putting countless people in jail for what should be a personal choice is a waste of time and money and must be stopped.
3. Same Sex Marriage: I learned a lot about McCain’s exact position on this issue during research for this piece. He has voted in the past to vote No on a ban on same-sex marriage and has said that it is a matter left up to the states. I’m generally in favor of letting states decide things like this. However, a marriage in one state that is not recognized in another simply isn’t good enough. Supporting “domestic partnerships” on the Federal level does not provide equal treatment to all people and that is what I’m looking for in a candidate.
4. Campaign Finance Reform: Issue #2 on the “why I have never liked McCain” is one of his signature screw ups. Everyone loved the idea of campaign finance “reform” because it sounds like a good idea. Take away the ability for people to buy a candidate by limiting how much they can contribute. Get the greed and corruption out of campaigns and return power to the people. The idea was great, but the laws passed were a mess. Instead of protecting people they gagged them. It has given rise to 527 groups that can work around the poorly written CFR laws and now allow these groups to wield more power than ever. Though he now wants to fight the 527 groups which he calls “clearly illegal” McCain’s CFR laws were a restriction of free speech that has added more corruption than it could have hoped to clean up.
5. Roe Vs. Wade: I am 100% Pro-Choice though I respect those who feel differently. However, McCain favors the repeal of Roe v Wade and I that isn’t something I can support. We can discuss the idea that RvW is a horrible decision from a legal standpoint, but the right that it secures is important and I am looking for a candidate who will protect that right regardless of his/her personal opinion on abortion.
6. Identity Theft: This one is going to seem a bit obscure, but it’s important to me. Identity theft costs Americans millions a year, it is tied into illegal immigration, ruins credit ratings and the Federal Government has done literally nothing to stop it. If the IRS can track whether someone paid taxes in a given year, then they can track someone fraudulently using someone’s social security number. If they would allocate the resources to stop someone from using a SS# then we could drastically reduce this crime. No major candidate has even addressed this issue (Or voter reform that was supposed to be key after the 2000 election) and it’s too bad because it actually affects hard working Americans every day.
7. Pornography: Obviously this is a huge issue for me. Months ago I drafted a letter to each of the major candidate to see if we could get an answer as to how each would handle federal prosecutions of obscenity. Not surprisingly no one had an answer. There is no specific mention of obscenity on either candidate’s web site so we are left with past votes and public statements. McCain has called for protection of children from obscene material which we can all agree on. He has not taken a stand against the prosecution and from what I can tell voted in favor of the new 2257 regulations and has talked of expanding them though he specifically sites child porn as the target. Still, he scores a loss here because he is unwilling to state that consenting adults should be allowed to do what they want with each other on screen and that other consenting adults should watch them at their leisure. That’s what I want from a candidate, period. Anything less is a loss.
8. Bush Tax Cuts: I know he has come around on these, but this is old issue #3 with McCain for me. Most people think of the BTC as something evil that only helped the rich. That was how McCain characterized them in the in the early 2000’s and I don’t give him a pass for that. What he failed to realize then (and what his opponent refuses to acknowledge now) is that these cuts included raises in the bottom level to that fewer people paid ANY taxes at all. It also included the 500 per child tax credit (500 per kid in cash back to people) and the 3500 per child deduction. (More cash based on what you pay with a higher percentage going to lower incomes since 3500 on a 50K salary is worth more than the same deduction for a 500K earner.) He was wrong about these tax cuts then and I’m not ready to give him a pass on them yet. I’m glad he has come around and his proposal to double the child exemption to 7000 per child will help even more working families.
9. Voter Reform: Remember when everyone was all crazed after the 2000 election? We need to spend money to update our voting system, to check the voter registration rolls and make sure that everyone who is supposed to vote has access to do? And what have we done to reduce voter fraud? All this ACORN mess (and it is mess with nearly a million fraudulent registrations in just the last six month), what has been done? Nothing. Zero. Nada. John McCain should have spent less time working on ways for George Soros to funnel millions into politics and done a little bit to assure that a home in Ohio doesn’t have 15 New York City residents registered to vote.
10. Promised a Balanced Budget: This one will surprise a lot of people. I’m all for a balanced budget and yet I’m dinging McCain for this? Yep. Because he’s doing it now and he is making it a promise. Look folks there is a LOT of wasteful spending in the budget and we could balance the budget if we weren’t in the middle of a damn war. Since McCain wisely chose not to name a pull out date, he can’t know exactly when this huge expense will be taken off of our books. So how the hell can he promise to balance the budget? He should have promised to work towards a balanced budget eyeing the end of the Iraq war as a time when we can look for a balanced budget. This is more honest and it would point out that while his opponent talks about money wasted in Iraq as a budget problem, he also suggests moving that wasted money from Iraq to Afghanistan making it impossible to fix the budget for God knows how long.
So there you go. Ten issues where I disagree with John McCain. Or if you rather, 10 reasons why I wouldn’t vote for McCain. Agree, disagree, comment, criticize or just ignore these and wait for the porn stories. (Housewife Kelly has a toy review with pictures and a video on her web site.)
