Merry Thanksgivoween!

Alfred Smith Dinner

In case you missed the traditional roast - this time between McCain & Obama...

Dear Abby - Who Should I Vote For?

I'm truly on the bubble. Yup, that's right, after more than a year of presidential politics, I still don't know who I'm voting for - it must be that I don't get to see enough commercials (I know you all wish you lived in Colorado, a "battle ground" state, where EVERY commercial is a political commercial - I kid you not). Anyway, my problem seems to stem from the fact that each candidate supports something I like, so I'm trying to do a comparison list - not working out.

Budget: McCain "says" he'll balance the budget by 2010, I really like that, as the national debt and deficit spending continues to irritate me beyond belief, and it's very hard to accept that CLINTON balanced the budget and the Republicans continue to screw it up. The problem is the national tax policy center calculated out each candidates tax proposals - McCain's is anticipated to increase the national debt by 5 trilliion dollars (yup a 50% increase). Obama doesn't say anythng about balancing the budget, in fact his plan talks about increased spending, but because he increases top income taxes, corporate taxes and capital taxes, the tax policy center calculates he'll only increase the debt 3.5 trillion dollars. My biggest problem with this plan is the capital gains tax. Since Jimmy Carter, each president has decreased the capital gains tax, and yes Clinton put it at the current 15%. Each time the captial gains tax was decreased, it caused an INCREASE in tax revenue due to increased investing. So I think Obama's plan partially sucks, but if the tax policy center is right, I hate even more the proposed deficit increase under McCain - actually I'm completely pissed that my choices are a 5 or 3.5 trillion dollar increase - is there a reduction option somewhere???

Health Care: If I have to hear about Obama and "Universal Healthcare" again I'm going to scream. Government run healthcare, really? I think we tried a smaller version of that called Medicaid, and that program sucks and wastes tons of money, so why not make a similar program on a bigger scale - awesome idea. Of course I'm not excited about McCain's "credit" plan either. Maybe I can just hope Congress kills both these ideas.

Iraq: Ok, I'm pretty clear that McCain's plan was right. Obama was wrong. However, I would like to see the Iraqi government get their crap together and start taking things over. No matter when you pull out, there will be issues - pull the band aid off!!!!

The Economy: Again, not a fan of either candidate. They both love the bailout. I'm not crazy about the idea - see deficit above, but maybe over time if some banks become profitable again we can at least break even - that's all I want. However, this notion of "freezing" or "buying" ARM's from subprime mortgagees pisses me off probably more than anything else. I'll be honest, when we moved we were asked if we wanted one of these things, but we did our homework and knew that fixed was better, so we didn't take the upfront reduced payment in order to secure a long term good rate that gave us the best deal overall. If people who had no business buying a home get a better rate and get it transferred to a fixed rate than we did because we did the "right" thing, I will go ballistic. You should not gain from making a poor choice - and there should be no difference if 1 person makes that poor choice or 10 million make that poor choice. McCain has been more explicit about looking at doing this, but Obama has said similar things.

Abortion: Really - they can't do anything about it.

Stem Cell Research - Fire up the research machine. Stem Cells for everyone! The fact we are ignoring one fo the most promising avenues for medical cures is ridiculous. Again, they both support it.

Gun Control - I'll be honest, after years of being a gun supporter and owner, I'm about done. Again, there isn't much the President can do, about the only territory left is assault weapons, and I'm sorry, but there are no good reasons to have one. Hunting? I've seen people hunt with bows, if you need an M-16 to hunt a deer, maybe hunting isn't your sport. McCain opposes a ban on assault weapons, so one small strike. Obama support is, one little check.

Energy: I like McCain's Lexington Project. I'm a bit iffy on nuclear, but I also realize we probably can't convert to wind, solar, natural gas, etc... and be 100% self-sufficient in 15 years, so I could probably suck it up a bit and deal with some nuclear with the understanding that it would eventually be phased out. Obama, well he's all over the map on this one. Says more wind and solar, but I can't find much more concrete plans.

Education: Come on - name me a candidate who says education is secondary? Personally I'd like to see the Department of Education reduced to almost nothing, take that extra money (along with the rest of it) and pass it to states in block grants. Maybe some quantative goals that have to be met set by the feds, but then let the States do it. I continue to see it as ridiculous that layer upon layer of administration from high state levels, all the way through the feds micro-manage how schools run. Shut up and let schools teach. I've read both of their "plans" and nothing is concrete and certainly nothing geared towards what I want.

The rest of the issues get, in my opinion, less and less important (I guess it's possible I missed a big one). So now what? I'm not willing to decide the presidential election based on the vice president (I am slowly growing intolerant of Sarah "Dan Quayle" Palin). Though that would make it easy for me. I swear if I could get a clear answer on the deficit spending/national debt issue - that would do it for me! Anyone got that analysis sitting around????

Oktoberfest

Ah, the sweet sound of 100 brauts on the grill, 75 hot dogs, 16 gallons of Sunshine Wheat Beer and 74 of your closest friends. Welcome Fall!!!! The majority of our Oktoberfest party is winding down - with about a dozen people here to go into the night. It was awesome. Fire, food, friends - what more do you want? If you missed it, start crying, it was a sight to see. We'll be back next year - bigger and better.

Fossil Ridge Regional Competition

I'm trying to upload the video of Micauley in the Fossil Ridge CBA Regional Competition from this last Wednesday. It's about 11 minutes long so youtube may not let me upload it. I'll edit this post and include it if I can. Until then (or maybe forever), here is the link (go see, it may take awhile).

Say Again?

Last night McKaiden was reading a book. It was a bit harder, but he was getting through it with an occassional question to me on what a word was. So every few minutes I would get a word spelled to me and I would tell him what it was. This went on for a few minutes and I was in the middle of talking to Micauley. McKaiden asked for help again and spelled the word he was having trouble with. I must have mis-heard the word because I was talking to Micauley, so I asked McKaiden to say it again. V-I-R-G-I-N was the response. Before it could even register with me, Micauley looks at McKaiden and says, "What are you reading?" It then occurs to me what he spelled and I wonder what book could a 6 year old be reading that has that in it? I walk around and read the word he is pointing to, V-I-R-G-I-N, yup he spelled it right - oh, but the word after that was "Islands".

Go

Getting Micauley to practice, McKaiden and I going to a football game in the rain, All of us at Madison's soccer game, Driving to Boulder to see a movie with Tiffany's family, Going out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant for Tiffany's birthday. That would be a busy week - except we did all of that yesterday. The day ended by me going to go to bed at 10:30 p.m., the earliest I can remember going to bed in a very long time - ever get into bed just so happy you can't stop smiling - and yes, simply because you get to go to sleep! I love sleep.

Swing Vote

So I seem to be doing nothing be getting irritated with McCain and Obama. Today's irritation just happens to be aimed at Obama. I'm sure there are instances where McCain has done something like this, but it's Obama I caught. As I was driving into work there was a radio commercial talking about McCain's proposed tax credit for families to purchase health insurance. The Obama ad goes on and on about how families would be "taxed" on this credit, so for the first time ever Americans would be "taxed" for their health benefits. The point obviously being "bad McCain for taxing Americans for their health insurance." I sat there a second and then thought, what the hell are they talking about? We get taxed on EVERY credit. Whether it's child care tax credit, earned income tax credit, the "stimulus" tax credit, etc... Every credit that results in a refund is required to be included in your tax return as "income" and therefore theoretically gets taxed. The reason we haven't had our "health benefits" taxed in the past is because we've never had a credit for them. So look at it this way - right now if you spend $5,000 a year purchasing health insurance you are out $5,000. If you fall within the category of people who can deduct that amount you'll get to deduct about $1,200 of that at most (though we've never qualified for the deduction, so this is unlikely at best). It's not a credit, so you don't get refunded on it. But best case - you have spent $3,800 (worst case you've spent $5,000). Now, with the new credit proposed, you would get the entire $5,000 deducted/refunded (depending on your tax liability). WORST case is you get it all refunded, but then you'll have to pay taxes on it, so we'll say $1,200 in taxes. You still take home $3,800. So the worst case situation under the McCain plan results in you paying $1,200 for health insurance and the best case under the current system results in you paying $3,800 for the same health insurance. There are lots of variations (most of them making this distinction even greater), but no matter how you cut it up, call it a tax or some other spin, you still come out ahead with the McCain proposal (assuming you buy your own health insurance). Now, whether you like the idea of a new unfunded credit/benefit program is a whole other question...

David & Tiffany's Secret Video

No, you won't be getting any sort of x-rated footage. Instead, we found an old VHS tape of our Dobson High School Christmas Concert from December 1989. Yeah, the concert was good, but 45 minutes of our high school music concert probably isn't what you want to watch right now. Instead, the highly entertaining part was after the concert. Video of my parents, of random people from high school, and yes, Tiffany and I. Oh, it really can't be more entertaining now can it?

Palin vs. Biden

AWESOME!!!! Oh, and her reference to a "maverick" drinking game - I SO came up with that idea the next morning and told people at work, do I get royalties?