Bush gets my vote.
I've decided to explain myself...even though I'm still pretty certain no one reads my crap. What do I know anyway.
Iraq
John Kerry has no big ideas on Iraq. His general theme is, I'll do it better than Bush and I'll "involve" the international community. I think this involvement means forcing Israel back to the bargaining table with Arafat. Bad idea in my opinion. Arafat is a terrorist and will always be one. Sharon has a plan, is implementing it and it will probably succeed. Remember, the "wall" that he's building isn't really a wall, it is mostly a fence.
While Bush screwed up royally so far in Iraq, he continues to move the process forward and some of the moves that appear stupid might actually be shrewd and caculated. The general population initially viewed Al Zarqawi as a hero. Now, they are sick of him. Afghanistan looked pretty bad too, but they just had elections. It isn't perfect, but it is moving in the right direction. The only danger is getting the international community to start doing business in Iraq and viewing them as legitimate. Though I think money will solve that in the long run. The French, Germans and Russians want a piece of the oil pie too.
Economy
Kerry wants to raise the minimum wage. I think that is a bad idea. Minimum wage is why many manufacturing companies move overseas. Let the market decide what the appropriate labor rate is. Our economy did just fine for almost 150 years without a minimum wage. I don't see any of his plans being able to increase the number of jobs by anything significant.
Bush inherited a crashing economy that lost .5 million jobs from the burst of the internet bubble. Then, 9/11 lost about another million. But, over the past year, we've added about 1.9 million. Bush's policies had little to do with this other than the tax cuts softened and shortened the downturn. You can argue about the appropriateness of the cuts, how they were implemented, etc, but the fact is, they helped a little. Bush's idea of re-educating workers is on point. Give the people the tools to decide what they want to do and let them have at it. It worked for me.
Taxes
Kerry is going to raise my taxes.
Bush isn't going to raise my taxes.
Social Security
Kerry wants to "find a way to fix it." He has a plan, but it is mostly more of the same.
Bush at least wants to try something. Agree with it or not, he's at least going to try, which will push congress to do something.
There are other issues in this election, but these are the ones that are important to me. Anyone can argue the merits of the various proposals, but in the end, it all boils down to which set of ideas you think will work. I think Bush's will.
posted by Chris Farley @ 3:21 PM
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