McCain outlines his first term

[Ddrak]

Link

- April's annual angst replaced by a simpler flat tax, illegal immigrants living humanely under a temporary worker program...

- "The Iraq war has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced."

- The Taliban threat in Afghanistan has been greatly reduced.

- "The increase in actionable intelligence that the counterinsurgency produced led to the capture or death of Osama bin Laden, and his chief lieutenants," McCain said. "There still has not been a major terrorist attack in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001."

- A "League of Democracies" has supplanted a failed United Nations to apply sanctions to the Sudanese government and halt genocide in Darfur.

- The United States has had "several years of robust growth," appropriations bills free of lawmakers' pet projects known as "earmarks," public education improved by charter schools, health care improved by expansion of the private market and an energy crisis stemmed through the start of construction on 20 new nuclear reactors.

- Democrats are asked to serve in his administration, he holds weekly news conferences and, like the British prime minister, answers questions publicly from lawmakers.

McCain also pledges to halt a Bush administration practice of enacting laws with accompanying signing statements that exempt the president from having to enforce parts he finds objectionable.

[Ddrak]

Ok - my comments:

Flat Tax - Won't work (if it's the same one we talked about earlier). Cut the silliness and make it a VAT if you want a system like that.

Illegals - Has to happen, and Obama has the same policy anyway.

Iraq - not a hope, and he hasn't really defined "won". A functioning democracy in Iraq at this point would almost certainly be a close ally of Iran which is hardly in the US's best interests.

Afghanistan - also very difficult to imagine without finding a way to switch Afghan farmers off Opium crops and onto something less profitable. I'd be interested to know how he's going to talk a less-than-enthusiastic NATO into working with the US much longer in there.

Terrorism - just plain bullshit talk (go look up a Poisson distribution sometime). After the stunning victory of the terrorists at 9/11, they've settled down for a bit. The threat has actually increased since 2001 as the Middle East was destabilized by removing Saddam.

UN - creating a new League of Nations seems like a good way to disenfranchise a whole bunch of terror sponsors to me, and no organization is going to be terribly effective anyway.

Economy - robust growth isn't going to happen. I suspect inflation is due to hit in a big way over the next 4 years no matter who is President.

Earmarks - He can't get rid of earmarks without changing the Legislative rules (ie not his call).

Charter schools - no idea, I haven't felt confident that they don't go in whacky side directions but that's a narrow sample on my part.

Health care - you need to separate it from employment because you can talk about private companies actually being good for it. Maybe with some real direct choice the consumer will be better off?

Energy crisis(?) - building new reactors sounds fine to me.

Question time - could be interesting, especially if lawmakers are allowed questions without notice. Would make the position of President a much less "ivory tower" one the current administration has fostered. I don't see that the US system could really sustain the same spirit of question time that parliamentary systems have.

Signing statements - they're unconstitutional anyway. Someone should have smacked Bush upside the head for that one long ago. Glad McCain is publicly renouncing them.

Absent is commentary on domestic spying, CIA torture or the housing/banking crisis.


If Obama follows with his first term pie-in-the-sky dreams, I'll have equal fun I'm sure!

Dd

[Klast Brell]

Sounds like he is outlining what he wishes the world would be like. He has no way of ensuring that even a fraction of those things will come true. For instance victory in Iraq.

[Rsak]

I agree.. it sounds more like a royal decree then a plausible prediction.