Now that the presidential race/political season is upon us, we had better figure out for whom our votes will be cast. It’s always a good idea to examine all the many people running for office before getting into the voting booth. Nobody’s perfect and we may get confused about which person running for office is best to meet our needs. So, let’s all take a few minutes to check it out.
(By the way, for all you people who say you’re not voting because your vote doesn’t count or you just don’t care about the election, think about living in a place where you don’t get a vote. I’ll bet if you had to live in that situation, you would do about anything to vote and be proud of it. So, let’s all vote. It’s our duty as U.S. citizens.)
The Republicans (so called "conservatives") are running with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan vs. the Democrats (so called "liberals"), who are running with President Obama and Joe Biden.
The Romney-Ryan ticket is saying that the president has gotten us into a recession with unemployment high and is blaming the liberals for everything that has gone wrong in the last 40 years.
They fail to take into account that the previous president started the war in Iraq and was wrong about "weapons of mass destruction" -- these so called "weapons of mass destruction" being the reason for the war which now appears to have been all wrong. They also refuse to give
Refusing to take responsibility for one’s behavior is a recurrent theme in this election. The Republican Congress tried to shut down the government last winter. The so called "tea party" Republicans were threatening to stop social security payments and all other forms of federal government business. This fight was over a major disagreement to do with taxes. The liberals want to tax the rich and the conservatives want to cut taxes.
This disagreement is based on the Reagan "trickle down economics" theory. This theory states that if the government allows rich people to keep their money, they will in turn invest it in our economy and thereby create jobs for working people. They believe that our economy takes care of itself without outside interference.
Liberals say that’s not the case and that rich people, if left to their own devices, will invest their money in foreign countries and take advantage of lower wages and bigger profits. Both parties believe that putting controls on the economy only creates recession. I doubt that either side is 100 percent correct about their economic beliefs.
Meanwhile, the "tax and spend liberals" are planning on a new wave of spending and taxing. The problem is that voters are sick of all the broken promises and fighting between the two political parties. I believe that if a viable third party candidate came along, that person could very likely win the presidential election. But, that is not happening, nor is it likely to happen in the foreseeable future. There’s too much money involved in politics these days and a third party is not able to keep up and stay in the race.
So, what will it be? The liberals or the conservatives? Will we tax and spend or shut down the government? Will we start a war or end one?
My question to the readers is: Does it really matter?
I believe that the two political parties are so much alike that in the end, it really doesn’t matter which one wins. The entire political system needs an overhaul. We need to start all over from the birth of the U.S. Constitution to the present. Let’s return to the original protections in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Forget the last couple hundred years or so. I like the Founding Fathers and the attitude they had about all Americans banding together and surviving the worst problems.
That’s where we’re at now! Returning to our original way of conducting business for all Americans can and will solve all of our problems.
Thomas W. King
Pownal
Oct. 9
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