Why McCain: My Top Three Reasons

1) Defense, National Security, and Understanding of the Military

McCain’s military career, POW experience and family legacy gives him a perspective that may be unique among Presidential candidates in the history of this country. He knows generals and admirals to be human, capable of brilliance and blunder—not wizards whose word must be taken as golden. He knows soldiers need technology to succeed against our enemies, and to protect themselves, but understands better than most the importance of the morale & training of the individual soldier, sailor or airman. He will not send, as Reagan (Lebanon), Carter (Iran hostage crisis), Clinton (Somalia) and W (Iraq & Afghanistan) have done, the American military to places where the mission is vague, troops are ill-equipped or ill-prepared, or where multiple combat and post-combat strategies are not considered. He will ensure, as he has done in Iraq (to the best of his power as a senator) that when troops do leave a combat area, they leave in victory, with the stature of the United States military intact. When today's soldiers defeat the enemy and leave a better, freer state behind them, that reputation protects future troops and lessens the likelihood of emboldened enemies risking engagement.

My uncle died as a young POW of the Japanese in the Philippines, so John McCain's epiphany during his captivity in Vietnam regarding the exceptionalism of the United States strikes home in a very personal way. His story created an emotional connection for me that underwrites not only my loyalty to McCain, but my view of the world. Imagine that you have a son, daughter or spouse in the Armed Forces, because they also believe that this is a country worth fighting for. Honestly, whom would you trust more as his or her Commander-in-Chief: McCain or Obama?

Those who continue to call McCain a "warmonger" have never listened with an open mind to his thoughts on the subject of war, as expressed here in March of 2008: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/News/Speeches/872473dd-9ccb-4ab4-9d0d-ec54f0e7a497.htm. McCain is far more reticient about sending troops into Pakistan than Obama, who seems anxious to send more troops everywhere except Iraq.

On January 10, 2007, the night the surge of troops to Iraq was announced, Obama declared, "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse." Yet to admit his original error, and subsequent denials of the effectiveness of the surge-in-progress to the contrary, Obama finally recently expressed his amazement that the "surge had succeeded beyond our wildest dreams" (what--Petraeus, Kagan and Keane are lucky lunatics?) and removed all prior criticism of the surge from his campaign website.

I agree with Senator Obama that sound judgment is a much more essential trait for a wise leader than a resume of experience, but he has yet to provide any strong example of either characteristic, while in McCain I see plenty of both.

Finally, I'm confident that McCain's foreign policy will not invite emergency responses by adopting weak, vacillating postures against our enemies, and against the enemies of our allies. For the bitter breakdown of the value of assuming the dulcet tones of one's own voice are sufficient to prevent conflict, see: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/obama-s--talking--cure-12504 by Joshua Muravchik.

2) Taxes & Spending

The differences between Democratic and Republican economic plans boil down to this: Democrats want to take your tax dollars and redistribute them to people and programs they think are deserving, while Republicans (the fiscally responsible ones, anyway, like McCain) want you to keep more of your net earnings to purchase products and services that you think are deserving (and which happen to be the most sustainable sources of jobs and income, rather than government-funded programs). In other words, Obama and Biden don’t trust you to make the correct decisions about what to do with your money, but McCain and Palin give you a little more credit.

Perhaps you’re thinking, "I’m not rich, so Obama/Biden won’t tax me, and maybe I’ll get some of those redistributed dollars (in the form of a universal healthcare plan, for instance)". Maybe, for the first year or so, that works. Then “the rich” (which, in good years, according to Obama/Biden, includes many subchapter-S small business owners such as yours truly, who combine business & personal income on one tax return) will adjust by downsizing, deferring projects and capital purchases—so that the anticipated tax revenue gain is never fully realized. Earlier this year an article appeared in the WSJ ("You Can't Soak the Rich", May 20, 2008) describing the work of a San Francisco-based economist, Kurt Hauser. Accompanying the article was a graph depicting the significant decline in the top income tax rates from 90% in the Fifties to about 35% today. The graph shows little blips upwards in the late Sixties and the Nineties, thanks to Democratic administrations, with big drops in the early Sixties and the Eighties, courtesy of JFK and Reagan). Here's the astonishing thing, though--at the bottom of the graph was an almost perfectly horizontal line indicating the history of tax revenues as a percentage of GDP in the same period---it remained almostly constantly at 20%, no matter what tax-cutters or tax boosters did to try to affect it. The state of the economy is a far greater influence on income, both personal and federal, than tax policy. If GDP increases, so do revenues; if it drops, revenues also drop.

So what happens to the “affordable” healthcare plan funded by those supposedly increased revenues? As with Medicare, the guarantee of government backing removes the risk that usually keeps costs in check in the private sector, so the program's costs soon start to exceed initial projections, and "universal healthcare" becomes yet another entitlement deficit-buster.

Democrats who support Obama’s tax increase on the “rich” and tax cuts for the “middle class” claim that the Clinton era from 1993 to 1999 proves the argument that such increases will help decrease the deficit. While it is true that the federal budget went from a deficit to a surplus in those years, a Senate Finance committee study determined that only 13% of the deficit reduction could be attributed to the tax increase, according to a floor speech by Senator Chuck Grassley in July 2008. The rest of the reduction resulted from economic growth (which Democrats can reasonably argue was not hurt by the tax increases, but Republicans can argue was helped by the end of the Cold War and Bush One’s prevention of a Saddam Hussein takeover of the Kuwait oil fields) and spending cuts—mostly in defense (Clinton cut eight divisions from the Army, in response to the above-mentioned "Peace Dividend"). Without substantial spending cuts, such as those addressed in McCain's proposed one year spending freeze on all budget items except defense and veterans' benefits, the deficit will continue to expand. McCain has also promised to balance the budget by the end of his first term, something Obama never even mentions as a commitment.

Anyway, Bill Clinton dropped his plans for a middle class tax cut just before the 1992 election, privately calling it “intellectually dishonest” (The Agenda, by Bob Woodward). Besides, which would you prefer--the $500-$1,000 Obama has promised as his tax cut/refundable credit (actually a refund of Social Security payroll taxes paid, meaning this will have to be paid by other, higher-earning taxpayers) or a private sector job created and sustained by businesses unburdened by mandated benefits or the second highest corporate tax rate in the world?

Obama's sliding tax credits phase out as individuals earn more (over $75,000), as well, putting them into higher tax rate brackets than the current system, and thus, as with all "progressive" tax policies, provide a disincentive to work to earn more (taxable) income.

Further justification for my support of McCain as a friend to small businessmen and taxpayers comes from a couple of congressional watchdog groups who have compared McCain's record with Obama's:

McCain gets a 100% rating in both the 109th & 110th Congress from the National Federation for Independent Businesses (we belong to this organization), while Obama got a 13% rating his first year, and in the 110th (as he began his run for President) a 50% rating (the rating indicates the number of times his vote matched the recommendation of the NFIB).

From the Citizens Against Government Waste, McCain gets an 88% lifetime rating (sixth highest in the Senate), Obama lifetime 18%, Biden, in 2007--0%. Comparing records, not rhetoric, puts McCain way ahead in this category.

3) Healthcare

Is the goal of universal health care to make citizens healthier? Or is it just to make those of us who have health insurance feel less guilty, and hospitals more profitable? As Mike Huckabee has said, having health insurance does not automatically make you healthier, nor does it guarantee that you will seek out preventative medical care even when it is free or cheap to do so. How else does one explain the higher survival rate of American women diagnosed with breast cancer than their British counterparts, who’ve had free healthcare for decades?

As an employer who subsidizes 75% of our employees’ health insurance premiums, I figured out that I could afford to give each of our 40 covered employees an average annual raise of about $4500 ($2000 +/-more for families, $2000 +/- less for singles) if I didn’t have to pay any health insurance premium at all on their behalf, which they could then deposit in their own individual Health Savings Account, supplemented by their former 25% contribution. Throw in the savings gained by cancelling thousand-dollar contracts with the compliance industry and there's more than enough to pay a family's HSA premium (granted, at group rates). A reluctant monarch, I would much rather have my employees choose their own plan and make their own healthcare decisions, free from my decidedly un-omnipotent interference.

I detest the current paternalistic, privacy-invading system that encourages employers to oversee their employees’ personal health, chiding perfectly self-aware adults for smoking or overeating to try to keep group rates low. Obama’s plan, which encourages people to seek government rather than private plans, will have the government doing the scolding, but if individuals ignore those admonitions, I’ll still have to pay for their poor decisions in the form of higher premiums or higher taxes—or will individuals face individual consequences for poor decisions under the Obama plan? That doesn’t sound “fair”, so I doubt it.

Who pays for Obama's health plan? He says that, in addition to raising $50-65 billion from tax increases, additional funds will come from "eliminating waste and inefficiency" in the health care system. How will he extract those funds from the system? Why, by spending $50 billion to promote ways to "eliminate waste and inefficiency"!
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.28755/pub_detail.asp
Does this sound like the definition of a circular argument?

McCain’s plan to remove the current deduction for group-covered employees, and to issue a tax credit ($5000 for families, $2500 for individuals) to all taxpayers (not just those covered by a group plan) who purchase health insurance (individually or through payroll premium contributions) is the first step towards allowing the currently uninsured, or individually insured, the same access to credible coverage as their group-covered peers. Even one of Obama's senior economic advisors, Jason Furman, endorsed removing this deduction two years ago, as a step towards greater equality of access to health insurance (Jason Furman, "Our Unhealthy Tax Code," Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. Issue 1, Summer 2006).

Employees can still remain with their current plan, and use the savings from the credit to make deposits in an individual HSA, which they can use for out-of-pocket medical expenses, or to save for a future job change. Employees or individuals enrolled in an HSA may obtain even greater savings through incentives for healthy behavior from the insurance plan.

Those who are currently uninsured due to the cost of covering their high risk medical conditions would, until all states began to require Guaranteed Access Plans, would still face exorbitant premiums--but would receive help from the tax credit if they used that to help purchase insurance, as well as income-level assistance. Also, McCain's plan to allow insurance companies to sell plans across state lines would allow individuals whose only choice now is their state "pool" far more options.