Why I don't trust conservative politicians

Why I don’t trust conservative politicians.

(and the more conservative they are the less I believe them)

They are self-centered.  They think everybody should share their views and will use their positions to impose them on the rest of us.  For example, the mayor of Gilbert (and three council members) railed against allowing retailers to conduct liquor sampling.  He said “his family frequently shopped at Sam’s Club, for example, and he would not want his children to be in an atmosphere where alcohol could be sipped.”  So because he doesn’t want his children to see adults sipping alcohol then no one else should be able to.  I guess he never takes his children to see a professional sporting event where beer is served or eat in a restaurant where there is alcohol being sipped with a meal. 

They are controlling.  It’s my-way-or-the-highway”.  They are never wrong (or will   admit it if they are) and they will use any tactic or scheme to get their way. 

They are hypocrites.  They profess one view but then get caught doing the opposite.

 For example the “family values” types who have affairs or visit prostitutes.  Or the

Anti-gay champions who get caught themselves making gay love.  Or take the debate

over extending tax cuts to the rich and for funding additional unemployment benefits.  On the one hand, conservatives demand tax cuts for the rich, but extending those breaks will expand the budget deficit by many billions.  And then the conservatives (of both parties) argue that we can’t extend unemployment benefits because that will increase the budget deficit.  They want it both ways.

They only see things in black and white.  The world is either right or wrong, yes or

 no, good or evil with no middle ground or gray areas.  No exceptions, please; it’s

 easier that way and little thinking is required. 

Excepional Nation

Exceptional Nation?

We’re not exceptional in a lot of ways:

trail in infant mortality rankings

lag  behind in K-12 education quality compared to most of Europe and Asia

don’t have the best health care of the largest democracies

don’t have the most and best manufacturing jobs anymore

trail in public transportation nationwide

But we are exceptional in other ways:

largest prison population per capita

largest military budget in the world

largest equity gap in wealth in the free world

most number of bankruptcies due to medical expenses

largest bonuses and bailouts to CEOs and corporations

Largest corporate donations given to political advertising

Time for politicians to stop bragging and get busy.

What were we thinking?

Our governor and DPS chief ditched freeway cameras and $39M in revenue but can’t find $1.36M for lifesaving Medicaid transplants?  We have no problem accepting gambling money (lotteries and casinos) but not from traffic violators.  Those “darn cameras” also catch criminals: two murderers lately and an unknown number of lesser crooks (car thieves, smugglers and kidnappers for starters).

Thirty-nine million reasons for safer highways and catching crooks. And those transplant patients?  Too bad for them it happened to be an election year.

Tax or Ax

Gray area in Phoenix fog

Tax or ax (This was published in the Arizona Republic as a letter to the editor, Dec. 19, 2010)

It shouldn’t be an either-or, black-or-white solution as many want to frame it.  The best solution will be gray, meaning some of both. 

And it’s shortsighted to look at only the next fiscal year in reaching a solution.  The wrong plan could actually cost us much more in future years.  For example, closing rest areas and parks looked like a quick fix until we found that it costs more to reopen them that it saves.  Deep cuts in education threaten our future.

 We need more revenue because we just can’t cut enough to bail us out.  We rolled back taxes several times during the 15 years of prosperity prior to the 2007 meltdown.  But which ones to “unroll”? 

Corporate taxes are already high so they’re out.  Sales taxes are high too, and we just added a temporary one-cent tax.  The most obvious choice is to raise the income tax revenue just enough to a point that when coupled with budget cuts put us on the path to a balanced budget without damaging our future. Party politics and ideologies have to be put aside or things will surely get much worse.

J Farrer

Phoenix