Homeland Security--The Bush View

Paul does a good job of summarizing Kerry's position on Homeland Security, with one glaring omission: What about the Patriot Act?

It is pretty clear that Kerry would eliminate certain provisions in the Act. It is also pretty clear that President Bush will push for reathorization of the Patriot Act, provisions of which would expire otherwise late next year.

Here's a website put up by the US Department of Justice explaining the Patriot Act and why it deserves reauthorization.

Paul and Kerry make some good points about beefing up security, but the basic fact is that we cannot achieve perfect security without giving up our quality of life. We cannot inspect every container that enters the United States through our ports; by some estimates we only inspect 1-2% of them at the present time, and we cannot move that number without vastly increasing the size of the inspection team.

President Bush's position is that it is far better to take the battle to the terrorists overseas than attempt to protect the almost infinite number of targets inside the United States. I would also note that President Bush's approach uses both the carrot and the stick; the carrot consists of setting up a model government in Iraq to show that Arabs can live in a democracy, just as Europeans, South Americans, Asians and Africans can. And the stick is of course the use of the US military to roust out dictators who support the terrorist networks.

The best evidence that the Bush policy on Homeland Security is working? It's really quite simply the fact that it's been over three years since 9-11 and we haven't been hit again. I guarantee you could have gotten long odds on the possibility that another terrorist attack would not happen in that period of time.

War On Terror--The Bush View

It's fair to say that President Bush has agressively pursued the War on Terror. The plan is to take the battle to the terrorists, chasing them wherever they try to hide. I am not sure exactly what the Kerry plan is at this point, except that it involves more first responders (firemen and policemen). The Bush plan is pro-active and the Kerry plan is reactive. That is not a slam at Kerry by the way; inevitably there will come another terrorist attack on American soil, and reactive strategies may save lives. As devastating as the 9-11 attacks were, the first responders probably saved many lives that day.

The major difference in the Bush and Kerry strategies can probably be summed up in one word: Iraq. I think Paul will agree that it is highly unlikely that Kerry would have pursued warfare with Saddam had he been President in 2003. I don't want to be critical of Kerry here per the blog rules, so suffice to say that Kerry has not been definitive on this point.

What could Iraq represent? Well it is possible that it will represent the flowering of democracy in the Middle East, and serve as an example to its neighbors that the Arab states are not doomed to despotism either by strongmen or Islamic law. I certainly recognize that it is not there now, but as President Bush pointed out, neither was Germany in 1946. Much depends on how rapidly economic conditions improve there in the next several years. One benefit of Iraq has largely been ignored by the media; the abandonment of Libya's WMD program.

There are many who doubt this will happen. The Arabs can't have a stable regime; inevitably they will become a theocracy or a thugocracy. It's easy to get that impression with the media covering only the bad news. But there are a number of great blogs by Iraqis who are grateful to the United States and who are determined not to let this rarest opportunity to pass by. I suggest that anyone who wants to hear the situation from the people who are living under the "occupation" check out Iraq the Model or the Mesopotamian.

In the future we face certain challenges from Iran and North Korea. There is no doubt in my mind that President Bush is best equipped to handle these two rogue states, for the simple reason that he did go to war with Iraq. Nobody can mistake the seriousness of his resolve.

Stem Cell Research--The Bush View

Contrary to popular opinion, the Bush Admininistration has funded stem cell research; in 2003 they funded $200 million for adult stem cell research, and $25 million for embryonic stem cell research. Even Michael Kinsley, no friend of the President, has acknowledged that:

It is true indeed that Bush's predecessors, from George Washington to Bill Clinton, failed to fund embryonic stem cell research.

Kinsley of course goes on to claim that nobody funded stem cell research before Bush because it didn't exist. This would no doubt come as a surprise to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which called for federal funding of stem cell research in a press release dated 8/19/99. Going a bit further back in time, I found an advertisement for a "Stem Cell Research Associate" in 1995. Here's a grant application from 1990, which notes as follows:

The Division of Blood Diseases and Resources, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), invites grant applications for a single competition for support of basic and applied research on the development and utilization of in vitro culture systems for stem cells. This research will help to gain basic insights into the control of hematopoiesis and stem cell engraftment and to produce stem cells and other specific cell populations that might be useful in transplantation and transfusion therapies.

There seems to be a common belief in the media that only embryonic stem cell lines hold breakthrough promise for cures. This is not the case.

Paralyzed people with serious spinal injuries like those afflicting Tada and Reeve have regained feeling in their bodies using adult-tissue therapies.

My personal concern about embryonic stem cell research is that it continues a dangerous pattern of searching for a use for aborted embryos (remember fetal tissue research?). But doesn't this run the risk of creating a demand for embryos? We have already seen parents have a second child for the purpose of becoming an organ donor for the existing child; it seems inevitable that cloning for the same purpose will eventually occur (since siblings are not guaranteed to have the same blood type). This continues a trend towards devaluation of human life that is extremely troubling.

Next topic: Terrorism

Tax Policy--The Bush View

The Bush Campaign's tax policy proposal for the 2004 campaign basically involves making the tax cuts of 2001-2003 permanent. As I understand Senator Kerry's proposal, it extends the tax cuts of 2001-2003, eliminates the tax cut for those earning more than $200,000, and introduces a new feature: deductibility of college tuition.

So as I see it, my task is to defend making the tax cuts permanent and keeping the tax cuts for the wealthy. Arguably I should post against deductibility of college tuition, but I'm going to choose the restrictive view and say that's coming too close to criticizing Senator Kerry. It's not like President Bush is arguing against the deduction; so in my humble opinion it's off-limits in my argument (but not Paul's).

Making Tax Cuts Permanent

Why does it matter? Because the tax cuts instituted by President Bush in 2001-2003 are scheduled to expire at various points over the next couple of years. Rather notoriously, the Death Tax is scheduled to expire in 2010; then resume in 2011; can you say throw Grandma from the train on December 31, 2010?

Rather than talk specifics, I'd rather talk about grand strategy. The objective of government with regard to the economy should be to do as little harm as possible, Taxation functions as a brake on the economy; tax cuts are the equivalent of releasing the brake.

The good news is that when you release the brake, the economy zooms ahead. This year, 2004, is on target to have the fastest economic growth since 1984. What is the similarity between those two election years? The answer is that they both came a couple years after the sitting Republican President, Reagan then and Bush today, instituted significant tax cuts.

What about the deficit? Well as a percentage of the overall economy, the deficit today is lower than much of the 1980s, and ridiculously lower than the other times the US government has found itself involved in a war. In WWII the deficit was over 100% of the overall economy. The deficit for 2003 was about 5% of the overall economy, lower than 1983-86 the Reagan years.

In this complicated world we live in, people don't make plans for the next year for their money. They make plans for 10, 20, 30+ years into the future. The wealthy especially have sophisticated financial models available to them. Tax policy has become less of an issue than it used to be in those financial models (I know, I design them myself), but there is still no doubt that people invest in America's future based on the promise of future return of their investment with some profit, and they don't forget to look hard at the effect taxation will have on that profit. If the tax rate jumps after this year, or the next, or five years from now, it just makes investment in America less attractive.

Sorry, Paul, about the lateness of the post. Researching this issue proved pretty hard.

Introducing Bush or Kerry--The Positive Blog

A lot of people decry the negative campaigning so prevalent in today's elections, but nobody does anything about it. If there are two people more unlikely people to change that around, it's Paul and I. I (along with my co-blogger Kitty) run the Kerry Haters blog, a non-stop effort to treat John F. Kerry like a pinata. Paul runs the Bush-Haters blog, which provides complementary (not complimentary) treatment to George W. Bush.

But for this blog, things are going to be different. Paul and I have agreed to debate the issues here solely by promoting our candidates without taking any potshots at Nuancy Boy or the Smirking Chimp (well, without taking any more potshots anyway). We have agreed that we can mention the other candidate's positions, but only to draw distinctions. In other words, I can't ridicule Kerry's position on tax cuts, I can only promote Bush's position on tax cuts. Similarly, Paul cannot criticize the Bush's policy on Iraq, he can only promote Kerry's proposals.

For now, there will only be two posts on each issue; that may change if Paul and I reach agreement. The person going first will have the right to choose the issue being discussed, and the person going second will have the right to riff off the first person's post, but again, only to promote their side, not to knock down the other's. This may be a little tricky at times, but we both agree to use our best efforts to keep the debate positive on our candidate and not negative on the other guy.

At some point we intend to add guest bloggers to debate issues, but this will be worked out later.

Anything you'd like to add here, Paul?