Breaking Down “A Stronger America”

Coming into the final week before the election, the Kerry campaign continues to focus on a theme we’ve heard in debates and stump speeches for many months now.

The concept of a “Stronger America” is a good concept and one worth pursuing. However, there is some weaknesses in the methodology intended to achieve this result.

First, it’s important to clarify the goals here. What makes America “strong”? What makes America “stronger”?

History has demonstrated that America’s strength lies not in military strength (as strong as it is), but in the economy. Depite the policy of a weaker dollar, the U.S. Dollar continues to be the strongest and most stabilizing economic force globally. The controversial commodity, oil, is still the absolute requirement for industrial nations worldwide and it is dollar-based. In fact, the argument could be made that higher oil prices do not necessarily indicate exacerbated inflation or out of control supply-and-demand as much as it demonstrates the fruition of the “weak dollar” policy which causes more dollars to flow in the global economy. Of course, making that argument assumes that the fine line walked with this policy will not spill into exorbitant inflation rates but I digress.

If the strength of America is in its economy (and money talks!) then “a stronger America” requires sound fiscal policy and a strong economy.

With that premise, here are a few arguments I have with the Kerry economic policy.

1) As much as corporate America is villainized by the left, they spend the most money to drive the economy. When was the last time you heard of an individual making a purchase of 400 Dell Workstations or an individual hiring 3 new workers. These are things that businesses (big and small) do that causes trade to flow and strengthen the economy. The Kerry-Edwards ticket calls for penalizing companies that outsource jobs outside of the United States….which is, almost every major company in the US??? How many Americans do you think are working at the Chinese GM facilities? Or what about those pesky Canadians taking jobs at UPS? The idea of outsourcing American jobs is a game of smoke and mirrors because Ikea, a Swedish company, currently has 23 retail stores in the United States and Major LEague Baseball’s Seattle Mariners have a mojrity ownership by Nintendo, a Japanese company.

Bottom line, the outsourcing argument is a farce because proportionally, an equivalent amount of money leaves this country as comes in. It’s called free trade and it’s the power behind capitalism.

2) Kerry’s tax plan creates a class war in a nation that is already divided to the hilt. Quite regularly, Kerry will divide the country into the top 2% and everyone else and claim to raises taxes on that top 2% and lower it on everyone else. The problem with this policy is that the top 2% already pay the highest taxes based on percentages. How many people do you know, making $35,000 a year pay a 35% income tax rate? The answer is none, of course, because it doesn’t happen. And what is this 2% cutoff? $100,000. If I made $100,000 a year, I too, would call myself wealthy. However, what the Kerry policy doesn’t factor in is that many of these “individuals” making $100,000 are actually small business owners that file “company taxes” under their social security number taking people that realistically live middle-class lives and socking them with taxes that do nothing but destroy small business and small business owners. And what are these 6 figure income earners paying for in large part? Social Security, Medicare, No Child Left Behind…. These are all programs that suck the life out of our national budget, that provide handouts to lower income Americans but provide little to the majority contributor - the “wealthy”. This serves to harm our economy in the long run.

While a Stronger America is a nice positive message that makes people feel warm and cuddly, it doesn’t really address underlying issues in our domestic agenda. It’s a politically opportunistic phrase that glosees over the deeper issues at work. It frightens me to think of the longterm results of some of Kerry’s policies.

The up side though, is that if Kerry wins the Presidency he will be shackled in the republican owned Congress.

Tagged as: bush, election04, george w. bush, john kerry, Op-Ed, politics