We should change the way we operate the primaries and move towards only party members selecting the candidate.  This means no election in all the states.  No long process where the people vet all the candidates and they say things that will later get repeated to hurt them when they all want to be friends again.  Most importantly it means that Republicans can run a Republican and Democrats can run a Democrat with out the cross over voting we have seen which allows the Democrats to pick a week Republican candidate.  Its the way the Republic runs, why not extended this to selecting our candidate for President.

Spending in the last 2 years:

Since the 2007 Democrat's took over, they have incurred more debt than the Republican congress did in the prior 6 years.  Its close, but as of today, I have them at about $100B higher in the last 2 years, then the previous 6.  I don't think this is the right direction.

Mandatory and Discretionary spending:

Mandatory spending has been growing over the Bush years as well and Discretionary has been keeping pace.  Mandatory was around 53% and rose for a few years. What is further surprising is that spending on the war while higher than pre-war obviously, has not been the major spending contribution. Also its not domestic spending its Defense spending that has grown. I can’t find out where that money went.

As a Percentage change the 2007 numbers for Democrats had discretionary spending down to 53% again and the percentage increase was lower than ever at ~2% increase. One can only suspect they cut out the Defense money that I can’t find where it went because the war is still going on. If you know – Comment and let us know.

*Update – Please let me know if you can confirm this. I was told that the ‘Defense spending’ increase is really earmarks attached to the defense appropriations.

2008 will be an entirely different story: 

This bail out is all about creating support for the Democratic Governor's failed policies in Michigan to buy the state for the next elections.  Nothing more.  If GM goes under, we make Toyota in this country, and we can drive those.  This is nothing more than politics and if you don't live in MI should be saying no way to this bail out which looting of the federal treasury.

Those voting for Obama also chant it can't get worse.  Really?  I won't repeat the Republican talking points of GDP growth and low unemployment for years under Bush.  The economy has definitely soured.  People have been scared to death by the media mostly in not spending money and it took a LOT of scaring.  The crunch in capital is probably having more of an impact on spending than fear, because people are just out of money.  They spent too much for years, and now they are out of credit.  So what is the answer?  Reward that behavior and bail out everyone who was bad.  It can get much worse when inflation hits the US as it will.  It has to because of the amount of money we are printing.  Just run the press longer, watch the dollar drop and gas prices will rise again.  So what can get worse?

The economy - The bail outs will jeapordize even the healthy businesses and those who actaully tried to save money.  Government involvement created much of the current problem, and any activity they take to correct it will have a negative impact on our future.

Unemployment - Its only going higher in 2009.  When the government creates 100 jobs, its at the cost of 120 private sector jobs.  These are not actually numbers based on research, I'll grant you that, it commentary to show the example.

Safety - Your safety is going to be pressed to the limit.  Russia and Iran are already making moves of aggression to test the new guy.  We don't have the economy that Reagan had to out spend the Russian's this time.  Economics mostly based on oil are in their favor this time.  We buy oil from the people who hate us, and therefor will not be able to oppose them economically without significant sacrific.  Without a strong presence in the world, they will start to plan for the next 9/11.  We could see that again.

Mandatory Service - 3 months of boot camp and slave labor for all Americans 18-25 is the latest proposal.  I wonder what the youth vote thinks about that.

This is just the short simple list.  I'm not saying these things are going to happen.  I am saying that the statement it can't get worse is just not reasonable.  We don't want it to get worse.  We need it to get better.  But lets not give total control and faith to the government to do what ever they want to solve our problems with the assumption it can't get worse.  Remeber - Its still the best place in the world. 

 

An Obama support repeated the line that we can't afford the war.  We are in financial crisis.  Interesting I said, how much are we spending?  10Billion a month.  So that's what? 120 billion.  We just blew 5 Trillion in bailouts.  Even if you just count what was allocated, being the 700 Billion, the war is small in comparison.  Further military spending is below the 30 year average.  So we are spending less on the military, than we have historically.  The war is not creating the financial burden.  Its the crazy spending in Washington that we can't afford.  Its the banking bail out we can't afford.  Its the GM bail out we can't afford.  Its printing money all the time we can't afford.  Its social security and medicare at 1.2 Trillion/ year and growing that we can't afford.  Don't tell me we can't afford $120B and then loot the treasury for $700B to bail out our government officials and millionaire execs who caused the problem.  That is what we can't afford.

I have started to put together some research on deficit spending. Spending is in the power of congress, not the President. Yes, Bush should have used a veto, but lets look at the historical analysis of debt in this country.

This chart can be a little confusing, but the goal is to assign the results of the S&P 500 and the debt to Congress and/or President in the Election year. So for debt under the 1971 column is the result of the 1971 elected officials. They operated at 33% Debt to GDP ratio. The results for 2007 elected officials are as up to date as today – November 13^th as best as possible since it’s not over yet. This numbers are staggering.  If you see numbers that you think are in error, please let me know so that I can correct them.  I did have to do this quickly.

Election Year *6	1970	1971	1973	1975	1977	1979	1981	1983	1985	1987	1989	1991	1993	1995	1997	1999	2001	2003	2005	2007	2009
President *2		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	1	0
Congress *3		0	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	0	1	1	0	0
Debt *4 (B)	370	427	475	620	772	908	1142	1572	2125	2602	3233	4065	4700	5225	5526	5674	6228	7379	8507	10625
S&P *5	92.1	118	68.5	108	96	136	141	162	242	278	330	436	459	741	1229	1320	880	1212	1468	829
GDP *1 (B)		1127	1383	1638	2031	2563	3128	3537	4220	4740	5484	5996	6657	7398	8304	9268	10128	10961	12422	13808
Debt/GDP		33%	31%	29%	31%	30%	29%	32%	37%	45%	47%	54%	61%	64%	63%	60%	56%	57%	59%	62%
Debt Change		57	48	145	152	136	234	430	553	477	631	832	635	525	301	148	554	1151	1128	2118
S&P Change		25.9	-50	39	-12	40	4.6	20.9	80.5	36	52	106	23	282	488	91	-440	332	256	-639
		Nixon			Ford		Carter		Regan/Bush				Clinton				Bush II				Obama
*	This chart is setup to assign results to the congress and president in power at that time.
1		GDP is not expressed in 'real' (Chained)dollars which is artifically manipulated number by the government to make inflation appear lower and GDP appear higher
2		0 = Democrat, 1 = Repbublican; done to use analysis tools on the data
3		0 = Democrat, 1 = Repbublican; done to use analysis tools on the data
4		Treasury Direct.com - Data point is 9/30 from previous year; To show what the new administration started with
5		Using Yahoo, Monthly, Dec from the year before; What the new administration started with; Could argue January would be better
6		Year the new congress took office

In my earlier post about Obama's first press conference as the president elect, I said there were some stumbles, but I was willing to look past it.  He was no better than Bush, to be sure.  But then I read a Times/CNN article, that I have not been able to find to re-link here, that said he was as eloquent as ever.  Not come on.  That is just silly.  So I went out to get the video again.  I watched it again with the intent to cut it down to the um and stumbles.  In the end I gave up, because its better to just watch the entire thing, there was only a few minutes to actually cut out.  It was actually worse then I remembered and when you throw in the Reagan gaff, its just bad. 
Its shame we have to go back and correct this stuff, but the 'media' just can't be trusted in anyway to do their job anymore.  They have turned into paid bloggers with every bit as much an agenda as any other blogger.

The future is in finding actual conservatives. McCain was not a conservative and that could not energize the base. Bush was certainly not fiscally conservative or amazingly irresponsible. He didn’t veto any budgets or anything for that matter for years. People expect the government to spend it, like it was their own. That’s hard because everyone would spend the money on something different, that’s why we have representatives. But in all cases Republicans need to stand for fiscal responsibility. We need to fight for balanced budgets at every level of government.

Republicans need to continue to stand for military strength. No Republic can stand without military strength. The world will test Obama, because they believe he will be passive. All indications are that he will be. That said, Americans understand that their safety comes first and they expect their government to protect them. I believe Republicans will continue to hold an advantage on this issue moving into the mid-term elections. This includes securing our borders and coming up with a responsible way allow immigrants to come to this country and become citizens.

Social moderation, I believe will help the Republican Party. While I believe in traditional conservative values, I don’t believe it’s the place of the government to try to enforce those values and certainly not a Federal level. The party needs to take the focus off these issues, while staying to true to their values. That is a hard balance to achieve. Also traditional values are supported by Latinos as seen in the recent CA voting.

Energy Independence needs to be a focus of the future vision of the party. This is where McCain desperately failed to take advantage of a key issue that made him different from Liberals and the masses of people were on his side. Even with oil prices dropping energy is a key issue both for the economy and our security. We need to support more local drilling, more fuel choices, clean coal and nuclear – That all of the above approach. It can be done responsibly and has the support of the American people.

I think the Republican Party should champion extreme tax reform and the elimination of federal income tax. This is an issue I don’t expect the party to agree with me on. That said, the American people do not agree with the Republican tax plans. The Republican party’s tax plans are seen as favoring the Rich and hurting the poor. Certainly there is some PR work to do here, but elimination of Federal income tax would take this issue off the plate for Liberal to use as a welfare tool on a national level. I have other ideas on how we fairly collect them money but the Party can make some of its own as well.

Smaller federal government should be a key message. That’s a hard sell right now, because that means someone has to loose a program they love. Removing the federal income tax overhead would make big dent in federal spending. There are other areas where true cuts could take place. I think one of this is federal involvement in education. At a local level Republicans need to support education where ever we can, but I do not believe that the federal government can effect change in education from so far away from the classroom.

There are other issues that we can add to this, especially as key issues change. What is not mentioned here is socialized health care. I think Obama will work at this one and we will have to determine our position based on those outcomes. But if you think about small government, socialized medicine doesn’t fit in that picture. Other things like that usually fit in the buckets above.

So who do I like to represent the party? 

There seems to be a lot of support for Bobby Jindal these days. A couple of things I like about him are that he is actually conservative. He does not want to move more moderate to get elected. He supports being fiscally conservative. He also doesn’t support socialized medicine. These are good, and while I think he has reacted well to countering Liberal points of view, I’m not sure I see the vision in him that I would want to see in a President. That could change.

I’ve always like Newt. I’ve always said I would volunteer and support him if he made a run for it. It seems unlikely that it will. While he has the vision we need, I’m not sure he would be able to overcome the history he has in the political process already. That would mostly depend on his desire to fight and take that kind of risk and spend that kind of money. I’m not sure there is enough motivation for him to do that.

My favorite is Mitch Daniels, Governor of Indiana. He has balanced budgets in Indiana and put us in a good financial position. He has worked for job creation relentlessly. He has worked with Democratics effectively and found common ground on social issues with them while being relentless on policy, waste and fiscal issues. I think we really need to put some light on this great Governor on a national level.

Let me know how you think the GOP can come back.

 

States need to solve their own financial problems.  End of story.  The irresponsible behavior of some states can't be pushed off as a liability for the rest of the states.  The devastating impact would bankrupt the entire country and do nothing less than end this great nation.
Some states have worked very hard to balance their budgets.  Those people have had to make hard choices, it meant a difficult road for the politicians making those choices.  It was responsible behavior.  At the same time, other states have lived beyond their means.  They have made promises, they couldn't keep and have never dealt with the hardship of their behavior.  No one wants to see a state or its people suffer.  At some point each state needs to be responsible for its actions.
While California pushes its superior status on states like Indiana an arrogant way, they now come grovelling to the government, because their Democratic ways have failed.  Michigan failed.  New York failing.  The federal government can not reward this behavior.
If they do reward this behavior, the rush will be on for all states to spend as much money as possible and then rely on the Federal government to bail them out, so they get their fair share.  Why would they not.  Why should Indiana with a balanced budget have its federal tax dollars bail out California and its loose fiscal policies.  They should not.   But once you bail out one, then the race will begin for all states to get the money for their people before its gone.  This is a path to destruction at a national level and there is no other positive outcome.

Shelby called from Florida.  She's sad.  She needed to call and tell Hannity that.
I called to talk to Sean about recovery of the Republican party thru fiscal responsibility following the lead of Mitch Daniels.  The screener didn't think that was interesting and passed.  So I waited to listen to what the screener did think was so much more important.  It was Shelby.  Seriously.
So Sean's answer was she should buck up, and so should the rest of American because when the Republican party returns to fiscal responsibility we will restore the party in the minds and hearts of the American people.  I threw that last part in, because his version wasn't that good.  But seriously, it was the topic to talk about and the screener ditch it, for the I'm feeling sad but cute caller so Sean could have the same discussion. 
Where has that show gone?

The dog is a critical issue.  He has a plan, so that is good.  The President just referred to himself as a mutt.  That must be a first.  Its also the first time he has shown any humility and personal nature to the public in this way.  Oddly he repeated some of his talking points from the election, like the campaign wasn't over.  He did show respect for the current President Bush, which he deserves.  Glad to see he was able to do that.  Most shocking was how he stumbled through some items.  For all the grief Bush took for stumbling sometimes, and the expectations of what a great speaker Obama was he, he really didn't do much better on that front.  I'll give the same response I gave for Bush on that one, as long as the intent is right, we should give him some room on that.  Not everyone can be Reagan ( but I wish he were back :)
Overall nothing else too shocking.

I expect a full investigation of Indiana voter fraud. I want to get this out quickly, so its there. The state turned on 20K votes. That's a number of people that were over registered in certain counties and the absentee ballots that went 10 to 1 democratic. Its a sad state for the country when fraud can exist at these levels. A 100K voters were found to have voted in GA and FL. My suspicion is that a similar level of people did the same in IL and IN. More to come.

Making the case:
My personal experience was my wife and my registration as Republican's was 'lost'. Since we had moved in the state, we could still go to our old polling location, but clearly even that was confusing, since the polling locations were changed.

105% of the eligible voters were registered in Marion county.

The absentee ballots put them over the top in record numbers going for Obama 10 to 1 is what I am hearing.

Provisional ballots are still be investigated.

Lake county is finally under investigation, where thousands of IL voters voted in IN.

Felons were registered and voted Absentee ballot.

At least one dead person voted, but more are suspected.

All in state that elected a Republican Governor and hasn't gone for a Democrat since the 60's. It was 20,000 votes where 30,000 false registration alone were documented in one county.

This story has been completely ignored this year by the media. We know have our past three elections in question by I would be almost all of the American population. If you want unity, lets unify around revisions to the voter laws, so living people get one vote only.

Update:
I am still working to validate this information.  This was told to me directly by a person who was told directly, so this is second hand information and I want to be clear until I can verify with a source.
It was said that in a voting location using paper ballots were used, that the Republican auditor found that the Democrat vote the ticket box was already marked, so whatever individual votes were cast would not be counted.  An unknown number of ballots had to be destroyed, but only after an unknown number of voters did not have their votes counted because of the error.  My statement is we need to review those ballots entirely and recount them based on the specific candidate marks not the vote the ticket marks.
 

People keep talking about her as the future, but maybe not. My opinion, is that she goes back to Alaska, as business as usual and we don't hear from her again. She will have great odds to overcome to get back on the national scene. Greater that Quayle had after the Bush I re-election bid failed. If anyone posts a comment of interest on this subject I'll explain why but for now, its enough to predict she'd done.
This isn't worth a long discussion, just get over it.

Update:

The character assassination of Palin right now is horrible. The loss is all on McCain. His brand of the waffle Republican didn’t sell and now that his supporters are trashing her is terrible. The Republican Party has some time to figure out who it wants to be, and it can’t be the kind that trash talks its own people. Especially a person that core of party supports and has nothing but work hard and energize the base. 

This topic had some attention on the news as well, but not at the depth I look at it here.

Two straight days of the DOW being down after the election has been closed. I guess the DOW didn't like the news. Of course the Obama camp will blame Bush for it after all he is President. The keen observer will not that that the value of the DOW is not based on today, but its based on the expectations of the future. The better Obama did in the polls the worse the DOW got and when the race got closer the DOW started to bounce back. Now that its over, we are seeing more pessimism.
A couple of things to note. Companies need to lay off people quickly before the end of the year and the congress changes the rules. We should see the big companies do that. Small business are already running tight, expect them to hold off hiring until closer to mid 2009 when they understand the rules. Plus big companies aren't buying as much of their stuff, so not many will have need to hire.
That should lead to at least another point rise in unemployment. Could be 7% before the end of the year or Q1, 2009. That's aggressive, but possible depending on the statements that come over the next few weeks.
Could it be they are afraid he will bankrupt the coal industry as he said he would?  Could it be they are worried they will nationalize the 401Ks?  Just raising taxes?  A little safety security around the world based on their view of his weakness?
Last for all youth and college kids that voted for Obama. You should reduced your chances of actually getting a job. If you don't graduate until May 2009. Maybe some companies will be hiring again, but its going to be harder than ever to justify hiring someone with no experience when so many people will be available that have it.

Update:
The drive by media said that the DOW drop was the result of the car makers not Obama.  They said the market had already forecast an Obama win.  Well sort of, and that supports my point.  First lets agree that a final answer can't be determined, only the market knows.  What we can do is analyze which news was known versus new and what the reaction to that news.  Then we can attribute some amount of movement overall to each piece of news.  What I am saying is the market already knew retail sales were expected to be down.  The market already knew the automakers were in trouble and desired a bailout.  That is why the market doesn't move when some earnings come out, because the market has already set some expecation and only the surprise makes the movement.  Following that if you look at the turning points in Obama's numbers, you can see the DOW follow his number changes.  A change in direction is new news.  As the date gets closer and closer more people become more confindent in the result, which is supported by the numbers.  And when its final, that's really new news, and all the people that bet wrong before it was final, need to react.  That is what they did.  What I am not saying is that 100% of the  movement is Obama.  We will never know, but we do know, is that it didn't give them enough hope of the future, to bet on growth.  That can not be denied.
My last little point for you, is that this is the worst drop since the 1987 'crash'.  I remember those trading days and what I remember most clearly is that it was the best time to buy stock.  I think that same thing is true now.  I'll have to do a economic outlook post, because I've been asked a few times after telling people to sell in Jan 2008.  With money, I would be buying now and trying to make smart buys with good future yield expectations.  I would not buy at one time, but start to buy weekly over the next few weeks.  Good luck.

Update:

Since there was a comment about the data, I’ll post some more information here. Poll data was used from realclearpolitics.com. Key change points were used, along with highs and lows, not all data points. DOW information was used from Google finance. September 2007 through today was used.   When Obama poll data changed, the DOW followed. The initial commentary from people was the as the DOW changed it was worse for McCain.

Some key points:

5/16 – Obama polls down, Dow peaks at that time about 12986

5/23 – Obama polls up, Dow follows down to 12479

7/9 – Obama hits a high, Dow follows with a low

8/20 – Obama hits a bottom and the Dow follow with going back up.

9/1 – Obama hits a high and Dow follows with a drop

9/2 – Obama starts fall, Dow follows up to its last peak 9/12.

9/16 – Obama hits bottom and then rises the rest of the way. The Dow never recovers from 9/12.

He needs to set the record state on Palin.  Either he lied when he supported her, or they are lying about her now.  McCain needs to set the record straight.
Yes Palin's a big girl and can defend herself, but we deserve to know where McCain stands on this issue.