Stupid Politicians' Talking - as promised!

There's a lot of stupid stuff being said this election season, and so I decided
I'd list my (least) favorite suggestions.
1. Driver's Licenses for ALL illegals - Obama
Barack Obama (D-IL) has just come out with a proposal to give licenses
to all illegal immigrants. Ok, IMHO this is the stupidest idea I've heard to
date, and that's hard to do. They tried this in California and it cost the
Governor his job because of the impact it had. They have tried this in other
states as well, NY included, and the same thing has happened. Doing this gives
the illegals a piece of legitimacy and a hint of legality. It allows them to
open bank accounts (which face it, most of their wages goes back to their
homeland) and access to parts of our society that should be reserved only for
legal immigrants and citizens. But let's be honest here. They're already
breaking the law by being here. Do you really think they're that concerned about
the law that they're going to get these licenses, which would require they admit
their crime? Most of the time, before or shortly after they arrive, they have
plenty of false documents to make it appear they are here legally. Add this to
the list of reasons I'm not going to vote for Obama.
2. Amnesty - McCain and others
The "path to citizenship" is a load of bullshit if I ever heard it. We
already have a path! It's called visas (and in other situations, green cards)!
You apply for a visa, come over, apply for legal alien residency, then start the
process for naturalization! This proposed "path to citizenship" that was pushed
and then voted down was nothing less than a blanket amnesty check for millions
of illegals already here, many of which have committed other crimes. If we're
going to help the illegals, let's pay them $2 a day to build the fence - from
the Mexican side! Let them fence themselves out, with supervision of course. But
let's not use border patrol agents to do that, they have to make sure they
aren't getting shot at by the Mexican military. Let's send some of our soldiers
that aren't in Iraq down there if they're nearby. Even an Air Force pilot can
shoot a gun! Then once we got the fence built, we'll round them up and send them
up to Canada to do the same thing! Once they're done there, we'll ship 'em back
and tell the Mexican government that it's their turn to figure out what to do
with their people! Meanwhile, we'll start checking all these Arabs to make sure
they're not terrorists! Am I racist? I try not to be, but let's be honest. The
9/11 terrorists were Arabs, mostly Saudi. We must make sure that we aren't
letting them plot new attacks from within our borders. I'm not calling for camps
like we had for the Japanese during World War 2, I'm just talking about
verifying citizenship and loyalties. And while we're verifying that the Arabs
are here legally and not plotting to blow us up, and making sure the Latinos are
here legally, let's do it to everyone else too. We're all supposed to have birth
certificates anyways! Suppose one year everyone who pays taxes has to stop by
their local IRS office and hand in their tax paperwork and show their birth
certificate. That way, we know all of our employees are legal. Then we do the
same with the government assistance rolls (welfare, social security, disability,
etc). What's left? The criminal syndicate! The drug dealers (many of which are
illegal immigrants) and those not supposed to be here! If they're legal, they
can show a birth certificate. I don't have a problem proving I'm an American by
birth. As a matter of fact, I'd be proud to!
3. Universal Health Care - Democrats
This is another one of those issues that is making it hard for me to
vote for ANY democrat lately. Our economy cannot handle any extra burdens on it
right now. The stock market's down, the housing market is in the midst of a
collapse, and oil and food prices are up dramatically, hurting low- and
middle-income Americans hardest. We already have government health insurance for
the poor and working poor. We now have the SCHIP program for middle-income
families that make too much for Medicaid but not enough to buy their own. We
don't need the government mandating anything else. If you can afford the
insurance, then get it, stop begging for handouts! The real issue is these very
profitable companies cutting their insurance for employees instead of cutting
back on extravagant wages for their CEO's.
4. "Consumption Tax" - Huckabee
Former governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR) has proposed eliminating the income
tax, and dismantling the IRS altogether. Now while this sounds heavenly, as who
wouldn't like to have more of their paycheck every week, this in reality is
about as stupid as any proposal can get. In an attempt to make up for the income
and other taxes no longer collected, he has proposed a 23% "consumption tax" to
make up for it (which many experts have said wouldn't be enough). Now he SAYS
that some would get a "prebate", which doesn't make much sense either. But let's
put this into perspective. This tax would be on EVERYTHING bought, food included
(many states don't tax food), so that $1 pack of eggs (and if you're still
paying that for a dozen eggs, I envy you) suddenly costs you nearly an
additional quarter. Now let's say you want to buy a $400 PDA. Under current
sales tax rates (which average about 7%, which is what my figures are based on),
you're total today would be $428, but under Huckabee's plan, it'd cost you $492,
a difference of $64. So let's go further, let's triple that cost, which is the
average price for a decent laptop. Now you're talking an additional $192! So
figure how much more cars are going to cost! And what if it goes onto gas too?
And what about the family in a state with 4 kids that probably spends $400 a
month on groceries tax free that suddenly has to spend nearly $100 more just to
cover the additional taxes? Our economy would not only screech to a grinding
hault, it'd plunge us into a recession as even middle-income Americans living
paycheck to paycheck would suddenly be thrown into poverty!
4. Campaign Finance "reform" - McCain amongst others
I'll keep this one short as in THEORY I agree with it but the process by
which it was debated was stupid. If you want to keep the lobbyists and
corporations out of politics, make it illegal for ANY company to donate! Make it
where only citizens can donate to campaigns, and set a limit! You can't have
loopholes and expect the law to work!