One man’s voice

Why I cannot vote for John McCain

Posted on October 17th, 2008 in On Politics, Personal Messages

Yesterday I wrote about why I could not vote for Barack Obama. To offer an alternative I am going to post why I cannot vote for John McCain.

I hope this also offers some insight as to how so many people can still be undecided at this point in this very hotly contested presidential election. I truly believe that there is a part of the population that knows choice is being hidden from them and as such know that there are alternatives to two men being offered to us as our next potential president. I also believe that there are people in this country that think that there are only two choices for president and know that neither man is qualified to be it.

A with yesterday, let me say that I am not a supporter of John McCain. While he does line up more closely with my ideals that Barack Obama does, he is still miles away from where I want my next president. And as with yesterday, let me also add that my unwillingness to support him as a viable candidate for president rests on his values and the promises he has made during his campaign as well as how he presents himself as a leader in the various debates and television appearances he has made.

Here a few of the reasons that I cannot vote for John McCain:

• Economic policy
  John McCain has said that his plan for economic stimulation revolves around offering significant tax breaks to very large corporations and businesses while offering smaller taxes to middle class tax payers. Lower income earners kinda get the screws put to the while the government ends up sacrificing an enormous amount of revenue from taxes while the large corporations benefit tremendously.

  One thing that I do not fully understand about this plan of McCain’s is how this is going to grow our economy? Giving tax breaks to companies is all well and good as long as there is some sort of give on the part of the companies. In McCain’s tax plan there are no gives. Companies get to keep more money without any reason to bring jobs back onto American soil.

  This is fundamentally flawed and stupid. To bring jobs back to Americans you need to give companies an incentive to do so. Giving them a tax break and hoping they employ Americans is lame. McCain dropped the ball on this one.

• Education
  While McCain’s education plan does seem better than Obama’s plan it is still lacking in many declarations. For one thing neither candidate mentions anything about a parents right to homeschool their children. If education is the responsibility of the parents first, which it is, then parents should have a choice to educate their children themselves. There should be no distinction between a public school, private school and home school as it relates to choice or options for a parent.

  McCain’s plan still puts a lot of government into the education of American children and offers nothing in the way of alternatives outside of an institutional setting for education. And while both attempt to cover the cost of a college education as an issue neither really cover the issue of an education. McCain plans to offer parents a choice. And?

• Energy and environment
  Seems to me that every choice a president makes is “the hard choice”. At least that is what McCain would have you believe. And though he does make some attempt at trying to make you believe that he will ween America from foreign oil he does not really offer a plan to do that other than off shore drilling and forcing public transportation into alternative fuel use.

  How exactly does that solve our energy crisis? He has offered nothing tangible in terms of a solution when it comes to getting America free from Middle East oil. He has done nothing that says he will try to protect the environment while reducing our dependence on foreign oil. He has offered nothing except long sentences that use a lot of words I am not sure he understands himself.

• Healthcare
  How can you even consider taxing healthcare as a benefit? This is the single stupidest thing that John McCain has put on his campaign ticket. How are American families supposed to survive when the money we earn now is not enough to get us through and we have to pay taxed on a benefit offered to us through our employers.

  McCain is totally missing the mark on this one, apparently looking at healthcare as something that should be easily covered by taxing those financially stable enough to have it. Shame on you John McCain. People are already forgoing medical treatment because they cannot even afford the premiums. Making them pay taxes on it is just too much.

• Iraq
  One of the most heartless and cruel things I have ever heard John McCain utter came in response to a question he was asked about supporting President Bush’s decision to go to war with Iraq. The question was “Would you still support the president’s decision if he war lasted 50 years?”. His response was something along the lines of “If it lasted another hundreds years I would still be happy with it.” Moron.

  As I said yesterday there is no right answer to this situation. Keeping our troops there without good cause is just plain hostile and stupid. If there was one thing that makes me not like John McCain as a person it is his stance on Iraq. It just sucks.

So there you have it. A republican’s take on John McCain. I appreciate that he served our country as a soldier and prisoner of war. But we are not back in the jungles of ‘Nam John McCain. There is a battle to fight, you can be sure of that. But it cannot be fought with the weapons you bring to the table.

The American people cannot afford to have you as a president.