I can't for the life of me figure out why so many conservatives and libertarians are down on John McCain. To be sure, he's not a poster boy, but come on, he's not that bad.
Witness Exhibit A, premier Libertarianz blogger Peter Cresswell has a go. Based, it seems, entirely on some waffly throwaway rhetoric in a single sentence of one of McCain's books. That, frankly, didn't even say what the quoted Matt Welch alleges it says.
Lets get to the guts of what people don't like about McCain. It all seems to boil down to four things:
- His support for immigration amnesty;
- His sponsorship of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (also known as McCain-Feingold);
- His opposition to waterboarding and other forms of torture by the US Military;
- Voted against the first Bush tax cuts.
On the first count, McCain is simply realistic about the importance of illegal immigrants to the US economy. He knows that sending them back would be devastating to America. He is a strong supporter of free trade and an open economy, and he refuses to kowtow to Republican xenophobia. America needs immigration. Good on him.
On the second count... well I am not going to defend him on that one - that legislation is almost as fascist as our own Electoral Finance Act, but it's not a straw that should naturally break a camel's back...
On the third count, his position simply strikes me as basic decency and sanity.
On the fourth count, he believed the tax cuts were unaffordable. While this is economically naive, it's a reasonable position to take, given the huge spending spree the Bush administration has gone on.
So now let's look at what McCain is promising. There's a lot of waffle on his website, but picking between all that inevitable rhetoric, there are plenty of gems which I'm sure even the Libertarianz could vote for, based on their rule of thumb of increasing freedom without introducing new coercion:
- Corporate Tax Cut from 35% to 25%.
- Allowing Equipment and Technology as a deductible expense.
- Tax credit of 10% on research and development wages.
- Repeal the Alternative Minimum tax.
- 3/5th congressional majority vote to raise taxes.
- Ban internet taxes.
- Ban cellphone tax increases.
- Veto on pork barrel bills.
- A Presidential line item veto.
- Eliminate all non-performing government programs (1 in 5).
- Replace Social Security with personalised accounts.
- Lower tarriffs.
- Targeted Medicare payments to providers to avoid paying for malpractice.
- Permit medical providers to practice nationwide.
- Reform the tax code to eliminate the bias toward
employer-sponsored health insurance, and provide all individuals with a
$2,500 tax credit ($5,000 for families) to increase incentives for
insurance coverage.
- Allow nationwide health insurance (not state to state).
- Allow insurance to be provided by any organisation.
- Appoint Strict Constructionalist Judges.
- School Choice.
Okay, I could list more, but that's plenty. When not even ACT in this country are promising to reduce the size of government, I have to wonder what the big deal is. I wish we had a politician in New Zealand who was promising to go as far as McCain does - and his proposals aren't even particularly radical. If John Key was saying this stuff, PC would be praising him to the heavens. Probably. It seems nobody is good enough for an objectivist to support.
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