Musings of a Patriot

Category: National

  • Ready to Vote

    Votes will start to be counted this week. The Iowa caucuses take place on Thursday as a wide open presidential election promises to dominate the news coverage for another 10 months. I have already done individual endorsements of the candidates and an advance ranking of what candidates I liked best. Now, with actual votes on…

  • Ron Paul Running Mate

    I have often wondered who Ron Paul would choose as a running mate. I got my answer from Phil Harris. Alan Keyes joined the race for the Republican nomination long after I stopped doing candidate endorsements, but when I looked at his positions I found someone who was ideologically very similar to Dr. Paul on…

  • Budget Math

    I wish I knew where they got their deficit spending number, but KVNU’s For The People really caught my attention with the side-by-side listing of the deficit spending in the budget President Bush just signed. They claim that $240 Billion of the $555 Billion is deficit spending. That’s over 43% of the total budget being…

  • NCLB and Federal Education

    My father-in-law is a professor at BYU and, like me, is very interested/involved in efforts to improve public education. As the voucher debate this year demonstrated, there are very different perspectives on how that improvement can be achieved. (Yes, I do believe that people on both sides of that issue were genuinely interested in improving…

  • Platform of the American People

    Newt Gingrich chose not to run for President because it would conflict with his movement, American Solutions (a good choice in my opinion). American Solutions has now published the Platform of the American People. They claim that the positions in this platform are supported by majorities from both major parties as well as a majority…

  • Why We Need A Tax Debate

    If anyone wonders why I think we need a tax debate here’s a good example. Congress passed their omnibus spending bill and today Senator Bennett announces that he got $290 Million for Utah in the bill. The assumption underlying his announcement is that any money he brings to the state from the federal government is…

  • A Tax Debate Would Be Wise

    Apparently the New York Times would like to have a public debate about taxes. The editorial board expresses their despair that none of the presidential candidates talk about taxes. I think that they are completely right that such a debate is necessary. Beyond that it seems that there is hardly anything that we agree about…

  • A Lame Duck Can Bite Harder

    As illustrated by the current budget standoff, an unpopular lame duck president has powers that often elude presidents earlier in their tenure. Prior to 2006 Bush never vetoed anything. Now he has no re-election to worry about so he has nothing to lose by vetoing every bill Congress sends that is not in line with…

  • Media Outlets Are Focused On Future Business

    I’m not big on conspiracy theories nor do I subscribe to the belief that our elections are largely determined by the media so I don’t generally pay much attention to things like the dust-up between Huckabee and Romney. On the other hand I recognize that the media does have a good deal of influence on…

  • The FairTax

    I began to take a closer look at the FairTax proposal because Mike Huckabee (currently the most visible supporter of the FairTax) is rising quickly in the polls and also because I have had some co-workers ask my opinion on the proposal. My immediate answer was, “I want more details.” I read two articles on…