Republican National Committee Survey

The Republican National Committee sent me a survey on Friday, and I wanted to share some of the details with you, as it sparked some thoughts on my part as to the state of the Republican Party.

Carly Fiorina is John McCain’s Chair of the Republican’s “Victory” 2008 Committee. She boasts of being the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and claims that electing John McCain and winning back Congress is critical to economic and national security. John McCain’s enclosure calls Carly “ a remarkable American success story.” What Carly and John leave out is that she is former CEO of HP, and with apparent good reason. Following HP’s merger with Compaq, and dismal subsequent performance, Ms. Fiorina was forced out; HP’s profits and operations improved spectacularly in the post-Fiorina era.

The survey’s accompanying letter from Ms. Fiorina states that I have received this survey, “Because of your high level of political involvement and steadfast commitment to the Republican Party…” Guess her research skills are no better than her business management.
Of course the letter also asks for donations. Based on other contents in the mailing, the Republican Party seems to consider me a “Republican leader”.

In the following, I will discourse on the contents of the survey and my responses to the various questions, along with providing some insight into my reasoning. Most of the questions offer three options: yes, no, or undecided. However the questions usually present false if, then and either/or dichotomies to which the true answers are more complicated than suggested. It is a known fact that presenting questions like this cause the respondent to be more agreeable with the preferred position, as most respondents will go with the yes if they partially agree with the statement/question. This is one method employed to manipulate the response and, therefore, the statistics. This method also produces statistically unreliable results.

1. Do you think Congress should respond to the economic slowdown with a plan of tax cuts to stimulate the economy? I responded no, because those tax cuts will disproportionately favor the wealthy and corporations. The average American, with an income under $30,000, after all is said and done, pays almost 47% in taxes, fees and surcharges; the average American or corporation earning over $250,00 pays only about 25%. Furthermore, Bush’s tax rebates have done nothing to help the economy.
2. Do you believe our economy will grow if we cut taxes and put more money in the hands of hardworking Americans who pay taxes? I responded yes, given that both conditions are met. But the McCain economic plan puts only an extra twelve dollars in the hands of low income Americans, while giving the wealthy a third back on their already lower realized taxation.
3. Do you think the unemployment insurance system needs to be modernized to meet the goals of helping displaced workers? I responded yes, because the majority of unemployed Americans find themselves w/out any assistance whatsoever. The unemployment claims figures for the U.S. are misleading, as most unemployed persons are unqualified to even file a claim.
4. Which of the following factors do you feel is most adversely affecting the economy in your area? This was multiple choice, including: Taxes, Real Estate, Terrorism, Regulation, Gov’t Spending, Fuel Prices, and Other. I marked Other and filled in “irresponsible economic, foreign and national security policy”.
5. Which of the following is the single most important economic issue facing you and your family? Another multiple choice: Health Care, Fuel Price, Taxes, Inflation, Mortgage Crisis, and Other. Again, Other; “all of the above”.
6. Do you believe that reducing the federal deficit should be a top priority? I responded no, for various complex economic reasons. Running a deficit is not necessarily a bad thing. If the money coming in today will beat that owed for tomorrow, deficits work. Nearly all business runs on deficit, as do many households; the danger is only in over-extension. At the personal level, where truly favorable rates are near impossible, deficit spending is incredibly dangerous; but, at the corporate/governmental level, deficits have been proven profitable. The U.S., with the world’s still largest economy, can operate in deficit mode as long as the management understands the principles behind financed prosperity.
7. Do you think the government should reduce regulations and provide tax incentives to encourage small business growth? I responded undecided. This is a two part question, and any thinking person could have two different answers. The question also suggests a false positive relationship between the two suggestions. This question specifically illustrates my comment above about manipulative surveys and statistics. This question also begs many others. Which regulations should be reduced? What sort of tax incentives should be enacted? Certainly, small businesses should see the same sort of incentives as larger ones to help ensure successful startups, but, at the same time, de-regulation will lead to abuses like those the regulations were originally intended to halt. Then again, many localized regulations are intended to protect the powerbases of, and prevent competition with, the established local interests.
8. Do you think the U.S. Tax Code should be made simpler and fairer? I responded yes, with the understanding that the Republicans do not have a plan to make this actually happen except to the disadvantage of the disadvantaged. Essentially the same issues raised in 1. and 2.
9. Do you agree that the government should aggressively rein in spending? Yes, but not in accordance with the Republican model.
10. Should pork-barrel spending be completely eliminated? Yes, but there needs to be a method adopted to address the many legitimate issues currently funded via pork-barrel (legislative bill rider clauses). Also, pork-barrel is the current and historic method for arriving at consensus; many critical pieces of legislation would never have passed without rider clauses sponsoring unrelated issues. Pork-barrel is the equivalent of legislative bribery; one agrees to a rider for a certain legislator in order to secure his/her affirmative vote on the primary bill.

As for these last three questions in the survey’s Jobs and Economy section, I wrote to the side that the Republicans don’t have a plan for any of this. They don’t; they have no workable plan to affect any of this.

The next section related to national security, an area in which the Bush administration has greatly harmed us.

1. Should the first foreign policy priority of the next President be winning the war against radical Islamic extremists? I responded No. The next President’s first foreign policy priority should be to repair the global relations strained and damaged by the Republican-backed War of Terror. Only united can the world confront the threats of militancy and radicalism; as we have seen in the last several years, unilateral action only succeeds in breeding more terrorists.
2. Should America surrender in Iraq regardless of the consequences in the Middle East? Yes; hey, didn’t you guys declare mission accomplished three years ago? This would be a belated withdrawal from a successful mission, quit fear-mongering. Iraq has a government, Hussein is no longer in charge, what more are you after? Oil?
3. Do you agree with Democrats who believe national defense spending should be slashed in order to fund domestic programs? I responded Yes. That national defense spending would not have expanded into position threatening domestic programs were it not for the Republican-backed deceit of the illegal Iraq War. If we were going after terrorists, why did we send so few to where the terrorists really were?
4. Do you support giving our law enforcement the tools they need to monitor terrorist communications? No, the tools have been there for years, there is no reason to create additional civil liberties violations to cover for incompetence.
5. Do you believe we should set a public date for withdrawing from Iraq even if it undermines our troops in the field? Undecided because the question is stupid. There are ways to go about a withdrawal that will not require a public date, or, there are ways to announce a date and still effect the pull-out. Any competent Infantry NCO could plan the broad operations necessary.

The final relevant section of the survey covers other issues.

1. Should we appoint judges who will interpret the law instead of liberal activists who will make new laws from the bench? No, this is a really bad question in that it conveys a false idea- that judges can make new laws. Judges can only interpret and limit or strike down laws. Although there have been cases where “liberal activist” judges have interpreted law to the favor of their opinion without regard to the law, in the last eight years, that tendency towards illegal activism has been seen more on the part of conservative activist judges like Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Justice Scalia, in a recent dissenting against the call for any credible legal process for Guantanamo inmates, said essentially that he would prefer that the Constitution of the U.S. be violated than that Americans be placed at risk from foreign terrorists. His logic and reason were both as flawed as the current Republican platform.
2. Is it critical for the U.S. to develop alternative sources of energy and find new supplies of oil in order to slow inflation and keep fuel affordable? Again a statistically irrelevant and misleading two-part question suggesting false relationship and requiring separate answers, based upon information. Yes, the U.S. should develop alternative energy sources, but no, the U.S. does not need to locate new supplies of oil. However, the Republicans have erroneously led us down the counter-productive corn-ethanol road. As for oil supplies, it was accidentally revealed during the First Gulf War, via the government and published in Newsweek or Time, that domestic U.S. fields and production can provide for a doubled 1991 consumption rate for 150 years, so, please quit lying to us.
3. Do you think we should work to give parents with children trapped in failing schools more choices to help their children have a better future. Yes, but why not raise teacher/administrator competence levels through the utilization of European modeled programs proven to work; and, why is the single largest U.S. education expense athletics and its attendant insurance costs? Just stupid.
4. How do you think Congress should best address the looming Social Security crisis. I responded other, Invest intelligently. The crisis is nowhere near as bad as depicted in the media, and can easily be averted. A 2% increase in taxation of large corporations and those earning over $250,000 (both groups currently paying less relative to the general population anyway) will extend the lifespan of Social security sufficiently to see the baby boomers die off with a resulting decrease in demand as subsequent generations have been smaller.
5. Do you believe that individuals should be allowed to privately manage a set percentage of Social Security tax into a personal account. Yes, but those individuals should be given instruction in the workings of the stock market. In fact, dry and dull as such instruction might be, such instruction should be instituted into secondary education for all Americans. It is a great failing of the U.S. that its citizens are never instructed on the primary vehicles of wealth generation available in this country.
6. Do you believe that forcing every American into a socialized national health care system is the best way to deal with uninsured patients? No, but why do you continue to make this an all-or-nothing issue when many European countries have found combinative systems that work better? Why not have the system automatically available with an opt-out program instead. Again, a misleading and statistically irrelevant either–or question that ignores the spectrum of possibility.
7. Which political party do you feel is best able to handle each of the following issues? Iraq, Radical Extremists, Taxes, Health Care, Federal Spending, Social Security, National Defense, Foreign Policy, Environment, Economy, Immigration, Energy, Education, Protecting Traditional Values. I responded Democratic Party to all of these save immigration, on which I am undecided. This last Traditional Values worries me greatly and suggests, as such phraseology always has, fascism. The Nazi’s, the Communists, the Fascists all purported to protect traditional values. Whose traditional values do you mean? If you meant those espoused in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights of the U.S., shouldn’t you have made that obvious?

Finally, the Republicans have completely abandoned their core values of smaller government, lower taxes, new jobs and a strong national defense. In the last eight years, America has, under Republican leadership, seen its domestic and international stature reduced and has seen nothing of smaller government, lower taxes, new jobs and a strong national defense. We are weaker in all areas than we were in 2000, we cannot now even consider additional military operations, even in our own defense, for any purpose because of the foolhardiness and shortsightedness of the Republican Party