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Show A5 The Emery County Review, Tuesday, September 30, 2008 VIEWPOINT Opinion and Letters to the Editor The Sheriff and the Professor Debra J. Saunders Established January 2, 2007 James L. Davis, Publisher & Editor w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w Colleen A. Davis, Co-Publisher, Office & Advertising Manager Josie Luke, Assistant Editor Lyndsay Reid, Advertising Design Paige Motte, Advertising Sales Kathy P. Ockey, Staff Journalist Casey Wood, Webmaster Our Vision To be a valued member of the communities we serve and to be trusted as an honest, truthful and reliable source of news. w w w Our Mission To inform, entertain and provide a public forum for the discussion of events impacting the people of the Emery County area and to inform with news and features relevant to those who call the Castle Valley area home w w w Our Principles We will be ethical in all of our efforts to provide information to the public. We will be unbiased in our reporting and will report the facts as we see them and do our best to focus on the good news of the county, its people, history and way of life. We will be strong and active members of the community and assist in any way that we are able. We will strive to provide the best quality product possible to our readers and advertisers...always. We will verify the details of news we are reporting and if a mistake is made on our part we will correct it immediately. We will always listen to suggestions on how to do our job better. Editorial Submission Guidelines The Emery County Review welcomes and invites letters to the editor and guest opinion articles on public policy or current events. We welcome letters of thanks to individuals who have helped make our community a better place to live, work and play. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit all submissions for space constraints, clarity and errors in fact. Submissions must include author’s name and contact information. Contact information will not be published. Letter’s and opinion articles can be sent to jldavis@theemerycountyreview.com, mailed to The Emery County Review, P.O. Box 487, Orangeville, UT. 84537 or faxed to 435-748-2543. Before getting to Friday night’s debate, let us look at what happened before the debate. Yes, John McCain’s suspension of his campaign earlier in the week and call for a delay of Friday’s debate were campaign stunts. But his decision to go to Washington to prod political leaders to pass a sensible bailout measure, while political, showed America a candidate who will risk his electoral fortune to deliver the right policy. McCain was in a corner. He clearly feared that if Congress did not approve a bailout measure, the economy would tank. Then, his bid for the White House would be doomed. And while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid derided McCain’s appearance Friday, on Wednesday Reid declared a need for “the Republicans to start producing some votes for us. We need the Republican nominee for president to let us know where he stands and what we should do.” The alleged deal that had been cut before McCain landed in Washington Thursday did not exist. House Republicans had not signed on. Without them, Democrats would not sign on. On Friday, Reid falsely claimed there was a deal “and then guess who came into town.” And: “The insertion of presidential politics has not been helpful. It’s been harmful.” No lie, but it’s Reid and company who appeared ready to scuttle any settlement lest McCain get the credit. The campaign suspension did serve to add drama to a campaign season that has been provided a rush of roller-coaster moments -- making Friday’s debate all that much more a highstakes affair. The consequences of this election are dire, but for pure theatre, this has been the most fun election to cover in my career. I pity young journalists covering this race because they’ll have started with the best. They’ll be talking about 2008 until they’re as old as, well, John McCain. Or if they’re lucky, McCain’s 96year-old mother, Roberta. Who needs “Desperate Housewives?” Every week, this campaign has a cliffhanger. On the day of the debate, Obama spokesman Bill Burton sent an e-mail to reporters that announced “debates are not a good format for Obama,” who was expected to come across as too professorial. Campaigns do that sort of thing as they play to the chattering classes who are impressed not by the candidate who makes the better arguments, as much as the candidate who defies their often mistaken expectations. In fact, for the most part, both candidates delivered strong performances with a presidential demeanor. Of course, I think McCain won. What Obama did right: Obama was right to note that the $700 billion bailout will delay some of his spending proposals. He scores points with voters when he mentions the $10 billion-per-month price tag for the Iraq war when the Iraqi government enjoys a $79 billion surplus. Obama showed class when he commended McCain’s opposition to the use of torture in the war on terror. What Obama did wrong: George W. Bush is not running for re-election. The gratuitous Bush-bashing has gotten old -- and it makes Obama sound like a college student at a political rally. Maybe it works with the moveon.org crowd, but most voters are looking for a leader for the next four to eight years. And it takes no leadership to kick someone with an approval rate higher only than that of Congress. Also, Afghanistan is not the “central front” in the war on terror. As McCain countered, “If we fail in Iraq, it encourages al-Qai- da.” What McCain did right: McCain understands that “maybe to Sen. Obama” $18 billion in annual earmark spending is “not a lot of money,” but earmarks are corrupting. McCain noted his opposition to earmarks had earned him the nickname of “the Sheriff.” Most important, McCain did not come across as bellicose, especially when he recalled his opposition to Ronald Reagan’s push to keep U.S. troops in Lebanon in 1983. When McCain warned Obama about not brandishing a gun unless he is willing to pull the trigger -- in reference to getting too tough with Pakistan -- McCain showed himself to be the adult in the room. What McCain did wrong: Jim Lehrer was practically begging McCain to look at Obama when he criticized Obama. “Say it directly to him,” Lehrer chided him. But McCain would not, or could not, do so. What they both did wrong: Neither candidate would articulate which of their pet proposals might have to be postponed if the $700 billion bailout passes. Then again, neither intended to be so blunt. (Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate Inc.) An Amnesty for Stupidity Patrick J. Buchanan Is it fair that businessmen who fail in neighborhood stores have to close shop and often sell their homes, while Wall Street titans are spared the consequences of monumental stupidity and greed? No, it is not fair. Yet, Treasury’s Hank Paulson may be right. To save the sheep who might have been wiped out in a general financial panic, we may have to save the pigs. Life is unfair, said JFK. Yet, this is going to be the mother of all bailouts. Paulson will be voted by Congress authority to spend $700 billion, 5 percent of our gross domestic product, to buy all that toxic paper stinking up the books of our biggest banks. And this is not the first such bailout of foolish and incompetent financiers and politicians. In 1975, when its cravenness to extortionate union demands had bankrupted New York, the Big Apple had to be rescued by Gerald Ford. Marion Barry’s Washington, D.C., was next in line at the cashier’s window. In the Reagan era, it was Chrysler. Later that decade, Citibank, ChaseManhattan and Bank of America were staring into the abyss, as Latin American regimes, to whom they had lent scores of billions, were balking at paying their debts. Uncle Sam stepped in. Then came the Mexican and Asian financial crises and the U.S.-IMF bailouts of the 1990s. The Mexican bailout was as much a rescue of Goldman-Sachs as Mexico City, as Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin’s old firm was choking on all its Mexican paper. The great myth is that these 1990s bailouts were models of U.S. financial statesmanship and great successes. The reality is the U.S. workers took it in the neck. For the countries bailed out, like Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea, were forced to devalue. This radically reduced the wages of their workers relative to American workers, creating incentives for U.S. manufacturers to shut plants here and move them abroad. The devaluations also slashed the price of foreign goods relative to U.S. goods. Imports flooded in. Who ultimately paid for the Mexican bailout? Florida tomato growers wiped out by Mexican producers, the price of whose tomatoes was chopped two-thirds by the devaluation. U.S. autoworkers who saw Ford and Delphi plants shuttered as new Ford and Delphi plants opened in Mexico. U.S. textile workers whose mills closed and jobs vanished. Middle-class American families have paid and paid -- in lost jobs, lower wages, a falling median income -- to save the big banks from the consequences of their follies. And those bank bailouts are behind the trade deficits that set five records in the Bush era, reached 6 percent of GDP, forced huge U.S. borrowings from abroad and ravaged the dollar. Having bailed out Latin America, Mexico, Asia and their U.S. creditors, we now find our own country in trouble. And how are our allies reacting? “Europeans on left and right ridicule U.S. money meltdown,” ran the Los Angeles Times headline. Italy’s finance minister compares us to corruption-ridden Albania, where “a nationwide pyramid scheme cost hundreds of thousands of people their savings and ignited anarchic civil conflict” in the 1990s. How will the bailout work? Will every bank that brings in toxic paper be able to dump it on the Treasury? Will the Treasury buy securities based on subprime U.S. mortgages from foreign banks? Apparently so. What about mortgage-backed securities held by U.S. companies and individual investors? Is there to be a general amnesty for bad judgment, or just a bankers amnesty? About one thing we may be sure. The U.S. deficit and national debt are going to soar. The credit rating of the United States, as this nation of non-savers has to borrow abroad to save its banks, and their banks, is going to fall. We are going to be a poorer nation and people. As for the promises and plans of Barack Obama and John McCain -- be it for national health insurance or middle-class tax cuts -- they are going by the wayside. For the United States is as bankrupt as Lehman Brothers, with this difference: Uncle Sam can still borrow from abroad because foreigners see many juicy U.S. assets they would like to take off our hands with their hoards of ever-cheapening U.S. dollars. Looking at the federal budget -- the five or six major items are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense and interest on the debt. All are going up, as tax revenues fall. Add the cost of two wars and a bailout of U.S. banks that some estimate will cost $1 trillion to $2 trillion, and we appear to be looking at budget deficits ad infinitum. “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation,” Adam Smith once consoled a friend who lamented that Britain would be ruined if the 13 Colonies were lost. We are about to test Smith’s proposition. (Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate |