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This is what good citizens and political junkies are supposed to do:
We watch the Presidential race unfold like it's the NFL play-offs.
So there I sat in front of my TV dutifully watching the first Republican Presidential debate from the impressive Reagan library in Simi, California. There were the prospective candidates, all lined up under the wingspan of a life-sized Air Force One that loomed over the entire audience of enthusiastic Republican supporters.
Looking at the field, it's hard to believe that anyone but Mitt Romney could possibly be elected President. Last month's frontrunner Michelle Bachmann is a strange woman, a former IRS lawyer who raised five of her own kids and 23 foster children, all while dutifully obeying her husband who professionally counsels homosexuals to "pray away the gay."
Michelle is the Gaffe Queen, getting all mixed up about Elvis Presley, the Battle of Concord and lots of other things that don't matter but that she keeps talking about and getting wrong. Oh and she also says she can make gas cost $2 a gallon - just like that! Too nutty to be President.
Bachmann became the frontrunner right after the former frontrunner Donald Trump dropped out after admitting that President Obama "probably" is a native-born American. That and the TV sweeps rating period was over, and he didn't need the publicity anymore.
The new frontrunner is Texas Governor Rick Perry, who just positively hates Social Security and Medicare and says they are "failures" that should be "given back to the states." Rick just loves to execute criminals (the GOP audience loves it, too!) and thinks that U.S. Senators should be chosen by politicians from each state and not directly elected by the voters. Hmmmmm.
Perry the Republican nominee? Obama can't be this lucky.
One thing that all of the Republican candidates seem to agree on is that taxes should be RAISED on the working poor. I hear it over and over again. Every candidate says it's wrong that 47% of Americans don't pay any federal income taxes. Everyone should have "skin in the game" when it comes to paying income taxes, the GOP hopefuls all say.
But who are these people? They're the working poor. The people who cut our lawns. Serve our lunch and pump our gas. Butter the bagels and sweep the floors. Watch over our kids and care for old folks in nursing homes. This is the backbone of America.
How can it possibly be in the best interests of the nation to make these people pay MORE taxes? They're already paying a greater share of their income in federal payroll and state sales taxes than your average millionaire. Why would anyone want to raise their taxes? I just don't get it.
Since the Republican debate was held at the Reagan Library, I just wish that someone pointed out that it was Ronald Reagan who created the Earned Income Tax Credit that reduced income taxes for lower income workers. It's too bad that all of the GOP candidates who claim to be just like Reagan have such a different point of view when it comes to helping - or hurting - the working poor.
There's no question that tax policy will be a pivotal issue in the 2012 elections.
One party wants to raise taxes on the working poor. The other wants to raise taxes on the richest 2% of America. Let's see how this debate unfolds.
Vision Media Marketing Inc. ( http://vmmi.net/ ) was incorporated in 1985 by Jean Swibinski and Paul Swibinski, who continue to direct the company. A full-service public relations and media communications firm with a long history of successfully delivering clients' messages, it specializes in public policy issues and crisis communications. To visit Vision Media's blog, VMMI Policy Perspectives, go to http://vmmi.net/blog.
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