Sunday, November 11, 2018

The Center For Voter Information


                Prior to the recent mid-term election, I received, unbidden, a mailing from The Center for Voter Information, purporting to list the candidates positions on certain vital issues. It was addressed to me specifically, using my first name only in the “greeting.”  The CVI introduced itself thusly: “The Center for Voter Information works to provide information about candidates to voters like you across the country. This year, we asked voters in your congressional district what they would like to know about candidates for Congress in the general election being held on November 6th.”
                Voters who allegedly took the time to respond to the CVI probably don’t need to rely on the organization to interpret the candidates’ positions on key issues. That said, this was the first question posed to “voters like me across the country:”
                Air Pollution Regulation: Do the candidates support regulations to reduce air pollution contributing to climate change known as greenhouse gases? Democrat Angie Craig: YES. Republican Jason Lewis: No.”
                Not only is that a preposterously leading and biased way of phrasing the question, climate change wasn’t to be found anywhere in the list of issues those who voted said they were concerned about.
                The second question at least tangentially pertained to an issue about which voters did claim to care, healthcare: “Medicaid Cuts: Do the candidates support cutting funding to Medicaid (the health insurance program for low-income Americans) for 14 million Americans? Democrat Angie Craig: No. Republican Jason Lewis: Yes.”
                Roughly half of American households have at least one member receiving government benefits. In 2016 spending on human services such as Social Security, Medicare, health, and income security totaled 73% of the federal budget, whereas spending for national defense amounted to only 15% of the federal budget outlay. This is nearly the reverse of spending priorities at times in the country’s past. We have devolved from a nation of can-do people who only wanted a chance to “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps” to a soft one populated by entitled weak-tits who’d rather take someone else’s money than try to make their own. And, we are $21 trillion in debt because of this.
                The CVI flyer also stated, by way of disclaimer: “A candidate’s position is sometimes more complicated than a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ We have done our best to represent each candidate in a fair and responsible way.” By using “yes” or “no” to explain the candidate’s positions, apparently. At the bottom of the mailer, it added, “The Center for Voter Information is a nonprofit organization that is not endorsing any candidate in this race.” Now tell me the one about the three bears.
                On to the third and final question, fairly and responsibly titled and posed: “Millionaire Tax Cuts: Do the candidates support legislation recently passed by Congress that reduces taxes paid by millionaires and corporations?”
                The tax cuts in question were broad-based and cut the rate on small businesses and almost anyone who actually pays taxes. As a result of this, countless numbers of employees received substantial bonuses. About 45% of Americans pay no federal income taxes whatsoever, while the top 1,409 filers pay as much as the bottom 70% combined. The rich do not pay their “fair share,” they pay astronomically more than that. It is on their backs that the welfare state has been created. It is a demographic, economic and statistical certainty that this cannot long continue to be the case. Even if Atlas doesn’t shrug, fewer and fewer Americans are working and paying taxes to pay for continually increasing entitlement (wealth transfer) programs for the ever-increasing number that aren’t. Moreover, the American population is aging, people are living longer, yet no one will give up their benefits. In fact, many demand more. Obamacare, Medicaid, free college tuition, etc., etc. It never stops.

               And this was all by design.

 Progressive Democrats knew all along that once a society reaches the point at which we are now arriving, where 50% of the citizenry receive more in government benefits then they pay in, and a significant percentage of the rest of the population works for the government, they will never be voted out of office, will never again lose power.  VoilĂ , Detroit. And then, Venezuela.
This is how a Great Society becomes a Late Society.
Yet, anyone trying to prevent this is considered cold, heartless and mean-spirited. Incredible. 

Here are some similarly unbiased, “fair and responsible” questions I would ask voters such as those constituting the Center for Voter (Mis)Information:

1)      “Slaughtering Unborn Babies: Do the candidates support legislation to declare the murder of small, defenseless humans to be a fundamental human right? Democrat X: Yes. Republican Y: No.”
2)      “Dispensing With the Presumption of Innocence and the Rule of Law: Do the candidates support legislation that would guaranty that arbitrary, unprovable allegations of any sort by any woman against any man would automatically, universally and irrevocably be deemed as legitimate cause to destroy that man’s life? Democrat X: Yes. Republican Y: No.”
3)      “Climate Change: Do the candidates support world-impoverishing legislation that would utterly destroy the global economy in order to possibly slightly reduce the ‘chance’ that the Earth will continue to experience dramatic changes in climate as it has since the beginning of time, including, but not limited to, repeated ice ages wherein mile-thick sheets of ice have traveled hundreds and thousands of miles south in northern hemispheres eviscerating everything in their way, followed by astoundingly rapid warming periods during which these pre-industrial ice sheets have retreated, leaving lakes and glacial till in their wake?”
4)      “Center for Voter Information: Do the candidates support legislation that would officially recognize The Center for Voter Information as the pathetically partisan, pandering, politically-polemic polling group that it really is? Democrat X: No. Republican Y: Yes.”
               


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