Guest Blog Post: A response to why you should vote Democrat

Editor's Note: This is a thorough response for "Why YOU should vote Democrat". The pictures and captions are from myself, to add some commentary. It is written by John Inglis, a Political Science graduate from the University of Ottawa. 

I appreciate that you concede that the Americans will have a new President in 2013, haha. I can agree that Democrats had white-supremacist members, but that lasted for a long time- the Deep South was solidly Democrat until the '64 election. Which means it was Democrat throughout the segregationist period. And lets  recall the phrase to endorse it "Separate, but equal" it sounds very nice in theory, like more Democrat ideas do, but it was a practical disaster.

Hoover did change the Democratic party forever, but Woodrow Wilson (that old white supremacist) and Teddy Roosevelt had already been long identified with the Progressivism that the Democrats would take on. Democrats may have not had the black vote until Roosevelt, but they had over 60% of the vote in 36' so they had nearly everyone's vote, but they would not sustain it, in the 50's and early sixties the black vote was Republican. Evidence suggests MLK Jr. was too.

Well I never said I was a fan of affirmative action,
just that the Democrats supported it

You mentioned a list of the things the Democrats have supported, which implies that the Republicans do not support those ends. Affirmative Action has been one of the worst policies for the black community, in fact anywhere in the world it has had the same results, I'll refer you to  Thomas Sowell's "Affirmative Action Around the World". The Republicans support gender and race quality, the difference is that Democrats seem to be focused more on results than oppurtunity, the statistics that they cite to make their case often just look bad but are not consequential, that's a long topic, so if you want me to speak on it I will. I'll point out that the black community experienced its best economic growth during the Reagan years. Republicans are not happy with the current state of affairs in health care in the States, if you want I could explain that more too, just let me know. Fighting poverty, I'd like to quote Ronald Reagan on that one "Don't you think it's time for them to read us the score?" If the fighting poverty was working based on the way and length of their fighting it wouldn't poverty be eliminated by now? $250,000 per family of 4 is spent on those below the poverty line. Now obviously that money does not go straight to those families that need it, again to quote Reagan from the same speech, "Obviously there must be a little bit of overhead."

Kerr-Mills was different from Social Security as there
was no mandatory enrolment. It provide funds
 to state's who could not fully afford  to provide health care to
those who could not afford it.

The people that were hurt most by the increase in the minimum wage were the black community, black teenage unemployment was the lowest for any demographic at that age at 16% and it rose sharply thereafter. Civil Rights were not the same as what you speak of today were you mean "rights" back then those were first generation right now people speak of rights in the second generation understanding of the term. If I need to elaborate I can.I'll point you to to Healthcare Reform called the Kerr-Mills Bill, it would have providing health care on a needs-based program, not the universal health care which forces people into it like Medicare and Medicaid do. The government would have paid for your healthcare only if you couldn't pay for it yourself, what's wrong with that program? If you're in favour of government increasing in size, as Statists are you would have a problem with that For more information on that I'll refer you to a Ronald Reagan audio on healthcare from that period available on youtube.

 Read the history for yourself  

Eisenhower in that quote isn't saying it would be wrong to eliminate those programs, but merely that it would mean political death for the party that does it. Besides very few Americans actually know what Social Security is and how it operates. The American people were lied to about it when Roosevelt proposed it, for that I would let you compare the structure of the program to the commercials at the time explaining how it works.

They're mostly the same people.

It's the Romney plan, not the Ryan plan. I'd like to clear something up about the American tax system. In American 75% of those earning more than $250,000 are actually small businesses registering as individuals, because that is the best way for them to register in the States, mostly because of the costs involved in registering as a corporation every year. Another thing to be clear here about is that the top 20% are not the same people every year, Republicans are interested in having an upwardly mobile society by the way, not equal outcomes. 6% of the people in the bottom tax bracket are in the top the next year, because selling a house is counted as income, so if you owned a house in San Francisco or New York you could make a million dollars one year and then make nothing the next. But the greatest come from young college students who have no real income but then enter the workforce, or haved worked their whole lives and been paid more as they aged. Which is one of many reasons why a younger black and Latino population are not easily comparable to the white or asian populations. A huge percentage of those in the bottom 20% are people who are retired, they are not the lazy people many think of they have little income but huge savings. Which most have been taxed on their entire lives. These are the fallacies that make arguments for the Democrats where otherwise they wouldnt have them, I could argue this more but since it's a large issue I'll only clarify what I am asked to clarify. Environment: in the 20's progressives argued that the state of the black community was due to inherit weaknesses in the race, later it was all about environment. To give you a clue of how wrong this is, as late as '57 75% of black households were two- parent families, with the increase in civil rights legislation that number dropped dramatically, mostly this appears as a byproduct of things like affirmative action (also a long story). Black income as a group was rising dramatically, and was on the whole (outside of the Deep South) in a far better condition than it is today. Hoarding money? Helping the poor? I would like to ask how they hoard money, the best thing rich people do with their money is re-invest it thereby creating jobs and wealth. Also if the rich people are so self-interested how does that make them different from other people? Are not all humans self-interested? What is there to suggest that a government official would be any different in their humanity? And how they would advocate not helping the poor, these are charicatures of what the Republicans suggest to do with regards to poverty.

Ronald Reagan: Republican Rockstar

When Ronald Reagan lowered tax rates in the early eighties he also closed many tax loopholes. he lowered marginal rates from 70% to 28% and actually increased revenues by $375 Billion dollars over 3 years. The graph that you provided to prove you argument takes very little else in account. I'll point out that the 90% (which was 94% in reality), on marginal income occurred in the forties and fifties, during a time when America was reaping the benefits of the Marshall Plan and the economy had finally recovered from the Great Depression, in 43'. Also it was JFK who reduced (yes, a democrat) the rate to 70% as he anticipated the downturn in the economy at the time, which is why the 90%+ bracket looks better than the 70%. Also the 28% figure was actually an increase in economic growth as it occurred immediately following the stagflation years of the Carter Administration. Also note that the 38.6% bracket were Clinton's tax increases and a lower growth rate than previously, and they also used that as a chance to cut capital gains taxes to try to keep in economy going strong. I'm sure you'll guess there's more to the story than that graph suggests.

Your suggestion that the economy has done better under Democrats that it did under Republicans may be true, but if you look at graphical analysis of the situation, you will often find that not the poor effects that the Republicans had are directly related to actions taken during the Democrat Presidencies. Examples? Stagflation which was a cause of the previous administations actually got worse under Reagan in the first few years before his policies began to ring it out of the system and create economic growth. The inflation rate under Reagan was still very high throughout his administration, but it declined the entire time. Inflation was a policy that the American government actually encouraged, as a way to vote themselves $10-14 Billion dollars extra because it was not until Reagan that the tax system was index for inflation. Which meant you could have a higher tax rate but no real increase in Income. Another example would be the information the Democrats use to suggest the the policies of "The Great Society" lowered unemployment rates, which they did for a few years, but graphical analysis shows that it had been lowering for a long time anyway. The information seems to suggest that those policies actually ended that trend. Also I'd like to point out that prior to the Reagan Administration and continuing until 94' the Democrats had controlled both the Senate and the House of Representatives for fifty years except 2.

Reaganomics did not play out as you suggest the increase in the national debt actually occured from having more than 20% interest rates during that time. As you may know, rates of 10% doublethe principal amount in a period of seven years. Reagan cut spending, but the Democrats under Tip O'Neil wouldn't allow him to make the cuts in spending he liked. Under the Reagan Adminstration government expenses did not grow or increase relative to the economy, they are best described as flatlining.

Triple Facepalm: " No, raising taxes to ridiculous levels like
 France has is not the answer, Britain already has tried that and has
lowered their tax rates to try and decrease tax evasion. "

Tea Party does not want to raise taxes, as I showed you, taxes rates and tax revenue are not directly related. The best way to increase government revenues is to grow the economy.

This rape thing is a low-blow I assume you're talking about Todd Akin's comments, Republicans were amoung the first to ask him to drop out, obviously this is not a Republican-Democrat issue, it is a right-wrong issue. I could go into Planned-Parenthood, but I will point out that it began as a product of the eugenics movement in the 20's, and Margaret Sanger's comments on this illustrate it. She wanted to eliminate the undesirables through abortions, her undesirable were blacks as an example. Abortions of black babies represent more than 50% of all abortions to this day, and most abortion clinics are set up in black communities. Perhaps you heard of the recent scandal where people went into Planned Parenthood buildings wishing to donate money, but only "...if it was used to abort black babies." The Planned Parenthood representatives were more than happy to oblige. Also re-read that quote by Romney "Republicans, and myself in particular, recognize that people should have a right to use contraceptives." That doesn't mean that they have to right to have them funded by the government. Also don't argue the possibilty of a Ryan Presidentcy if you wont consider a Biden one.

Not all Republicans are social conservatives, look at Ron Paul's supporters for instance, and perhaps they give more money to strip clubs because if as you suggest they have more money they could give more of it away. Republicans also donate to charity at a far greater rate than Democrats, and it is estimated that if the rest of the country gave blood at the same rate as Republicans there would be 40% more blood donated every year. Extremists in the White House? During the Republican primaries it was general consensus that Romney was a moderate, even amoung non-Republicans, which would explain why Republicans were not that enthusiastic until Ryan was added to the ticket. But here's proof Ryan is not a"Radical".

The statistics about how many Americans were not covered by the healthcare plan before Obama was touted as 40 million during the 2008 campaign, but now it is generally recognized that only 8 million of those people could not afford it and were not covered by the structure already in place. I can't see why legislated that all Americans must own health insurance would be better than simply extending the existing coverage ( which would seem to me like a left of center idea, which I would have problems with but merely points out the radical nature of the steps Obama himself was actually taking.

I'll just leave this here.

I don't have enough knowledge to argue against the "No Child Left Behind" program, but I'll point out that Bush was not conservative with the policy, and that one of the most controversial aspects of it was that schools would actually be graded for their effectiveness with standardized testing. Who opposed this? The teachers unions. I bet also that Obama's funding programs for Post-Secondary education will increase the costs of those schools in the years to come.

Gridlock is not a bad thing, I'll point out that Bill Clinton had this, from 94' onward. And the American Constitution was actually intended to be slow moving body, read the Federalist Papers, particularly the ones written by James Madison. Also I'll point out that the gridlock occurred because Americans were so unhappy with the way the Democrats had ruled both the Executive and Legislative branches.

I don't know enough about net-neutrality laws to comment so I won't.

I'm sorry but the last paragraph doesn't make any sense, I think it is mean to say that Republicans are against "progress" but I would argue that depends on how you define progress.