Debate Questions For The American Citizenry

In person early voting started on September 18 in Minnesota, South Dakota, Virginia, & Wyoming followed by in person early voting in five other states (New Jersey, Vermont, Missouri, Illinois, & Michigan) - all before the first presidential debate on Tuesday night. 

Another seventeen states have in person early voting starting before the second presidential debate (eight of these starting before the VP debate) & another fourteen states starting before the third presidential debate. 

Makes me wonder if early voters in these states have already made up their minds & don't need additional information like will their preferred candidate still be alive on November 3?

But the trend in early voting has increased as shown on the graphic below & can only be expected to increase further in 2020 due to concerns about the Wuhan coronavirus & Democrats preference for voting by mail - estimates are that over 50% of voting will be early voting including mail-ins. 

I have prepared the following list of questions that I hope will be asked during the debates.  They certainly are not meant to be trick or gotcha questions but rather questions that every voter should know the answers to themselves - if you don't know the answers make it your business to find out.  This can only make you better informed & America stronger.

Whether you are an early voter or plan to vote on November 3 you should also know how each candidate answers these questions.  We'd be in a lot better place if our elected representatives knew the answers to these questions & better yet if they knew we knew.  

As for me, I'd settle for us even knowing what to ask.

1.  What is the significance of the national debt now that the federal government owes more to the public than the economy produces in a year?

2.  Scott Hodge, President of the Tax Foundation, calculated that to bring every family in America to average would require the people in the top two quintiles to pay higher taxes than they currently do with people in the top quintile paying the vast majority of an additional $2.4 trillion per year in federal taxes or 74% of their income.  What is the maximum amount of a person's income anyone should ever have to pay to the federal government in income taxes?

3.  The Social Security Administration clearly tells people in bold print on page 2 of the document entitled "Your Social Security Statement" (available to everyone online & mailed yearly to people over 60 who do not have an online account) that "by 2035, the payroll taxes collected will be enough to pay only about 79 percent of scheduled benefits."  Shouldn't we be taking steps now to head off this 21% reduction in Social Security benefits & if so what are these steps?  If not, why not?

4.  It has been shown that a premium support system, unindexed to inflation designed for people younger than 55 years old, will bend the Medicare cost curve down, softening the 12% reductions in hospital benefits projected for 2024 (two years earlier than projections done before the pandemic).  In addition the cost of Parts B & D are 81% funded by general revenue & growing too fast to be sustained.  Do you support a premium support system unindexed to inflation to replace traditional Medicare?

5.  Ken Blackwell & others have proposed a "cut, cap, & balance" plan in which federal spending would be controlled so that projected borrowing is cut in half next year (not 10 years from now), spending would be capped @ 18% of GDP (it was 21% before the pandemic), & under a balanced-budget amendment the president would be required to submit a balanced budget within the foregoing guidelines that call for super congressional majorities to raise future debt limits or tax rates.  Do you support such a plan? 

6.  Do you approve of the Federal Reserve's program of inducing 2% inflation that will reduce the purchasing power of the median-income American household by $1,370 each year?  In addition the Fed's policy of near zero interest rates coupled with 2% inflation is my definition of negative real interest rates.  How do you justify this policy to savers, especially senior citizen savers, many of whom live below the median income level, & are losing their meager purchasing power every day on their life's savings?

7.  Explain the importance of the connection between economic freedom & overall freedom.

8.  Ayn Rand wrote in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal that "A system of pure, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism has never existed anywhere."  In 1996 Professor Friedman said "America has been more than fifty percent socialist for many years & we are not getting our money's worth."  Explain the importance of capitalism to America's future.  How do you see socialism fitting in with your vision of America? 

9.   Explain the difference between extinguishing civil liberties & allowing violent protests like we have had in Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Kenosha, & NYC.  Was it a hate crime for people to block the emergency entrance to a hospital so that the two police officers who were ambushed & shot in the face @ point blank range in Compton, California could not receive prompt medical attention?  The people blocking the hospital chanted "we hope they die."

10.   Do state & local stay @ home lockdown orders that have shut down or severely limited commerce & forced many businesses to close across the country violate the Constitution?

11.  What is the significance of the phrase "& subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in Section 1 of Amendment IV of the Constitution regarding so called birthright citizenship?  Didn't Ohio Senator Jacob Howard, author of the Citizenship Clause, intend the amendment to apply to freed slaves & not illegal aliens who snuck into the country to give birth thereby taking advantage of America's generosity?

12.  How important is the presidential oath that you take per Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution to you?  Please point out any responses from your opponent tonight that do not comply with the presidential oath or the Constitution.

13.  More & more the legislative & executive branches both run to the courts to provide cover for themselves by having five unelected judges provide the answer to unpopular questions.  Doesn't this just seem wrong?  What is your idea of the proper role of the courts?

 14.  What are the consequences that China should pay for manufacturing & intentionally releasing the Wuhan coronavirus to the world causing over 200,000 deaths in the U.S. so far?   

***

I thank everyone who sent in their own list of questions they would like to have asked during the debates.  I have posted the questions received on RTE - just click on comments @ the bottom of this post online to read them.  Please let me know if you think of any other questions & I will post them also.

Your America Under Biden

Thanks to long time subscriber, contributor, commenter, all around good guy, patriot, & dear friend Economics501 for preparing the following list of Democrat policies & positions that will undo your America if implemented by Joe Biden.

Economics501 asks each voter "which of these Democrat policies do you support?"  And that is the question of the election season.  

Please let me know if you think of other items - either Nos or Yeses & I will add them to the list.

Whether Biden or Harris talk about the issues on the list below, or not, they indeed form the agenda that will be pushed by the Sanders/Warren/AOC side of the Democrat party as evidenced by the Unity Task Force Biden formed with Bernie to consolidate their effort meaning that Biden moved left.  Yes, Biden won the Democrat primary & then gave in to the runner up to move closer to his positions.

Contrast Biden's anti-American points on the list below with Trump's pre-pandemic achievements of record or near record unemployment lows for every group - whites, blacks, women, Asians, & Hispanics -  & every one of these groups experienced increased incomes before the Wuhan coronavirus hit & the state & local governments shut down the economy.   We have no reason to believe Trump cannot restore prosperity once the pandemic passes & no reason to believe that Biden can based on his 47 years of bureaucratic politically correct experience in government.  Prove this to yourself - name one tangible Biden accomplishment in those 47 years?

Trump's pre-pandemic economy was made possible by the reduction of regualtions that connect economic freedom with political freedom that Biden's supporters mistakenly take for granted.  You will lose much of your political freedom under Biden as the list below indicates what America would look like if Biden wins.

Please read the entire list below carefuly & then randomly take one out of every four items & envison what America would look like if they were implemented by a Biden administration.

No private health insurance

No police

No ICE

No borders

No bail

No freedom of speech

No freedom of religion

No school choice or vouchers to low income

No low income enterprise zones

No energy independence

No fossil fuels

No ROI on green deal

No ROI on any spending

No Capitalism

No to freeing up entrepreneurs innovation

No voter ID

No protection of unborn alive in mothers womb

No to reopening economy

Yes to releasing many criminals from jail

Yes to police stand downs

Yes to sanctuary cities and states

Yes Immediate citizenship to 20 million illegals

Yes to Full health education income benefits to Illegals

Yes to Reparations

Yes to College loan forgiveness at taxpayer expense

Yes to Much higher individual income taxes

Yes to Much higher corporate taxes

Yes to Many more business regulations

Yes to nationalizing several industries

Yes to Socialism

Yes to version of Marxism

Yes to Antifa and Marxists

Yes to wage control

Yes to destruction of property by rioters

Yes to violent rioters

Yes to autonomous summer of love zones

Yes to Federal power to zone all localities

Yes to Federal Gov limiting single family zones in suburbs

Yes to sending Covid patients to nursing homes

Yes to nationalizing energy, auto, airline, energy, pharma industries

Yes to abortions from conception to day of birth

HEY -- 4 MORE YEARS

A Post Conventions Analysis

In March of 2012 Andy Andrews explained to Mike Huckabee that twice in the last six presidential elections the voting age population (VAP) exceeded the actual number of voters by over 100-million people.  In 2008 the voting age population was 206-million people & the actual number of voters was 131-million people so 75-million people eligible to vote did not vote – & of these 75-million 65-million call themselves Christian believers.  This statistic has not changed much since – there are tens of millions of Christian believers who will not vote in 2020.
 
More recently, in the dramatic 2016 presidential election the voting age population exceeded the actual number of voters by over 113-million & the VAP turnout was 54.7% meaning that almost half the country that was old enough to vote didn't.  See graphic below. 

  click on graphic to enlarge

Typically a presidential election draws about a 60% turnout meaning that the victor does not receive half of the votes of the people old enough to vote but rather approximately 30%.

Off year elections draw a significantly less turnout - Bill de Blasio was originally elected mayor of NYC with 18.72% of the votes of registered voters in a 26% turnout & AOC won her first primary for Congress in a 12.9% turnout election in 2018 receiving less votes than she cost her district in high quality Amazon jobs thereby showing how important it is to know what is going on & to vote.

You can see why many people have no respect for people who don't vote - it opens the door for people like de Blasio & AOC to slip in.  Many people also have little respect for those who do vote - they don't understand the issues or concentrate on superfluous issues & that opens the door for people like BO & Pelosi.

Blogger Wayne Dupree focused on both of these types of people when he wrote on July 20 - "Let's consider the typical American: They can't balance a checkbook, knows all the Kardashians but not their kid's middle school teachers, can't find Iraq on a map, can't name the past six presidents; thinks the U.S. won the Vietnam war; pays someone to mow her lawns so they can free up time to walk on a treadmill @ the gym; spends 20 minutes looking for a parking space & waiting in two lines to pay $4 for a 69 cent cup of coffee just so they can enter her office with a 16 ounce 'symbol of conformity' in their hand.  They can't name their state's senators; they don't know what a mutual fund is, never heard of Douglas Macarthur.  They spend more money on hair & nails & man caves than retirement savings & have ben brainwashed to think diversity is a strength.  Did I miss anything?"

Well, only that 40% of the population say they could not readily afford an unexpected expense of $400 without selling something or borrowing - this is a $58.74 expense in constant 1970 dollars.  And twelve percent of adults say they would not be able to pay such an expense by any means.  See graphic below for breakdown by generation.  Click on image to enlarge.

Further on this irresponsibility line - less than half of working Americans over 60 feel their retirement savings are on track to retire any time soon & less than 13% had no retirement savings @ all.  Source - Federal Reserve report in 2019.

 
With regard to the above typical American who votes I can only add to Wayne's description that I know someone who votes for the person on the debate stage who wears the nicest tie – whether or not that person is even a candidate.

And of course students of the Constitution know that the Founders were too smart to let the people described above anywhere near the voting booth - the Founders rejected the direct popular vote of the President.  There is no constitutional right for the people to directly vote for the President.

The Electoral College was implemented via the Constitution to select the President.  People do not vote for President, they vote for electors, who assemble in their state capitals on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, to cast their ballots & officially select the next President of the U.S. – December 14 this year.  

The Founders @ the Constitutional Convention were well aware of the human shortcomings described above & wanted to prevent incompetent people or other enemies of America from taking office so they limited the direct popular vote to people of substance & then only to direct voting for Members of the House of Representatives – the representatives who were closest to the voters & therefore would more directly answer to them.

The Founders were extremely careful in writing the Constitution to limit voting eligibility for President only to people appointed by each states' legislature.  The people so chosen (appointed) were known as electors - they cast the actual votes for President.  The states' legislatures' method of choosing electors was by popular vote with the voters in 1789 being property owners - white males & free negroes in five of the thirteen states, to wit, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, & North Carolina.  Source - Mark Levin, Men In Black, page 15.

The idea was that the election was to be made by men (electors) most capable of analyzing the positions of the candidates on the significant issues. It was important to the Founders that the electors had the information & discernment requisite to making a full investigation before casting their vote.

 

The Founders wanted the voters to be people with skin in the game & to keep elections as local as possible.  The original constitutional popular voting power did not extend past voting for Members of the House of Representatives.  Senators were chosen by State Legislatures & the President still is actually chosen by electors who are chosen in a "Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct."

So in essence the only people who originally could vote in America were property owners - white male & free negroes in the states indicated above - they voted for electors who they thought would best study all the presidential candidates & their positions on the issues.  These property owning voters were also the ones who elected Members of the House.

In The Federalist No. 68 Hamilton wrote regarding the guarded way in which the President was to be selected "that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is @ least excellent."

The Founders were well aware of the principle I refer to as Death Of Democracy - they knew as students of history that a democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.

 

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance;

From abundance to complacency;

From complacency to apathy;

From apathy to dependence;

From dependence back into bondage.

Over the decades the American system of voting eased until today people who receive government checks to pay for a large part of their existence vote & actually cancel out the votes of people who pay the taxes that these people rely on.  Can't express the Death Of Democracy clearer than that.

This is why America is a constitutional republic - not a democracy.  "A republic, madam, if you can keep it" was Benjamin Franklin's reply to Elizabeth Powell's question @ the end of the Constitutional Convention about what sort of government the delegates of the Convention had created on September 17, 1787.  

The political conventions of the past two weeks gave the Democrats (Biden & Harris) & Republicans (Trump & Pence) the chance to showcase what they plan to do if their candidates are elected.  And by "their candidates" I include Democrat governors & mayors who are the ones who have allowed the tyranny, rioting, looting, destruction, & the ruination of innocent lives in their own states & cities under the pretense of peaceful protests.  They have allowed paid out of town professionals & opportunistic looters, after dark, to agitate & really destroy whatever peaceful elements of the protests ever existed - instead of arresting these looters & agitators, finding out who is paying them, & then bringing them all to justice.

The Democrats spent much of their convention blaming President Trump for the deaths & hardships caused by the Wuhan coronavirus but of course they never called it that in deference to the Communist Chinese.  Conspicuous by its absence was any mention whatsoever during the Democrat convention condemning the rioting, burning, & looting in neighborhoods of people they think of as their constituents.  Finally on the next to last day of the Republican convention, nearly a week after his own convention, Biden put out a video criticizing the violence & looting - but only after focus groups started to show defunding the police & supporting, even tacitly, rioting & looting were still political losers in America.  But like the Wuhan coronavirus Biden feels that Trump is responsible for the riots & civil unrest.

And of course Biden is wrong on both the virus & civil unrest counts.  The national government's functions do not include police powers – principally safety & health matters which are the responsibility of the states or cities.  With the exception of banning travel to the United States from places like Communist China, where the Wuhan coronavirus originated, the President has no direct power or authority under the Constitution for health issues including any involvement in the current Covid-19 pandemic.

The Constitution's enumerated powers specifically grant Congress the power to call out the militia (Militia Clause - Article I, Section 8, Clause 15) & the President the authority to command the militia (Commander Of Militia Clause - Article II, Section 2, Clause 1) when needed in the active service to the U.S. Starting in 1792 with the Uniform Militia Act (also known as the Calling Forth Act) Congress delegated to the President the authority to call out the militia & this delegated authority remains today for the President to suppress civil disorders, insurrections, or rebellions when governors do not exercise their authority to call out the National Guard (descendant of the colonial militia) when it is obviously necessary.  An example of presidential primacy in this regard is President Kennedy calling out the National Guard to integrate the University of Mississippi in 1962.

In the case of Washington state, Governor Jay Inslee seemed oblivious to the take over by thugs of blocks of Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood from June 8 to July 1 in a police free zone that resulted in Carmen Best, the first Black woman Seattle Police Chief, to resign.

Governors & mayors have their own police departments & control of their state National Guards as well as the cooperation of President Trump in providing resources to quell the current violence in short order, if asked.  Absent the action to accomplish this you can only conclude that the violence you see is what the people in the affected areas want & will continue to get.

Biden has said he would shut down the entire economy, if president, if scientists told him that was the best way to fight the virus.  Sounds more like the job of a project coordinator than a project manager & being president is a project management job.  Since he has no authority over the states on this matter, just what would Biden do that Trump has not tried to do if the states ignored him?

The Democrat convention did not focus on the details of any policy agenda.  It certainly did not mention the impracticality of the Green New Deal like grounding airplanes or the astronomical trillion dollar increases in taxes required to fund their programs.  You wouldn't expect them to point out the poor decisions that Biden has made over his 47 year government career or his flip flopping on practicing Catholic matters like abandoning the Hyde Amendment that forbids taxpayer money to fund abortion.

And whether Biden would ban fracking or new fracking permits or ban drilling for oil on federal lands or everywhere it is safe to say that he is no fan of any of this & AOC will be the enforcer to make sure he only gets more vehement regarding eliminating fossil fuels.

Click here to hear Biden's acceptance speech.

The Republican convention highlighted one inspirational speaker after another including Nick Sandmann, the student from Kentucky who had a hateful encounter on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 2019, & Ann Dorn, the widow of retired police officer David Dorn who was killed during a protest of June 2.

Both Trump & Pence called out the Democrats' shift toward socialism & this was met by resistance from readers of this blog - as being too easy on them.  Economics501 wrote that Trump's speech was a missed opportunity to detail the dangers of Democrat Marxism to the electorate & that the speech should have explained that Marxism extends socialism with the gamut of individual freedom restrictions like speech & religion.

Of course I agree with this assessment except it may be too advanced for @ least some of this electorate described hereinbefore - an electorate educated in government schools that are more dangerous to America than al Qaeda ever was.  The portion of the electorate I am referring to thinks socialism refers to some social media they have not yet tried so what in the world will they think Marxism is?

Rudy's speech on the socialism topic wrapped all of this together for the most elementary to understand when he said "He's (Biden) a Trojan horse with Bernie, AOC, Pelosi, Black Lives Matter, & his party's entire left wing just waiting to execute their pro-criminal, anti-police, socialist policies."

EW wrote - "Would have liked to hear him (Trump) say after going through Biden's platform, this is what I will do. His wife, & Ivanka, showed up really well.  Nancy against the debates, doesn't she know that doesnt look good for Biden."

Click here to hear Trump's acceptance speech.

In summary, everyone should think back to last February & see if you were not doing better under Trump than you had under BO/Biden.  Unemployment was 3.5% & Black, Hispanic, Asian, & women unemployment was @ or near record lows.  The gap between Black & white joblessness had dropped to the lowest level ever since these records were first kept in the 1970s.  Wages were rising. 

We don't know when the Covid-19 pandemic will end.  In fact with the CDC changing their recommendations on such basics as wearing masks & not needing to be tested if coming in close contact with confirmed Covid-19 cases if you don't have symptoms or the WHO now declaring that lockdowns are more harmful than helpful we have no confidence that anyone really knows how to combat the Wuhan coronavirus.

What we do know is that if the pandemic passes any time in the next four years that Trump has a proven record to restore our prosperity & no indication that Biden, based on his 47 years in government, can.

Just about as important as the presidential election is the election of senators, governors, & mayors that stand for reelection in 2020.  As detailed above, voting out the type of Democrat governors & mayors who have tolerated the destruction, looting, burning, & killings in Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Baltimore, & other cities is the fastest way to return America to normalcy.