November 5, 2000

Only One Issue Important in Deciding President Choice

Political choice always boils down to one, over-riding issue. What single qualification will tip the scales Tuesday?

For this columnist, the deciding factor is integrity – defined by Webster as "the quality of being of sound moral character; uprightness, honesty and sincerity."

Gov. George W. Bush meets this test. Vice-president Al Gore does not.

Voters who have Made Up Their Minds, may move on to the funny papers. For those still pondering, consider a few observations.

Bush seems to like people as individuals – warts and all. Perhaps the liberal’s pejorative description of him as a "frat boy" at Harvard is a favorable quality well justified. His campaign slogan – Compassionate Conservatism – says it all.

Gore seems to divide people into voting blocs – to be courted by bellowing to "fight" for them against enemies conjured from swamp gas. His administration would be a continuation of Clinton’s – deny, attack, obfuscate and parse.  

Enemies that Gore would bring to heel include Republicans, wealthiest one-percent, HMOs, insurance companies, tobacco interests, big oil, pharmaceutical companies, automakers, logging industry, coal mines and "polluters" too numerous to mention.

Americans have had enough of the Clinton-Gore techniques of vetoes and shutting down the government to get their own way.

For readers demanding Epiphany on issues, consider a troubling fact that politicians of all stripes will not discuss.

There is not much anyone can do to increase government services. Not Social Security, Medicare or anything else. Clip out the next paragraph and paste it on your bathroom mirror where you will see it every day.

Americans For Tax Relief (ATR) reports that the average worker must toil 167 days of the year to earn enough to pay for the financial obligations imposed on him/her by federal, state and local taxes.

This is 45 percent of total income, 35 percent by the feds. By any standard, this is a helluva burden. Historians tell us civilizations collapse when half their production goes to support leaders, law makers, bureaucrats, armies, tax collectors and other non-producers.

Forty-five percent, for me, is too close to the point of no return. Bush says the federal take should not exceed 33 percent. This is weak tea, but something. I am persuaded by Bush’s inclination to cut taxes.

He would reform Social Security by diverting some payments by workers into the money markets (not individual stocks, as critics assert). Old age pension funds would expand through capitalism profits rather than socialism debts.

More importantly, a tax cut will be the best weapon to soften an economic down turn which is overdue and inevitable in the coming months.

The stock market is jittery, but that is no measure of the economy – just fools searching for the last fool.

A true indicator is auto sales. Last month, eight of the nation’s 55 auto assembly plants closed for "inventory adjustment." Only generous rebates and zero-interest loans have sustained the auto market to this point.

When the economy next hiccups, a Bush tax cut will be the salvation – a la Presidents Kennedy and Reagan. The prospect of a Gore spending spree in an economic adjustment gives me the willies.

The Clinton-Gore administration sadly lacks moral underpinning. The two men are joined at the hips. Clinton told Californians last week that "the next best thing to his reelection was election of Gore."

Some choice. The vice-president sought campaign contributions illegally from his White House office.  He knew he was going to a Buddhist Temple to accept an illegal contribution and lied about it.

An unforgivable transgression by the vice-president, a supposed foreign affairs expert, was committed as chairman of Clinton’s Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission. Its mission was to help the Russian prime minister take his nation from communism to capitalism.

In this capacity, Gore secretly promised in 1995 to say nothing for five years while Russia sold high-tech weapons to terrorist Iran. The free-throw period expired long ago, but sales continue full throttle.

Such sales, calling for sanctions, are violations of the 1992 Iraq-Iran Nonproliferation Act. Ironically it was sponsored by Senators Al Gore and John McCain.

Gore and Clinton violated the law. They kept the violation secret from Congress, also contrary to law. If Gore is elected president, we can expect him to be investigated and possibly impeached by Congress -- as was Clinton -- for breaking the law and lying under oath.

Then it would be hypocrite Joe Liberman’s duty to put his arm around Gore’s shoulders and declare him "one of the nation’s greatest presidents."

Enough is enough.

Bush and Dick Cheney have integrity that deserves a mandate. They will need Republicans like our own Bill McCollum in the Senate, and Porter Goss in the House, to back them up. Only Congress can appropriate and spend money.

 Check your mirror first thing Tuesday morning.

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers