23 August, 2011

US Elections

American elections, like Christmas and the football season, seem to start earlier and earlier. The next one is due 14 or 15 months away, for a President to take office in 2013, but already it seems to be warming up.

The only candidate I would myself vote for, the libertarian Ron Paul, seems to be popular in straw polls and primaries but the story is no one would actually vote for him.

The popular money, unless Sarah Palin stands, would be for a Republican candidate Rick Perry, with running mate Michelle Bachmann, to stand against Obama.

As far back as I can remember the choices in the Presidential Election seem to have been bleak, and of course some have turned out good and some bad. It may well be that Rick Perry would make an outstanding President; it just doesn’t look like it. He described the prospect of a third round of quantitative easing as ‘treason’; this from a man who once promoted the secession of Texas from the Union, which would have been treason indeed. People who shoot their mouth off can be attractive characters, but not too good, for example, at diplomacy with the Chinese, on whom your country depends to buy its debt.

Nevertheless, the prospect of the British-hating Obama is not appealing from this side of the Atlantic.

One problem for Presidents is government spending. Even Reagan, who used to say that the most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you’, raised state spending to uncontrollable amounts. Government debt is now $14 trillion (that’s $14,000,000,000,000). Republicans spend on the military, Democrats spend on welfare, but everybody spends. The only candidate with any kind of policy for reducing it is Ron Paul, who, as I say, is unlikely to be chosen.

America has the choice of debt management or decline. This election is important, or would be if anyone had anything useful to say on the matter.

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