A choice between a Pig and a Crook

So the third and final debate between two candidates vying for the presidency of the United States of America has come to a close. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, based on recent polls, is on her way to defeat Republican candidate Donald Trump. America has a little more than two weeks before its people would determine the fate of its country in the next 4 or 8 years. Setting aside the circus and distraction this long campaign has brought, would America really be in good hands with Hillary? A few takeaways from the debates regarding important matters should give Americans a pause. We may call “The Donald” a blabbermouth politically incorrect buffoon but it seems to me that in this election, Americans are left to choose between a pig and a lying crook.

Economy

The economy is, of course, a perennial important issue in America. In fact, the median household income of Americans decreased by $1,656 since Obama took office. It is interesting to note that the recession officially ended in the summer of 2009. It is also worth pointing out that there has been no improvement in the poverty level since Obama came to power. Now let’s think about this, if the economic downturn has stopped during Obama’s watch, why are Americans still not better off than they were less than 8 years ago?

Poverty level statistics in the US

The problem, really, is bad government policy and both Republicans and Democrats are to blame for this. Hillary likes to point out that the collapse of the economy in 2008 was due to the greed of the wealthy corporate fat cats, a typical talking point of the left. What Hillary is unwilling to say is that the bursting of the housing bubble during the Bush administration was the result of a slow and painful deterioration stemming back all the way from Democrat President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s. Back in 1977 the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was passed to encourage lending institutions to help the credit needs of communities where they operate, including low income neighborhoods. The problem with this law is that it got banks to give mortgages to people who did not have financial stability to own a home and with President Bill Clinton’s drive to promote home ownership during his time lending companies were even more pressured to ease credit requirements on mortgage loans. Combine this with the government essentially guaranteeing mortgages, this has changed the incentive structure of banking. This has encouraged lenders to give out loans as much as they can regardless of the financial capabilities of applicants to pay the loans back because the government would be paying off the bad loans too! But when conservatives warned of the potential risks of the law the liberals accused the people who want to do away with the CRA as racists for trying to prevent poor people (a lot of which are in the minority such as Blacks and Latinos) from homeownership. So if we look at the facts, the collapse was the result of a poor liberal policy by Jimmy Carter which was injected with steroids under Bill Clinton’s watch.

Clinton and the left also love to blame George W. Bush and the Republicans that gave tax cuts to the greedy corporate fat cats – you know, those “evil” one percenters. Clinton asserts that it is time for the rich to pay their “fair share”. While it is so easy to vilify the uber-rich folks at the top of the food chain, it is interesting to note that the economic ladder’s top earners already pay most of all tax revenues in America while those in the bottom 40 percent pay nothing at all and even get money from Uncle Sam. Here are more tax facts in America:

So what exactly is Clinton (and the liberals) talking about when it comes to paying one’s “fair share”? As we can see, the rich are already paying more than their “fair share”. Tax cuts to the rich would provide more incentives for these people to invest in businesses that create real jobs instead. Less taxes would also mean lesser of one’s money to end up going to the pockets of crooked politicians. Now one may say that it isn’t fair that a multi-billionaire like Donald Trump has not paid federal taxes. However, while the fact that The Donald has not paid federal taxes in years (although his campaign states that he paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes, etc.) what he has done was within legal boundaries. Trump used the laws of the land to his advantage like most savvy businessmen have done and continue to do. I would argue that pretty much everyone would use whatever tax loopholes available there are to minimize their tax burdens. Who the heck wants to give away most of their hard-earned money to the government? It is the height of hypocrisy to bash someone like Trump but also takes advantage of tax loopholes and deductions. The question now is, with Hillary Clinton being so close to the center of political power in 30 years or so and being a legislator for 2 terms, what has she done to close the tax loopholes so that the “evil uber-rich” would pay their “fair share”? I guess Trump was right. Hillary and typical career politicians like her are all talk and no action.

Open Borders and Cybersecurity

In the third debate Clinton was asked about her desire for America to have open borders. This came from a speech she gave to a Brazilian bank that paid her $225,000 for it, which was revealed by WikiLeaks. Clinton defended her speech by saying that she was referring to energy, not immigration. Here’s an excerpt of her words:

If you look at her words and if you consider what she and her husband (former President Bill Clinton) have been advocating for years with regards to open borders on immigration, then it is clear that Hillary wasn’t just referring to energy in her speech revealed by WikiLeaks. Her inspiration is probably closer to what the European Union does with people moving freely from country to country. The problem is (illegal) immigration is one of the top election issues in America. While immigration is the 6th top issue, the top two issues (economy and terrorism) are also somewhat connected to immigration. A great number of Americans still want the government to take steps to control US borders to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into America. While this is a different issue from illegal immigration amnesty, a lot of Americans are still wary of having open borders when it comes to immigration. Clinton, in order to avoid alienating so many people who are against open borders, made a pivot instead of addressing her stance on open borders during the debate. She quickly changed the subject to Russian influence in the American election as well as espionage through WikiLeaks. While Trump was correct to call Hillary’s attempt to weasel her way out of the question, Hillary’s attempt to bash WikiLeaks instead of addressing the subject opens her up for yet another big scandal she inflected upon herself.

Clinton has been embroiled in what is known as her “e-mail scandal”. This issue was about Clinton using her private email server for official communications when she was the US Secretary of State. The emails contained messages that were of highly confidential in nature and she deleted some 30,000 of her emails three weeks after a congressional subpoena. (Doesn’t this smell like obstruction of justice?) Although she was later cleared by the FBI and that the Department of Justice under Attorney General Loretta Lynch decided not to puruse charges against her, it is interesting to note that the clearance was given after the Attorney General agreed to meet with Bill Clinton for 20-25 minutes at a Phoenix tarmac, but I digress. The point here is that if Hillary Clinton was truly so concerned about foreign influence in America’s affairs and if she was truly concerned about cybersecurity, why on Earth will she keep top secret, confidential information on unsecured servers where anyone can hack these information? Why is Hillary so concerned about the WikiLeaks information regarding her sleaze and shenanigans but not about America’s confidential diplomatic stance, military assets, readiness and strategic plans, as well as the names of intelligence assets who may now be compromised all because she wanted a private email server that was not subject to America’s Freedom of Information Act? What is there for her to hide? Also if Hillary was really concerned about cybersecurity, why would she be so “careless” in losing or misplacing 13 mobile devices that were potentially used to send highly classified information? It sure does not sound like Hillary has good judgment at all.

ISIS

When it comes to terrorism, ISIS is a group that America is very much focused on. Not only is this organization a threat to America’s national security it also has wreaked havoc throughout the world. But some 4 years ago, Obama referred to ISIS as a JV team (junior varsity) which clearly meant he didn’t think the group was such a threat. But how did ISIS start and become strong? What the liberals and Democrats don’t tell the public is that President Barack Obama and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a tactical error that made ISIS what it is today. In 2010, Obama went ahead with his promise of troop withdrawal from Iraq. The gains of America’s Surge in Iraq were abandoned leaving the new Iraqi forces to defend themselves from threats. When America left, this formed a power and security vacuum in Iraq which a group of radical Islamic terrorists (now known as ISIS) took advantage of. Why was this group allowed to flourish? It was because the Obama administration did not want the political humiliation of putting boots on the ground again in Iraq after getting credit of pulling out American soldiers there. This has bewildered many people why America would not leave a formidable amount of troops to at least protect Iraq when America still has troops in Europe 60 years after World War 2 and in Korea around 50 years after American involvement in the Korean war.

It is one thing to hate Donald Trump for his rude and crude manners and it is another thing to vote for Hillary on what she has achieved and what she can do. Personality aside, it should really be about which candidate can make America economically prosper and safe. It should also be about each candidate’s merits and achievements as well as character, not solely on one’s (or one’s spouse’s) sex life – which I think is really just a big distraction to issues that really matter. So again, America seems to be stuck with a choice between a pig and a crook. Personally speaking, I would rather go for the candidate that would “Make America Great Again”. But I guess that’s just my love for bacon speaking.

(Photo taken from courant.com)

Hector Gamboa

Calling a spade, a spade…