Texans, Debt, and the Environment

This is my third attempt at posting my thoughts on politics. The first time I hit post only to find that my 10 month old had unplugged the modem. The second failed attempt was lost in cyberspace and may still show up at some point. Here's hoping the third time is the charm. First some responses to what's already been said:

Glenn, good job solving the toilet paper mystery.

Karl, I agree with Mr. Lattin that you gave up on the Texan bandwagon too soon. You should have waited for Ron Paul. More explanation below.

Scott, for me, the death penalty and abortion aren't so contradictory because they are about tying the consequence to the action. When you abort a baby, you avoid the natural consequence of what you have done, and you can argue if the death penalty is a natural consequence but there should definitely be severe consequences for certain actions. Now that being said, I am against the death penalty, though more because it costs too much to go through the legal system and does little or nothing to deter people from committing serious crimes.

If I could only have one thing from my government leaders, I would ask for a balanced budget/reduction of the deficit. Clinton got lucky that the economy was booming and balanced the budget for a while, but none of the current Presidential candidates even suggested such things (except for Ron Paul). To balance the budget, we would have to get out of Iraq and come up with a plan for Social Security. I didn't vote for Bush in the last election because he took spending to a whole new level (the war, expansion of Medicare/Medicaid, No Child Left Behind, etc.). In general, I'm in favor of lower taxes, but if higher taxes are necessary, that's fine IF you are going to spend my money wisely.

Now I don't think we need to go back to the gold standard like Ron Paul does, but can we please spend less than we take in? If we didn't spend so much on interest every year, we could have a lot more money for everything else. McCain is going to cut back on earmarks, but the real spending is in Defense, Entitlements, and Interest. That's where the cuts need to be made.

Another issue I'd like to bring up is this Cap and Trade nonsense. On NPR they had someone arguing for and against a Cap and Trade system, and it was a pretty one-sided argument. Now, I'm all for doing something for the environment (Pollution is bad regardless of its effect on global warming.), so go ahead and levy a Carbon Tax. But this Cap and Trade system is unnecessarily complex, hasn't worked a bit in Europe, and it has political corruption and bureaucracy written all over it. Someone explain this one to me because both party's candidates think this is a great idea. Also, what are your thoughts on the Democrats proposal for a 21st century Tennessee Valley Authority (aka green collar jobs) to install solar panels on everyone's house?

I read/listened to Obama's book, and I was gung ho Obama for a while (after Romney and Paul dropped out). But then the Democratic primary stretched on, and he tried to show how much more liberal he was then Hillary. And I just couldn't stomach the talk about how evil free trade agreements are and how evil it is to make lots of money. I hate listening to McCain even more, but I might vote for him simply to have the Congress and White House of opposite parties. Things tend to work better that way.