Ok, this post is a bit haphazard, but I don't have a lot of time:

Bush vs. Kerry
First of all, neither of the candidates seem to have a full grasp on reality. Bush wants to fight a war and have tax cuts. The only way to do this is to borrow money. Borrowing money will increase the debt. Bush's plan is lousy. He has, however, created jobs and pulled us out of a recession faster than any other president.

So what's Kerry's plan? Don't tax the middle class and tax the rich. What will he do with this money? Pay for healthcare. Is taxing the rich enough? No. He will need to find money in other places. Where? Business. I'll get into that, but Kerry's plan is lousy, too.

Taxing business
What's wrong with taxing business? Isn't that where the money is? Taxing business will take money away from creating new jobs and investing in capital. Kerry's plan will decrease the job growth rate. Business will stop expanding. But isn't Kerry's cause good? Healthcare for all. What does it matter, though, if it kills the growth of the U.S. economy? Look at Denmark. Yeah, they are cared for from birth to death, but they are looking at legislation to ban people from moving into the country. The people find they can't afford to pay the taxes to support these immigrants. This is not freedom. We cannot kill our economic growth or destroy the vision of freedom in America for immigrants. If we do, Western civilization will face a brutal collapse. We aren't just at the peak of modern civilization, we are also the base.

Across the Board Income Tax
The solution to all our taxing problems, as I see it, is an across the board 10% income tax. Every tax bracket pays the same percentage. No more tax cuts. Personal income tax all the way. Why tax the personal income tax? Because this money is the people's spending money. It doesn't create most the jobs in the economy, it generally isn't invested. Most of it is spent on products. So wait, if we tax it, aren't we taking that money away from the consumer? Shouldn't that hurt the economy? Nope. Those who buy more, the rich, are being taxed less. They will have more money to spend, which could possibly create more jobs. There would still be problems, but they would be simpler and easier to handle than the complicated, messed up system we have today.

Universal vs. No healthcare
So what do we do about healthcare? Our system is obviously broken. Health insurance, because of its discounts, drives medical costs through the roof. Hospitals can't afford the discounts unless they raise prices. So those without insurance lose any option of quality healthcare. What's the answer? It obviously lies with changing the insurance system. Either we 1. do away with it completely or 2. socialize it.

I like the first option better, so I'll explain socializing it first. Ok, to socialize it is simple: everyone pays a new healthcare tax, and the government provides the healthcare. Everyone pays, everyone gets free healthcare. The problem is the thousands or millions, I'm not sure of the numbers, who pay little or no taxes because of how low their incomes are. These people are freeloaders. They get free healthcare without paying for it. We pay more because of them, so we see taxes go up more than we'd like. So I don't like this solution. More taxes are not better. Making everything public means we don't have very high quality healthcare because there is no competition. This goes against the basic idea of the free market system. We are not socialistic, we should not become so.

The second option is very attractive to me. If you get rid of health insurance, the costs go down. Way down. Those who are uninsured will be able to afford healthcare. There are still many who would not be able to afford it, but I am not considering that right now. They are in the minority. One thing I will say is that these people will have a great incentive to work harder and earn more money. Harsh, but that's reality in a free market system. And this option will privatize the healthcare system, creating competition and better quality service.

The tax system and the healthcare system are falling apart. They are heading towards collapse. They both need to be reworked or we will have a crisis, we already have a crisis on our hands. Tithe's are serious issues that the presidential candidates need to face, and neither of them are. I am for Bush. I feel he has a better handle on the situation. He is more honest, more steadfast, simply a better leader. He is still a politician, though. Someday, when I can vote, I hope that I have better options than what I see today.

Church Growth
Now for some happier news: the church is growing greatly in the northeastern United States. It really makes me wonder, with the church providing so much service and offering so much hope to people, how there can be so much opposition to it. I mean, I understand theological reasons for it, but putting those aside, why do people not see and appreciate what the church does? In a world in which the family is falling apart, why do so many reject an organization that claims that family is central to the survival of the human race? Ok, that's easy, because many think that the family isn't important. But how can people not see the truth? I look at my friends. The happy ones have strong families. The sad ones have families that have been torn apart for various reasons. Now, this is not universal, but the happy child in the torn family is the exception, not the rule. How can people not see this? Why do they continue to tear apart the family, the core of civilization in every culture? There has been no successful culture that did not have strong families. That is a fact. Study your history. And what is a family? It has always been a mother, a father, and their children. Often it has included grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and others, but the basic element of a strong family has always been the married mother and father. It has never been different. To change it would be to destroy civilization, as we are finding out. I could go on and on, but I need to cook dinner. In the meantime, check out www.andrewhagen.com.