McCain does what effeminate racist elitist **** Obama doesn't have the
balls to do...He gets specific on what he is going to do.
[McCain should make Hillary his VP]
**********
ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain delivered the following
remarks as prepared for delivery at the Greater Columbus Convention
Center, in Columbus, OH, today at 10:00 a.m. EDT:
Thank you. The hectic but repetitive routine of presidential campaigns
often seems to consist entirely of back and forth charges between
candidates, punctuated by photo ops, debates and the occasional policy
speech, followed by another barrage of accusations and counter
accusations, formulated into the soundbites preferred by cable news
producers. It is a little hypocritical for candidates or re****ters to
criticize these deficiencies. They are our creation. Campaigns and the
media collaborated as architects of the modern presidential campaign,
and we deserve equal blame for the regret we feel from time to time
over its less than inspirational features.
Voters, however, even in this revolutionary communications age, with
its 24 hour news cycle, can be forgiven their uncertainty about what
the candidates actually hope to achieve if they have the extraordinary
privilege of being elected President of the United States. We spend
too little time and offer too few specifics on that most im****tant of
questions. We make promises, of course, about what kind of policies we
would pursue in office. But they often are obscured, mischaracterized
and forgotten in the heat and fog of political battle.
Next January, the political leader****p of the United States will
change significantly. It is im****tant that the candidates who seek to
lead the country after the Bush Administration define their objectives
and what they plan to achieve not with vague language but with
clarity.
So, what I want to do today is take a little time to describe what I
would hope to have achieved at the end of my first term as President.
I cannot guarantee I will have achieved these things. I am
presumptuous enough to think I would be a good President, but not so
much that I believe I can govern by command. Should I forget that,
Congress will, of course, hasten to remind me. The following are
conditions I intend to achieve. And toward that end, I will focus all
the powers of the office; every skill and strength I possess; and
seize every op****tunity to work with members of Congress who put the
national interest ahead of partisan****p, and any country in the world
that shares our hopes for a more peaceful and prosperous world.
By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and
women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in
her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning
democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of
decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still
occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced. Civil war has been
prevented; militias disbanded; the Iraqi Security Force is
professional and competent; al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated; and
the Government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every
province of Iraq and defending the integrity of its borders. The
United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller
one, and it does not play a direct combat role.
The threat from a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan has been greatly
reduced but not eliminated. U.S. and NATO forces remain there to help
finish the job, and continue operations against the remnants of al
Qaeda. The Government of Pakistan has cooperated with the U.S. in
successfully adapting the counterinsurgency tactics that worked so
well in Iraq and Afghanistan to its lawless tribal areas where al
Qaeda fighters are based. The increase in actionable intelligence that
the counterinsurgency produced led to the capture or death of Osama
bin Laden, and his chief lieutenants. There is no longer any place in
the world al Qaeda can consider a safe haven. Increased cooperation
between the United States and its allies in the concerted use of
military, diplomatic, and economic power and reforms in the
intelligence capabilities of the United States has disrupted terrorist
networks and exposed plots around the world. There still has not been
a major terrorist attack in the United States since September 11,
2001.
The United States and its allies have made great progress in advancing
nuclear security. Concerted action by the great democracies of the
world has persuaded a reluctant Russia and China to cooperate in
pressuring Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, and North Korea to
discontinue its own. The single greatest threat facing the West -- the
prospect of nuclear materials in the hands of terrorists -- has been
vastly diminished.
The size of the Army and Marine Corps has been significantly
increased, and are now better equipped and trained to defend us. Long
overdue reforms to the way we acquire weapons programs, including
fixed price contracts, have created sufficient savings to pay for a
larger military. A substantial increase in veterans educational
benefits and improvements in their health care has aided recruitment
and retention. The strain on the National Guard and reserve forces has
been relieved.
After efforts to pressure the Government in Sudan over Darfur failed
again in the U.N. Security Council, the United States, acting in
concert with a newly formed League of Democracies, applied stiff
diplomatic and economic pressure that caused the government of Sudan
to agree to a multinational peacekeeping force, with NATO countries
providing logistical and air sup****t, to stop the genocide that had
made a mockery of the world's repeated declaration that we would
"never again" tolerant such inhumanity. Encouraged by the success, the
League is now occupied with using the economic power and prestige of
its member states to end other gross abuses of human rights such as
the despicable crime of human trafficking.
The United States has experienced several years of robust economic
growth, and Americans again have confidence in their economic future.
A reduction in the cor****ate tax rate from the second highest in the
world to one on par with our trading partners; the low rate on capital
gains; allowing business to deduct in a single year investments in
equipment and technology, while eliminating tax loopholes and ending
cor****ate welfare, have spurred innovation and productivity, and
encouraged companies to keep their operations and jobs in the United
States. The Alternate Minimum Tax is being phased out, with relief
provided first to middle income families. Doubling the size of the
child exemption has put more disposable income in the hands of
taxpayers, further stimulating growth.
Congress has just passed by a single up or down vote a tax reform
proposal that offers Americans a choice of continuing to file under
the rules of the current complicated and burdensome tax code or use a
new, simpler, fairer and flatter tax, with two rates and a generous
deduction. Millions of taxpayers are expected to file under the flat
tax, and save billions in the cost of preparing their returns.
After exercising my veto several times in my first year in office,
Congress has not sent me an appropriations bill containing earmarks
for the last three years. A top to bottom review of every federal
bureaucracy has yielded great reductions in government spending by
identifying programs that serve no im****tant purpose; and instigating
far reaching reforms of procurement and operating policies that have
for too long extravagantly wasted money for no better purpose than to
increase federal payrolls.
New free trade agreements have been ratified and led to substantial
increases in both ex****ts and im****ts. The resulting growth in
prosperity in countries from South America to Asia to Africa has
greatly strengthened America's security and the global progress of our
political ideals. U.S. tariffs on agricultural im****ts have been
eliminated and unneeded farm subsidies are being phased out. The world
food crisis has ended, inflation is low, and the quality of life not
only in our country, but in some of the most impoverished countries
around the world is much improved.
Americans, who through no fault of their own, lost jobs in the global
economy they once believed were theirs for life, are assisted by
reformed unemployment insurance and worker retraining programs. Older
workers who accept lower paying jobs while they acquire new skills are
provided assistance to make up a good part of the income they have
lost. Community colleges and technical schools all over the country
have developed worker retraining programs suited to the specific
economic op****tunities available in their communities and are helping
millions of workers who have lost a job that won't come back find a
new one that won't go away.
Public education in the United States is much improved thanks to the
competition provided by charter and private schools; the increase of
quality teachers through incentives like merit pay and terrific
programs that attract to the classroom enthusiastic and innovative
teachers from many disciplines, like Teach for America and Troops to
Teachers. Educational software and online teaching programs endorsed
by qualified non profits are much more widely in use, bringing to the
smallest classrooms in America some of the greatest math, English, and
science teachers in the country. This revolution in teaching methods
has especially benefited rural America. Test scores and graduation
rates are rising everywhere in the country.
Health care has become more accessible to more Americans than at any
other time in history. Reforms of the insurance market; putting the
choice of health care into the hands of American families rather than
exclusively with the government or employers; walk in clinics as
alternatives to emergency room care; paying for outcome in the
treatment of disease rather than individual procedures; and
competition in the prescription drug market have begun to wring out
the runaway inflation once endemic in our health care system. More
small businesses offer their employees health plans. Schools have
greatly improved their emphasis on physical education and nutritional
content of meals offered in school cafeterias. Obesity rates among the
young and the disease they engender are stabilized and beginning to
decline. The federal government and states have cooperated in
establi****ng backstop insurance pools that provide coverage to people
hard pressed to find insurance elsewhere because of pre-existing
illness.
The reduction in the growth of health care costs has begun to relieve
some of the pressure on Medicare; encouraging Congress to act in a
bipartisan way to extend its solvency for twenty-five years without
increasing taxes and raising premiums only for upper income seniors.
Their success encouraged a group of congressional leaders from both
parties to work with my administration to fix Social Security as well,
without reducing benefits to those near retirement. The reforms
include some form of personal retirement accounts in safe and reliable
index funds, such as have been available to government employees since
their retirement plans were made solvent a quarter century ago.
The United States is well on the way to independence from foreign
sources of oil; progress that has not only begun to alleviate the
environmental threat posed from climate change, but has greatly
improved our security as well. A cap and trade system has been
implemented, spurring great innovation in the development of green
technologies and alternative energy sources. Clean coal technology has
advanced considerably with federal assistance. Construction has begun
on twenty new nuclear reactors thanks to improved incentives and a
streamlined regulatory process.
Scores of judges have been confirmed to the federal district and
appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, who understand
that they were not sent there to write our laws but to enforce them
and make sure they are consistent with the Constitution. They are
judges of exceptional character and quality, who enforce and do not
make laws, and who respect the values of the people whose rights, laws
and property they are sworn to defend.
Border state governors have certified and the American people
recognize that after tremendous improvements to border security
infrastructure and increases in the border patrol, and vigorous
prosecution of companies that employ illegal aliens, our southern
border is now secure. Illegal immigrants who broke our laws after they
came here have been arrested and de****ted. Illegal immigration has
been finally brought under control, and the American people accepted
the practical necessity to institute a tem****ary worker program and
deal humanely with the millions of immigrants who have been in this
country illegally.
Voluntary national service has grown in popularity in part because of
the educational benefits used as incentives, as well as frequent
appeals from the bully pulpit of the White House, but mostly because
the young Americans, no less than earlier generations, understand that
true happiness is much greater than the pursuit of pleasure, and can
only be found by serving causes greater than self-interest. Scores of
accomplished private sector leaders have joined the ranks of my
administration for a dollar a year and have instituted some of the
most innovative reforms of government programs ever known, often in
partner****p with willing private sector partners. A sense of
community, a kin****p of ideals, has invigorated public service again.
This is the progress I want us to achieve during my presidency. These
are the changes I am running for President to make. I want to leave
office knowing that America is safer, freer, and wealthier than when I
was elected; that more Americans have more op****tunities to pursue
their dreams than at any other time in our history; that the world has
become less threatening to our interests and more hospitable to our
values; and that America has again, as she always has, chosen not to
hide from history but to make history.
I am well aware I cannot make any of these changes alone. The powers
of the presidency are rightly checked by the other branches of
government, and I will not attempt to acquire powers our founders saw
fit to grant Congress. I will exercise my veto if I believe
legislation passed by Congress is not in the nation's best interests,
but I will not subvert the purpose of legislation I have signed by
making statements that indicate I will enforce only the parts of it I
like. I will respect the responsibilities the Constitution and the
American people have granted Congress, and will, as I often have in
the past, work with anyone of either party to get things done for our
country.
For too long, now, Wa****ngton has been consumed by a hyper-
partisan****p that treats every serious challenge facing us as an
op****tunity to trade insults; disparage each other's motives; and
fight about the next election. For all the problems we face, if you
ask Americans what frustrates them most about Wa****ngton, they will
tell you they don't think we're capable of serving the public interest
before our personal and partisan ambitions; that we fight for
ourselves and not for them. Americans are sick of it, and they have
every right to be. They are sick of the politics of selfishness,
stalemate and delay. They despair when every election -- no matter who
wins -- always seems to produce four more years of unkept promises and
a government that is just a battleground for the next election. Their
patience is at an end for politicians who value ambition over
principle, and for partisan****p that is less a contest of ide as than
an uncivil brawl over the spoils of power. They want to change not
only the policies and institutions that have failed the American
people, but the political culture that produced them. They want to
move this country forward and stake our claim on this century as we
did in the last. And they want their government to care more about
them than preserving the privileges of the powerful.
There are serious issues at stake in this election, and serious
differences between the candidates. And we will argue about them, as
we should. But it should remain an argument among friends; each of us
struggling to hear our conscience, and heed its demands; each of us,
despite our differences, united in our great cause, and respectful of
the goodness in each other. That is how most Americans treat each
other. And it is how they want the people they elect to office to
treat each other.
If I am elected President, I will work with anyone who sincerely wants
to get this country moving again. I will listen to any idea that is
offered in good faith and intended to help solve our problems, not
make them worse. I will seek the counsel of members of Congress from
both parties in forming government policy before I ask them to sup****t
it. I will ask Democrats to serve in my administration. My
administration will set a new standard for transparency and
accountability. I will hold weekly press conferences. I will regularly
brief the American people on the progress our policies have made and
the setbacks we have encountered. When we make errors, I will confess
them readily, and explain what we intend to do to correct them. I will
ask Congress to grant me the privilege of coming before both houses to
take questions, and address criticism, much the same as the Prime
Minister of Great Britain appears regularly before the House of
Commons.
We cannot again leave our problems for another unluckier generation of
Americans to fix after they have become even harder to solve. I'm not
interested in partisan****p that serves no other purpose than to gain a
tem****ary advantage over our opponents. This mindless, paralyzing
rancor must come to an end. We belong to different parties, not
different countries. We are rivals for the same power. But we are also
compatriots. We are fellow Americans, and that shared distinction
means more to me than any other association. I intend to prove myself
worthy of the office; of our country; and of your respect. I won't
judge myself by how many elections I've won. I won't spend one hour of
my presidency worrying more about my re-election than keeping my
promises to the American people. There is a time to campaign, and a
time to govern. If I'm elected President, the era of the permanent
campaign will end. The era of problem solving will begin. I promise
you, from the day I am sworn into office until the last hour of my
presidency, I will work with anyone, of either party, to make this
country safe, prosperous and proud. And I won't care who gets the
credit.
Thank you.
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