Furniture-building Democrats vs. furniture-burning Republicans...

From an email I wrote to a friend:

I generally like Obama's economic policy. It's very production-oriented (which makes sense, since he comes from the Midwest). He wants to make America leaner, efficient, more competitive. I like that. I think there's a lot more he could do in that direction than what he's proposed, but he's proposed a lot more than anyone else.

I feel like the Republicans have become the party of consumption. They want this big tough army, but they don't want to pay for it. Reagan wasn't bad, but since the 90s the Republicans seem to have just said "consume more, borrow more, spend more"...did they think the money would magically appear? Or did they just not care? Did they think that because Americans are getting more liberal, and white people are increasing a a % of the population, that America is on the way out, and so it was just time to burn the furniture and grab what they could, and leave the mess to whatever hippie commie darkies inherited the ashes? Sometimes I wonder.

The one Republican I'd vote for over Obama - or possibly any Democrat - is Bob Gates. He seems like a guy who seriously believes in the future of his civilization, and wants to invest and get serious. Unfortunately, the Republicans seem overrun by people who secretly believe that America is a dead letter.

As for McCain, I think his instincts on some things are good, but there's basically zero chance of him getting to act on those instincts. Look how he's flip-flopped on everything from torture to wiretapping to campaign finance to spending. If he gets elected, I'm sure we'll just keep getting ruled by people like Phil Gramm, Dick Cheney, etc...the people I call the "furniture burners"...

For the record, Obama's "furniture-building policies" include:

• The infrastructure bank
• Increasing spending on research
• Making pensions opt-out (which increases private saving)
• Balancing the federal budget (which increases national saving)
• Heavily encouraging alternative energy

These usually fall under the term "competitiveness," which is a term Obama repeats a lot. You never hear McCain talk about competitiveness, do you? He likes competing, all right - sending our military to kick other militaries' butts. But he doesn't like doing the heavy lifting back at home to actually pay for that military. He's like a coach I had in little-league soccer who just always wanted to scrimmage, never drill or practice. Of course, our team finished near the bottom of the league.