Issues with John McCain

[GenSeneca]

Having pummeled Obama on the issues, its now McCain's turn to be raked over the coals of reality. I have chosen to begin with the Economy from his list of issues as I feel it really is the most important vehicle for returning to fiscal responsibility.

From: www.johnmccain.com

John McCain Believes We Should Institute A Summer Gas Tax Holiday. Hard-working American families are suffering from higher gasoline prices. John McCain calls on Congress to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

The elections are in November, 3 months after summer ends. Grow a pair John and demand a permanent repeal of the gas tax and pay for it with earmark reform... not that it would have a huge effect on the economy but we need to cut taxes and wasteful spending anywhere we can to get the budget back to fiscal sanity.

John McCain Will Stop Filling The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) To Reduce Demand. International demand for oil is bolstered by federal purchases for the SPR. There is no reason to fill it when oil is so expensive; the overall SPR is of adequate size, and when it places further upward pressure on prices.

This is totally a BS policy, let me explain why... According to the DOE:

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 directed the Secretary of Energy to fill the SPR to its authorized one billion barrel capacity.

Authorized for 1 billion barrels but its current capacity is 700 million... McCain suggests its too expensive to fill and we should stop, theres an important fact he's not telling you:

The SPR's 700-million barrel milestone was again reached on April 2, 2008

Its been full for 2 months. The current price of oil is totally irrelevant but we would actually be better off reaching our 1 million barrel capacity asap since the cost is only going to go higher for at least the next 5 years... Even more so if we DON'T drill and expand refining capacity.

John McCain Proposes A One-Year Spending Pause To Evaluate Programs. He believes that outside of essential military and veterans programs there should be a one-year pause in discretionary spending growth that should be used for a top-to-bottom review of the effectiveness of federal programs.

Sounds good right? Lets examine exactly what this would cover. Discretionary spending covers a range of budgetary responsibiliies but only one big one - Defense Spending - which is one of McCains exemptions. Non-Discretionary spending accounts for more than 67% of the national budget and that spending is expanding without any fiscal restraint - eating into the Discretionary fund every year.

Social Security currently accounts for nearly 25% of the total budget and: "According to the Social Security Trustees, the Social Security Trust Fund has unfunded liabilities over the next 75 years of $4.3 trillion. In the nearer term, Social Security spending is projected to increase from 4.3% of GDP in 2007 to 6.1% of GDP in 2035." --RSC Policy Brief

Enough of what McCain doesn't cover, here are the programs that would be subject to a "spending pause" under his administration:
General Government ------------------- (1%) [of Nat.Budget]
Energy ---------------------------------(1%)
Science and Technology -----------------(1%)
Community and Regional Development -----(1%)
Agriculture -------------------------------(1%)
Foreign Affairs ---------------------------(1%)
Environment and Nat. Resources ----------(1%)
Administration of Justice -----------------(2%)
Transportation --------------------------(3%)
Education -------------------------------(3%)
Total % of Nat. Budget subject to pause---(15%)

Not surprisingly, McCain has promised expansion to some of these agencies in other areas of his platform... Heres one example, that of Energy:

• John McCain Will Commit $2 Billion Annually To Advancing Clean Coal Technologies.
• John McCain Will Put His Administration On Track To Construct 45 New Nuclear Power Plants By 2030 With The Ultimate Goal Of Eventually Constructing 100 New Plants.

A promise of 2 billion is nowhere near as substantial as the investment necessary for 100 nuclear plants... So, "Energy" can effectively be considered as exempt from the spending pause and once we tally up all the promised expansions to existing agencies on the Discretionary spending list; about 5% of our national budget will actually be subject to a pause in spending.
------------------------------

So many issues with McCain and so little time... I hope at least some of you out there in cyberspace can appreciate the gravity of the issues facing this nation and begin to consider discussing them as mature adults. Perhaps some of the resident character assassins would like to try their hand at bashing McCain based on his policy proposals.... there is no shortage of material.

 

[GenSeneca]

Once again, mention of issues, policies and positions and there is no interest in the topic.... Gay sex, drugs, abuse and scandal - now you're talking about something the masses can take an interest in. Its sad, really, really sad and this is why we are in the current situation we are in AND its why things will not be getting better.

 

[Federal Farmer]

Once again, mention of issues, policies and positions and there is no interest in the topic.... Gay sex, drugs, abuse and scandal - now you're talking about something the masses can take an interest in. Its sad, really, really sad and this is why we are in the current situation we are in AND its why things will not be getting better.

Well, some of us actually sleep between the hours of midnight and 8 a.m. on the weekends (when we're lucky enough to actually have the day off).

 

[Federal Farmer]

As for the SPR, I would personally like to see us shut down all imports of oil and use the SPR for 2 years. Given our current oil import rates, we could use the SPR for those 2 years without having to concern ourselves with invading them sufficiently to reduce our military capabilities in case of war. By stopping imports and using the SPR, that would have a direct impact on the "demand" side of the "supply and demand" equation, which should reduce prices substantially.

As for refining capacity, I already addressed that in THIS post.

As for your concerns about discretionary spending, the current administration, together with Congress have already agreed to keep discretionary spending below the inflation rate, which means that they're currently working on a negative budget annually. One other thing about discretionary spending is that it's not 15%, it's 14.77% (sorry, couldn't help it) according to the OMB's 2009 US Budget (specifically, Table 5.4 on page 118 of THIS PDF file). Now, while 14.77% may not sound like much, it works out to be $433.2 billion dollars, or $1,444.00 in tax liability for every man, woman, and child in America, or $5,766 for a family of 4.

Given that some people (like ANDY), who pay nowhere NEAR that much in taxes, are some of the first to complain about people "taking" something from them (while they're actually the ones who are REALLY taking from people like ME), those of us who actually DO pay in excess of our portion of the tax burden in this country would welcome ANY relief from having to carry everyone else on our backs, so Mr. McCain, BRING IT ON.

The $2 Bn that he's talking about spending on clean coal technology is 6/10ths of 1% of our budget, and if that's what we need to spend in order to be able to use more of our available resources, and reduce our energy costs, I find that to be a wise investment as it will pay exponential dividends down the road.

As far as nuclear power plants, and using the General Electric ABWR type plants that were recently constructed in Japan as a model, they cost right at $2000.00 per kilowatt to build ($2 per watt), which for a 26 gigawatt unit puts it at $52 Bn. each, and if Mr. McCain is able to convince Congress and the environmentalist whack-jobs to actually go through with building the 100 new plants, even if we account for the fact that they're estimating construction costs to drop to $1.40 per watt in todays dollars (as if inflation isn't going to impact that number), that's still $3.64 Tn dollars that's going to have to be spent over the next 22 years.

Given that it takes, on average 3 years to construct one of these plants, and the goal of constructing 100 of them by 2030, we would have to start construction on 5 plants per year, every year, between now and 2026 in order to have all 100 plants on line by 2030. Also, accounting for "normal" cost over-runs, I'd put actual construction costs at closer to $4.6 Tn for all 100 plants (28% cost over-run from projected to account for inflationary costs over the life of the project, in 2008 dollars).

Normally, on large, "long-life" projects of this type, we have to either get guaranteed costs from our suppliers (which means we pay for everything up front, and they go ahead and store it for us, for a nominal fee, until we're ready to actually use it), or we specify in the contract that we are basing our figures on current material costs, and any increases in those costs will have to be absorbed by the client. Labor costs are also calculated at a specific rate of inflation, and any additional costs, over and above that inflationary calculation are also passed along to the client, and it is THESE factors that routinely account for the "dreaded" cost-overruns that so many people slam the "evil" corporations for.

One other point, given the average 40 year life expectancy of a nuclear power plant, we'd have to start decommissioning and replacing these new plants in 2048.

 

[GenSeneca]

Good stuff fed,

First, I am with you on "Bring it on", everything we can do to reduce government and its spending should be done. My point wasn't that it was soo little we shuoldn't do it, my point was that the "Straight Talker" could at least be straight about his proposals, rather than making them sound more appealing and effective than they really are - Thats Obama's gig. I would have more respect for McCain on this policy had he come right out and said "This spending pause will only effect 5% of the National budget" because Democrats are NOT willing to have a pause in ANY spending.

As for the SPR, I would personally like to see us shut down all imports of oil and use the SPR for 2 years.

I must take issue with this statement. If you look at our daily barrel use (around 21 million a day) and divide 700 million barrel reserve by that number, you're only looking at 33 days worth of oil - Which leads me to believe we shouldn't touch that oil unless its an acutally emergency.

Now you DID say to cut out our imports but they account for about 15 million barrels a day (70% of our use), which would mean our SPR would last roughly 46 days.

So unless you're looking at different numbers, I'm interested to know where you came up with the SPR lasting 2 years. Thanks!

 

[Federal Farmer]

Good stuff fed,

Thanks

As for the SPR, I would personally like to see us shut down all imports of oil and use the SPR for 2 years.

I must take issue with this statement. If you look at our daily barrel use (around 21 million a day) and divide 700 million barrel reserve by that number, you're only looking at 33 days worth of oil - Which leads me to believe we shouldn't touch that oil unless its an acutally emergency.

Now you DID say to cut out our imports but they account for about 15 million barrels a day (70% of our use), which would mean our SPR would last roughly 46 days.

So unless you're looking at different numbers, I'm interested to know where you came up with the SPR lasting 2 years. Thanks!

We must be looking at different numbers.

According to the EIA, which provides us with the "Official Energy Statistics from the US Government" rolleyes our imports of unfinished oil for April of this year was 700,000 BPD, which gives us a total of 255,675,000 BPY. Given that the SPR is supposed to have a current capacity somewhere about 700,000,000 barrels, even if we used it strictly to replace our imports of unfinished oil, at Aprils import rate, for 2 years, that will leave 188.65 million barrels for emergency military use.

I hope this answered your question. If you have differing numbers, I'd be more than happy to look at them for comparison sake, and see if we can discover where the discrepancy might be.

 

[Pandora]

Once again, mention of issues, policies and positions and there is no interest in the topic.... Gay sex, drugs, abuse and scandal - now you're talking about something the masses can take an interest in. Its sad, really, really sad and this is why we are in the current situation we are in AND its why things will not be getting better.

I read your post last night. Very well written. I did not add to it because, well I dont know what to add. You can attack McCain on positions he holds right now, but he never held those a year ago and he probably wont hold them through November. I dont think anyone really knows what he would do if elected. He sways a whole lot more than I ever figured he would. I dont see a lot of point in trying to focus on his views since they are going to keep changing. Perhaps when he picks a vice, I will start paying attention because that is the man who will probably be running things if he were elected.

 

[top gun]

Once again, mention of issues, policies and positions and there is no interest in the topic.... Gay sex, drugs, abuse and scandal - now you're talking about something the masses can take an interest in. Its sad, really, really sad and this is why we are in the current situation we are in AND its why things will not be getting better.

The point you fail to concede is that the REPUBLICANS are not going to do anything you say they will. George Bush ran on the exact same type rhetoric you post now as what the REPUBLICANS will do.

They didn't in 8 years of this Republican President with almost all of that time controlling both Houses of Congress... no way in hell they'll do it next time either.

The simple and super obvious fact is if one only takes a second and looks at the spending numbers and size of government THE REPUBLICANS ARE NOW 100% THE PARTY OF BORROW AND SPEND!!!

Some used to say the Dems were tax and spend... with their senior citizens programs Social Security & Medicare along with other American social programs here at home helping Americans.

But now Republicans have taken to ballooning the deficit borrowing money from places like Communist China which is MUCH MUCH WORSE so they can run around the world playing Cowboy on any old lie just to try and control more oil producing countries & play Nation Builder.

Add to that the Republican's LOVE OF CORPORATE WELFARE and THEIR LOVE OF DEREGULATION AS IN THE HOME LOAN CRISIS (see McCain adviser Phil Graham) and you can see the economic fix the Republicans have put our country into.

No more false bait and switch promises from the Radical Right. We need to try something really new this time. It's either that or we get 4 more years of steady Bush type war & economic decline with just another Bush surrogate in John McCain.

 

[GenSeneca]

The point you fail to concede is that the REPUBLICANS are not going to do anything you say they will. George Bush ran on the exact same type rhetoric you post now as what the REPUBLICANS will do.

Wow... I really have to bite my tongue on this one... I JUST BASHED MCCAIN FOR HIS RIDICULOUS POLICY POSITIONS and you reply as if what I wrote was some Campaign Commercial FOR McCain and the Republicans.

I never said anything about what the Republicans WILL DO, so get a [expletive deleted] clue already!

I don't think you even bothered reading any of it, you just assumed I was pro McCain because you know I don't like Obama. They both SUCK and the American people deserve better.

The last paragraph was specifically intended for people of your ilk:

So many issues with McCain and so little time... I hope at least some of you out there in cyberspace can appreciate the gravity of the issues facing this nation and begin to consider discussing them as mature adults. Perhaps some of the resident character assassins would like to try their hand at bashing McCain based on his policy proposals.... there is no shortage of material.

You can crush McCain by taking on his issues, policies and proposals - same with Obama - and the point of it all is that some of you diehards wake up and demand BETTER from YOUR OWN candidates. Just because you support Obama doesn't mean you should AVOID criticizing him, it will make him a better candidate if you hold his feet to the fire on his BS... And in case you missed it - THAT GOES FOR McCAIN TOO!!!

 

[GenSeneca]

I read your post last night. Very well written. I did not add to it because, well I dont know what to add. You can attack McCain on positions he holds right now, but he never held those a year ago and he probably wont hold them through November. I dont think anyone really knows what he would do if elected. He sways a whole lot more than I ever figured he would. I dont see a lot of point in trying to focus on his views since they are going to keep changing. Perhaps when he picks a vice, I will start paying attention because that is the man who will probably be running things if he were elected.

Thank you very much for the kind words and I appreciate that you actually read my post... unlike some people who shall remain nameless but post in red.

I disagree that we don't have a good idea about where McCain will fall on the issues if elected... He sides with the Left on everything but Iraq and Taxes and I don't think thats going to change, those have been pretty consistent.

I am interested in who he picks as VP, he hasn't returned my Emails so I don't think I made his list of possibilities - his loss.

 

[Pandora]

Thank you very much for the kind words and I appreciate that you actually read my post... unlike some people who shall remain nameless but post in red.

I disagree that we don't have a good idea about where McCain will fall on the issues if elected... He sides with the Left on everything but Iraq and Taxes and I don't think thats going to change, those have been pretty consistent.

I am interested in who he picks as VP, he hasn't returned my Emails so I don't think I made his list of possibilities - his loss.

I hope he picks Romney. Right now I just have a hard time getting excited about anything polticial, I feel utterly hopeless. It would be nice to have someone running that I actually liked. Then I could get excited about it all.

I did like that McCain didnt want the Bush tax cut but not because he didnt believe in cuts but that he thought there should be cuts in spending with it. That is the smarter way to handle it.

but all in all, he is just to liberal for me to like him .............

 

[GenSeneca]

Thanks

Your welcome! Its refreshing to see individuals who can actually ADD to a conversation rather than distracting or derailing the whole thing with personal attacks.

We must be looking at different numbers.

I found the problem!

According to the EIA, which provides us with the "Official Energy Statistics from the US Government" our imports of unfinished oil for April of this year was 700,000 BPD

My information was from the DOE (who gets their numbers from EIA) BUT-HOWEVER-ON THE OTHER HAND- I was looking at CRUDE OIL where you were looking at UNFINISHED and therein lies the discrepancy.

From the DOE:

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the largest stockpile of government-owned emergency crude oil in the world.

So using unfinished (partially refined) oil numbers is giving you an inaccurate depiction of the SPR since it doesn't contain Unfinished oil.

Also from the DOE:

Current storage capacity - 727 million barrels
Current days of import protection in SPR - 58 days

So if we lost or stopped ALL our imports, the SPR would last us nearly 2 months. I will allow for the possibility that you know something about the SPR that I don't, so if you know we do stockpile unfinished oil in the SPR - please share you source so that I may be better informed on the subject.

 

[Federal Farmer]

Your welcome! Its refreshing to see individuals who can actually ADD to a conversation rather than distracting or derailing the whole thing with personal attacks.

Some people make it easy to have a civilized discussion. Others however, insist on "YOU'RE LYING", or "YOUR TAKING FROM ME", or worse yet are nothing but mindless Libtards or Rushbots who are incapable of thinking for themselves and only regurgitate the "Party line" prattle they've been told to repeat, and I quickly lose my patience with them. They've forgotten that it's better to talk to people on-line the same way that you would talk to them in person.

I found the problem!

My information was from the DOE (who gets their numbers from EIA) BUT-HOWEVER-ON THE OTHER HAND- I was looking at CRUDE OIL where you were looking at UNFINISHED and therein lies the discrepancy.

So using unfinished (partially refined) oil numbers is giving you an inaccurate depiction of the SPR since it doesn't contain Unfinished oil.

That is a possibility. Decades ago, in the petroleum engineering classes I took, "crude oil" and "unfinished oil" were interchangeable terms. In fact, just to make sure I wasn't suffering from a major case of CRS disease, I did some checking, and even on THIS site, they use "unfinished oil" alongside "crude oil" (see "crude oil acquisitions"). It is possible however, that like so many things today, that word usage has changed (for instance, when I was a kid "gay" meant "HAPPY", not "homosexual"), and that "unfinished oil" and "crude oil" may mean different things as far as DOE or SPR are concerned.

Also from the DOE:

So if we lost or stopped ALL our imports, the SPR would last us nearly 2 months. I will allow for the possibility that you know something about the SPR that I don't, so if you know we do stockpile unfinished oil in the SPR - please share you source so that I may be better informed on the subject.

I also noticed that in an earlier post, you used 21,000,000 BPD as our total current usage, I am therefore uncertain as to where you obtained your 15,000,000 BPD figure as it relates to imports, and would be very interested in reviewing it, since that would imply that we're actually having to import 75% of our current usage, and I would find that to be VERY disturbing

I see that they're calling it "58 days" of import protection, so unless the EIA's import figures of "unfinished oil" actually DOES mean something other than "crude oil", and their 700,000 BPD figure is accurate, then it's still 255,675,000 BPY or 511,350,000 for 2 years, which leaves 215,000,000 in the SPR.

If "unfinished oil" does in fact mean something other than "crude oil" (in which case they HAVE pulled an Alice in Wonderland on me, and words mean what they want them to mean, when they want them to mean, regardless of what the proper usage is), and it now means a "partially refined" oil, of which, say, the natural gas, naphtha, and gasoline have already been removed, and all we're importing in our "unfinished oil" is the residual kerosene, diesel oil, lube oil, heavy oils and other residuals, then it's entirely possible that the imports of "residual oil" would be of little or no value as far as replacing what we have in the SPR.

If however "unfinished oil" IS "crude oil", then as for the DOE's "58 days" figure, and to quote Shakespeare, "something is rotten in the State of Denmark". If you look at the DOE figures on maximum drawdown capacity at 4.4 million barrels a day, and multiply that by the 58 days, it accounts for only 255.2 million of the 727 million barrel capacity of the SPR, or just over 1/3. Now, realizing full well that it's impossible (from an engineering standpoint) to completely drain the SPR of all of the oil that's been put into it (absorption and stability factors for instance), so I'm going to assume that the 727 million barrel capacity is the "safe" capacity that can actually be withdrawn from the SPR, which means that they're allowing for just over 1/3 to be drawn from the SPR for "import protection" and the rest for some other purpose that has yet to reveal itself.

 

[top gun]

GenSeneca;51022]Wow... I really have to bite my tongue on this one... I JUST BASHED MCCAIN FOR HIS RIDICULOUS POLICY POSITIONS and you reply as if what I wrote was some Campaign Commercial FOR McCain and the Republicans.

I never said anything about what the Republicans WILL DO, so get a [expletive deleted] clue already!

I don't think you even bothered reading any of it, you just assumed I was pro McCain because you know I don't like Obama. They both SUCK and the American people deserve better.

The last paragraph was specifically intended for people of your ilk:

Well that wasn't at all my intent... and I of course noted that you were giving advice as to what John McCain should do.

However grant me this is far from your first post my friend... I also read them all. Allow me to post this direct quote of yours as an example of your neutrality.

I'm quite biased against Obama but I like the fact that he is bringing new people into politics, and hope they hang around after he loses.

Your previous, steady, hard opposition to Democrats & Senator Obama self implies that you may feel there's even a chance in the world that the Republicans would do anything you have suggested. I took the entirety of you posts as somewhat telling... regardless of if you on this particular post you are supporting John Mccain... or not.

If you are now saying... There is NO WAY if a Republican won the Presidency he would break from the Bush track this country is on... then I apologize. You truly just don't like either candidate enough and to be consistent really shouldn't vote for either IMO.

You can crush McCain by taking on his issues, policies and proposals - same with Obama - and the point of it all is that some of you diehards wake up and demand BETTER from YOUR OWN candidates. Just because you support Obama doesn't mean you should AVOID criticizing him, it will make him a better candidate if you hold his feet to the fire on his BS... And in case you missed it - THAT GOES FOR McCAIN TOO!!!

Well again I have a slightly different agenda here because of my own sense of priorities. Get this... I personally don't think Senator Obama is quite Liberal enough on some issues. But I look at the race. Know the disaster we're in. Believe with every breath I take John McCain would be not just the same but worse than even George Bush.

So even though I am not 100% in lockstep with everything that comes out of Senator Obama's mouth the alternative is soooo bad it may appear so. I'll admit to that.

Sorry if there's been a misunderstanding. Your posts do have some merit.

 

[GenSeneca]

giving advice as to what John McCain should do.

I told him to grow a pair. I'm under no illusion that he will be the leader I WANT.

Allow me to post this direct quote of yours as an example of your neutrality.

Unlike yourself, I openly admit my bias... I suppose you think your neutral and objective?

Republicans would do anything you have suggested.

You stated you don't think Obama is Liberal enough on some issues so I'm guessing you have some ideas and opinions as to what he should do.... Does that mean theres a chance in hell that he will do it? So understand that I would be glad to have any of my ideas picked up by politicians from either side of the isle and get off my back.

Your posts do have some merit.

"Some" as in, the stuff you agree with? When it comes to policy, issues and legislation, I am equally tough on both parties because I hold them both to the same high standard. Perhaps your bias prevents you from seeing it, but fiscal responsibility is my number one priority and I don't care which party spearheads the effort as long as we address the problem.