President Bush Townhall Meeting

Jody and I had the honor of attending President Bush's Townhall meeting today (Pictures!) at the 7 Flags Event Center here in Des Moines, Iowa. Jody's pregnancy scored us big-time, super-duper close parking. We're talking first row, fourth car from the door.

The opening speeches were from local Republican candidates and generally what you would expect from a political event. In other words, generally forgettable. You were supposed to arrive no later than 12:30, so I expected President Bush to start speaking at 12:45 or later. Surprise, surprise - he started speaking at 12:15.

Bush gave a really great speech. You can tell that he likes to talk to groups where he can get some feedback from the audience. He hit all of the points that I was yelling at the TV screen during the debate last Thursday. He laid out his entire agenda for the next 4 years and some of his accomplishments from his current administration. My unsolicited advise is that he needs to brag on himself more. The media sure won't do it.

Big news of the day is that he signed the 5 year extention on his tax cut package. It's not permanent, so let's hope that he (and Congress) can simplify the IRS. Maybe that will be one of my platforms when I run.

The theme running throughout his agenda is personal responsibility. He repeatedly said that individuals do a better job with their money than the federal government. With a tax cuts, individuals buy things. Someone has to make those things. Someone has to deliver them. Someone has to sell and market those things. With more economic activity, companies need to hire more employees. Who creates the most jobs? Small businesses. Since most small businesses are organized as sole propiteers or Subchapter S corporation, their incomes fall under their personal incomes. Giving them more money meant that they can buy new equipment, send employees to training or even hire new employees. Thus adding to the business cycle. Americans are a hard working people. Give us a little bit of an opportunity and we'll succeed.

Healthcare was the other topic he spent a lot of time on. He covered a lot of my post on healthcare that's also found on www.WhiteHouse.gov.

Healthcare: Get government out of healthcare as much as possible. Let it be a decision between patient and physician. Let small businesses group together to get better insurance rates. Incent individuals to take charge of healthcare spending via HSA's.

Medicare: From a question from the audience - Medicare rates went up 17% this year because it's based on a formula decided upon in the mid '90's. Healthcare costs went up, therefore so did individual costs. Lowering the costs of clinics and physicians will lower the costs for individuals. The second reason is that more care is covered. Preventive care and soon a drug benefit gives you more for your money.

The Economy: Bush talked about how the economy is getting stronger. He pointed out that we've added 1.7 million people to the job market in the past year. More people own their own homes. And wages are increasing. Iowa farmers have more overseas markets to sell their crops. And he pointed out that about a third of all crops grown in Iowa is sold overseas.

Social Security: He talked about keeping the promises to our seniors but for the younger generations they should be able to take charge of their retirement more. By letting them invest their Social Security dollars, they can take more responsibility and be less at the mercy of Congress.

Small Business:As I said above, he wants to lower many of the costs for small businesses because he recognized the huge impact they have on the economy. Lowering the costs associated with hiring people is his biggest agenda item.

North Korea: The bilateral talks with North Korea ended with the US giving them hundreds of millions of dollars in nuclear fuel for a promise that they won't produce nuclear weapons. The ink wasn't even dry on the agreement before Kim Jong Il was violating the agreement. Bush put a stop to it right away in his presidency and started multilateral talks with North Korea and China. Later Russia, South Korea and Japan joined in. "Kerry accuses me of being a unilateralist in Iraq, ignoring all of our allies there, and it's a bad thing. He accuses me of being a multilateralist in North Korea and that's a bad thing too." The talks with North Korea didn't work, he had to try something new. Nothing would work without China as they've been supporting the Kim's since the '50's. If an agreement gets worked out, there is more incentive to not violate it. Back in Iraq, Kerry wants our allies to take more of a role there, but in Afghanistan where US troops were in the supporting role to a numerically superior Northern Alliance, Kerry calls that outsourcing national defense. Which way does he want it? Does he want our allies to take more of a role or doesn't he? Does he think we should operate alone, as he wants to do with North Korea, or does he want an international effort, like we are already doing in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Questions from the crowd: A reservist asked about the future force structure of the military. Bush - We will add 30,000 to the Army and 10,000 to the Marines. As to deployments, the best thing we can do is twofold. One, make Iraq a more stable and secure country. Two, give the Iraqi military and police forces the professional training needed so that they can confidently assume more of their own security. Bush pointed out that after WWII, Truman had a goal of turning former enemies into allies by helping them rebuild and allowing them to rejoin the community of nations again. We will build a strong and free Afghanistan and Iraq and that is the exit strategy (another question).

We also have video from our new Geek Toy. There are several megs worth of Quicktime .MOV files available. The video is a little shaky, but the sound is great. If you are interested, I'll try to figure out how to share them...