Presidential election quotes: Here we go again!

(The following is written and submitted for publication on LeftWingCapitalist by Guy Heston.) 

Whether we like it or not, and many of us don’t, the presidential election season is already upon us. Roughly 21 months before the election, the good people of Iowa, home of the ridiculously early presidential caucuses, are being heavily courted. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan during his debate with President Jimmy Carter in 1980, here we go again.

But let’s look on the bright side.
The lengthy presidential election cycle can be great fun, mostly because our jaws repeatedly drop at the statements of the candidates. It’s more fun than a roller coaster ride at the Texas State Fair. Speaking of Texas, former Texas Governor Rick Perry is still trying to live down his presidential candidate debate performance of 2011 during which he could not remember all three of the federal agencies he had proposed eliminating. When it became clear to him and everyone else he could not name all three agencies, he offered a fabulous quote--”Oops!”

So far the 2016 prospective presidential candidate season looks promising for quotes that make you slap your forehead and press the tv remote rewind to be sure you heard right. There were at least two such instances during Marco Rubio’s interview with Bob Schieffer on the Jan. 18 edition of “Face the Nation” on CBS television. Senator Rubio (R-Florida) was on the program to promote his new book “American Dreams,” and more importantly for him to continue testing the waters for a possible run toward the White House.

Referring to President Obama’s proposal to raise taxes on the wealthy, Sen. Rubio said in what seemed at least in style a very statesmanlike, I-want-to-be-president fashion, “The notion, first of all, that in order for some people to do better someone has to do worse is just not true.”

My jaw dropped because Sen. Rubio’s notion is, well, just not true. Just look at the big bank industry, whom (I use “whom” in accordance with the U..S. Supreme Court ruling that corporations are people) we taxpayers famously bailed out a few years ago after big bank investments in collateralized loans and other risky whatnot went south and helped to tank the economy to the point then President Bush said about the economy in September, 2008, “If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down.” Talk about quotable quotes. Anyways, the big bank people are so much the better for our bailout, although it cost taxpayer people a pretty penny in so many ways during the Great Recession. Some people like banks did better, some people like the middle class and poor did worse. Hopefully, rising big banks will lift all boats.

Later in his interview with Mr. Schieffer, Sen. Rubio said of the President’s proposal to provide free community college education to those who enroll, earn a 2.5 grade point average and make progress toward a degree, “The problem is he just wants to pour that additional money into the broken existing system, which a lot of people will graduate with AA degrees that don’t lead to anything but another four year degree that may not lead to a job. What we need to do is create competition with alternative methods where people can acquire certification programs that take less than two years and get you to work right away as a welder, an electrician, an airplane mechanic.”

There are so many ways to get chuckles out of that quote. Let’s start with “the broken existing system.” What exactly is broken about it? There is certainly room for improvements and efficiencies, but the public higher education system in the U.S. is still the model for the world. There is ample evidence that persons with four year college degrees will earn more and pay more taxes over the course of their careers. And “competition with alternative methods” sounds an awful lot like private, for profit colleges who (again following the Supreme Court ruling) make their money by and large from taxpayer financed student grants and loans that have been known to leave students with a huge debt that, unlike corporate debt, cannot be forgiven in bankruptcy, not to mention leaving many of those same students with degrees that are difficult in the job market. Oh, and I hate to break it to Sen. Rubio, but one of the greatest sources of our welders, electricians and airplane mechanics is the publicly funded community colleges that offer vocational programs that result in job-landing certificates in less than two years. Oh well, there here he goes again.

This is just the beginning of the extremely long but great fun presidential election quotable quote season. Thanks, Iowa. And a shout out to Sen. Rubio for great quotes out of the starting gate--I certainly hope he continues to test the waters as he promises a gold mine of quotes. We have nearly two years to go until we decide and I am almost hoping Sarah Palin throws her hat in the ring.  Can you imagine the fact checking frivolity? However the election turns out, it should be a great roller coaster ride!