Full employment could fairly easily be accomplished with the correct tax cut.  Correct meaning it must work, and enough liberals must vote for it to get it passsed.  I have a simple one page bill that does the trick:

 

I suggest a simple tax cut for business -- allow a 125% tax deduction to the employer (rather than the normal 100%) on the total compensation of any qualified employee.  A qualified employee would be anyone living, working, paying taxes in the USA and having a total compensation of 100k or less (on a full time equivalent basis).

This is very simple.  A one page bill.  It will help small business and corporations alike.  Nobody can argue that the tax cut is going anyplace except to those that provide jobs, the more jobs the more the tax break is.  If you calculate the actual savings for the additional 25% deduction, the benefit is approximately 10% ... which is easy to explain given the 10% unemployment.

 

How can a liberal argue against a tax cut for employing people.  Directly.  And, this will make American labor more competative -- both against other countries and against machines.

 

I suggest Republicans create this simple bill and push the heck out of it!

There has been a lot of debate recently on the future of the Republican party.  Some advocate being even more conservative.  Some advocate being more moderate.  The debate misses a key issue -- there are distinctly different times in the political process, and each requires a different approach.  Specifically, Republicans need to think strategically at least as much as they think about ideology.

 

With the recent Supreme Court nomination of Judge Satamayor we have a clear example of what happens when strategic thinking is left by the wayside.  For all practical purposes, the major decisions on social isssues (including gay marriage and abortion), the 2nd amendment, and other hot-button conservative issue are almost entirely in the hands of the Supreme Court.  Roe v. Wade has more to do with the current state of abortion in this country than any single politician passing any single legislation.  These people are appointed for life and Judge Satamayor will likely be there for 30 years.  And Obama will likely appoint 3 or more additional justices.  Bottom line, conservative have completely lost on the life, 2nd amendment, gay marriage, and so forth.  The liberal agenda will be set by the court appointed by Obama.  There is very little incentive to push for legislation limiting abortion or supporting gun rights, the Supreme Court will simply overrule them.  I am not saying to give up the good fight, I am saying that things will be much more difficult.

 

How did we get in this mess?  By not being strategic.  During the primary process many people were not happy with Senator McCain.  I get that and I respect that.  Primarily some people thought he was too moderate and/or too unreliable.  I get that and I respect that.  This is the first period in the political process -- the primary process where we as a party select our candidate.  This is an appropriate time to fight it out amongst ourselves and decide if we want more conservative, more moderate, more libertarian, more whatever.  Spirited debate is good so long as we do not destroy our candidates.

 

The second period in the political process is the general election.  This is where we failed as a party.  John McCain won the primary.  But many conservatives could not not give up the battle -- the one they lost in the primary.  Especially talk radio and certain commentators.  They continued to beat up on John McCain and many people supported him half-heartedly or not at all.  The end result is that Obama won the general election.  And the end result of that is that Obama will pick likely four Supreme Court justices.  And the end result of that is that conservatives have pretty much lost on many important key issuse for the next 30 years -- I doubt the clock can be turned back at that time (precedence). 

 

I certainly have a lot of anacdotal evidence of that.  I live in a small town of about 10,000.  I can easily come up with hundreds of conservatives that either did not vote, or voted for Ron Paul, or wrote someone in, or anything but McCain.  They did this because they felt he was not conservative enough.  Many of them came to this conclusion and made their choice based on opposition Republicans on talk radio or as commentators.

 

This is wrong-headed because each person that did this simply helped Obama to win.  Some said to me that they did not care -- Senator McCain they felt was not a true conservative and they would rather let Obama fail for four years, and then fight to get a true conservative nominated.  They were mad he supported tha bail outs (for good reason I might add).  They just don't like him.

 

This is where Republicans forgot to think strategicly.  A president is there for at most eight years, and we get another shot at them in four.  The Supreme Court justices are there for life, and as things go these days, that is often 30 years.  If Senator McCain was exactly like Obama except for who he would appoint to the Supreme Court then I still would have enthusiastically and energetically supported his bid to be president during the general election.  And all Republicans should have done so.

 

The appointment of Judge Satamayor is just the tip of the iceburg compared to pain we conservatives are about to suffer.  There are the next appointments Obama makes, and then for 30 years the rulings they will make.

 

Republicans should in the future be more strategic.  Debate vigorously during primary campaigns without destroying each other.  And then, no matter who the primary victor is, support them with vigor in the general election.  Democrats have done this recently by electing conservative Democrats in places they need to win.  They don't get stuck on ideology in a general election and shoot themselves in the foot.  We need to learn from them.

 

It is just plain common sense.

 

 PS -- the spell checker does not work for me, sorry, and I can't spell!