2004 Economic Plan Challenge
Does Either Candidate Really Have a Plan For the Future?
One of the more common insults to Kerry is that he is running entirely on his Vietnam record, and that he has no or little plan for the future, because the media seems to cover only Kerry’s Vietnam record. The question behind the media controversy is: does either candidate actually have a plan for the future, and how much does that plan really matter?
I believe that an agenda is the most important part of a campaign. After all, Kerry was rarely mentioned before the primaries, while Howard Dean was both the media lightning rod and the expected winner. However, Dean’s entire campaign was centered on Bush-bashing, and there was no mention of a way to improve the nation (media analysts believed that the first primary was the perfect time for Dean to switch to the issues and say how he would be better than Bush, but he never did). Kerry, on the other hand, combined future goals and occasional Bush-bashing, which was quite capable of grabbing attention. I believe this is why Kerry won the primaries, and Dean’s rapid fall from grace defied the law of gravity.
Having proven that plans or goals really do matter, it is time to see who really has more/better plans on a leading issue, the economy. I will jump right to the major proposals of each side, as presented by each side, and explain my filtering technique at the end of this post.
And now, to present the 2004 Economic Plan Challenge!
Kerry’s 7-point plan (as edited by me). Details of the plan are in the column on the right:
1: strengthen the middle class by: tax cuts on Health Care, Child Care, and Education, create a New Jobs Tax Credit, lowering energy prices (through investment in new technologies), lower tuition costs, making housing more affordable, ensure equal pay for men and women, raise the minimum wage, and help balance work and family by creating after-school-programs (which may keep schools open until 6 PM).
2: improve worker’s rights by: reversing Bush’s new overtime law, oppose efforts by companies to replace unions, extend and improve unemployment insurance, improve workplace safety, ensure whistleblower protection, protect worker’s ability to form a union, and expand Trade Adjustment Assistance programs.
3: create good-paying jobs by: strongly enforcing trade agreements, investigating China’s workers rights abuses and ending its illegal currency manipulation, close international tax law loopholes that encourage outsourcing, create a one-time tax holiday (10% tax) for companies to bring profits back to the US, establish corporations to invest in manufacturing businesses, lower corporate tax rates by 1.75% (official website uses somewhat-distorted numbers), support jobs in America through “Buy American” guidelines, enhance job training, increase funding for Manufacturing Extension Partnership (website is slightly misleading), improve math and science education, pump more money into No Child Left Behind, promote Universal Broadband Access, reform the Advanced Technology Program, and develop new manufacturing technology at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
4: Restore fiscal responsibility by: cutting taxes for 98% of American, roll back Bush’s tax cuts on the “wealthy” (those who make more than $200,000 annually), restore discretionary spending caps of the 1990’s, cut corporate welfare, freezing or cutting non-priority programs to fund discretionary proposals, and giving the president constitutional power to sign a bill while vetoing specific spending items.
5: new opportunities for small businesses by: creating a "Small Business Opportunity Fund", allowing greater federal contracting for small businesses, simplifying taxes for small businesses, giving small business a cabinet level position, cut health care costs by two-thirds, exempting investments held for five or more years in small businesses, enacting a new "Small Business Retirement Initiative", and creating tax credits for called-up reservists.
6: help for freer and fairer trade by: holding A 120-day review of all existing trade agreements, Increasing resources for trade enforcement, and opening foreign export markets
7: help work and family by: increasing The Child Care Tax Credit to cover $5,000 of expenses
Now those are what I call plans! It’s hard to believe the media is missing all of this to report on some Vietnam controversies. Looks like Bush will need a brilliant proposition to put Kerry’s ideas to shame, and justify the media’s neglection of them.
Now, time for Bush’s 6-point plan (also as edited by me):
1: Make health care costs more affordable and predictable by: allowing small businesses to join together to purchase healthcare at lower rates, allow workers more control over their health care insurance and costs, and reduce frivolous lawsuits that drive up health care costs.
2: reduce the overall lawsuit burden by: allowing more class action and mass tort lawsuits to be moved to federal courts and ensuring that most benefits from a settlement actually go to people who are injured (instead of to the lawyer).
3: ensure an affordable and reliable energy supply by: upgrading the nation’s electrical grid, promote energy efficiency, increase domestic energy production, and provide enhanced conservation efforts, all while protecting the environment.
4: streamline regulations and reporting requirements by: simplifying and streamlining regulations, and ensuring that well-intentioned requirements do not cost jobs.
5: open foreign markets to American products by: continuing to work to open new markets around the world.
6: Enabling Families and Businesses to Plan for the Future with Confidence by: urging Congress to make vital tax reductions permanent.
Well isn’t this interesting! Not only does Kerry’s plan have an extra point, but also it is far more detailed. The question now is: why is Kerry’s economic plan, which is more comprehensive than Bush’s, getting snubbed by the media? It seems that Bush justifies his lack of substance with far superior style and clarity. Most of Bush’s points are written in the same pattern: the problem, the proposed solution, and an example. Meanwhile, Kerry’s solutions have the detail of Bush’s examples.
It appears that Bush has written guidelines or a policy which all his plans will follow, while Kerry has a step-by-step instruction manual. And, I believe the American people can understand basic guidelines more than precise directions. However, the disparities between these plans compensate for each other fairly well, so the winner must be determined by further analysis.
The candidates, like all good politicians, try to stay one step ahead of their detractors.
Kerry does this so well that he even has a chart here. However, there is one major problem; it shows Bush’s history compared to Kerry’s plans. Dare I mention that Bush’s column can be copied into Kerry’s, because Kerry served in the senate the entire time Bush was president, and he had an ability to change national policy just as Bush did (of course, he had less power, but that power covered a wide enough range)? After all, both the getaway driver and the perpetrator are held responsible for a crime (to make an insulting metaphor).
And Bush revealed the trick up his sleeve here. This page defends Bush’s history, explains his reasoning, and concludes with a bit of Kerry-bashing. That bashing happens to be against Kerry’s plans, not his past. And that is the winning point in the 2004 Economic Plan Challenge.
After three pages of summary, analysis, and debunking, it comes down to a technicality in bashing. I can’t wait to do this for the next election :).
Now, the rules.
Part 1: the source
A: the plan of each candidate will come from their respective official website, in text, or from another official text document claiming to contain the economic plan, with that claim supported by the candidate and/or his campaign, if a candidate does not have a website or that website does not have the required information.
B: if a candidate or his campaign does not have a written economic plan, then the Economic Plan Challenge can be delayed until said plan becomes available. If no plan is made available, said candidate loses by default.
C: the entire plan must be in a single document (of any number of pages) or must be found through a single webpage. That webpage can include links to other pages with specific parts of the plan. However, the linked-to pages must be labeled or named appropriately, and be in a convenient location. The linked to page(s) must contain part or whole of the economic plan and/or a breakdown of the plan, with links to the broken-down parts (“broken-down” is the past tense of “breakdown”, not a reference to an inoperable page).
D: Information that can be found only through a search engine, or through part of the website not limited to the economy, does not count unless it can also be reached as described in 1 C.
E: if a web page does not have a section specifically for economics, but the plan is reachable from the home page, then the home page can be considered the required economic page.
F: If the source is modified during the Economic Plan Competition, then the original (unmodified) version will be used, unless the modification was to correct a legitimate error (broken or incorrectly targeted hyperlink, spelling, and incorrect nouns or verbs count as legitimate errors). Other corrections of content should be ignored if possible.
Part 2: what goes into the summary.
A: Only items written in the future tense (or with a reference to their use in the future) go into the summary. Records of what has already been completed will be ignored, unless it is said that similar events will be attempted in the future.
B: If a point is repeated or reused, then only its first use is included in the summary. “first is determined by the standard method (top before bottom, left before right, or in accordance to a numbered or lettered order as provided by the source). By the way, this one counted against Kerry a few times
C: Any detail or item complying with both 2A and 2B must be included in the summary. The summarizer may not make any changes due to knowledge or belief of inaccuracy, error, a possible correction (if the item is corrected during the summarizing process, that item can be changed in the summary), or any other element that can introduce bias, whether it is justified or not.
Part 3: analyzing the summary.
A: because candidates are chosen based on popularity and not accuracy, the summaries must be judged based on how well they appeal to potential voters. That appeal can be based on clarity, detail, verbosity or conciseness, and the extent to which the average voter may understand the plan.
B: Analysis should have no mention or consideration of the accuracy of any particular item. Even if an item is a blatant lie to the summarizer, it should be assumed that the average voter does not suspect any inaccuracy in that item, and thus accuracy or lack thereof is irrelevant.
C: if one plan is clearly superior to the other, as determined in accordance with 3A and 3B, then the superior plan is the winner. If both plans appear equal or somewhat equal, then they can be further analyzed as described in part 4.
Part 4: further analysis.
A: additional information must be found in the procedure described by part 1, but justification or reasoning for the plan (or any item or detail within it), further evidence, items intended to convince a voter to agree with the plan, and/or bashing of the other candidate’s plan can be sought.
B: items bashing anything (or anyone) other than the plan of a candidate should be ignored.
C: the determination of whose plan is best is based on the items mentioned in 4A and 4B, and the procedure for determining which plan is best should follow the guidelines of 3A and 3B. In other words, the winner is the candidate who best supports his plan over that of his opponent(s) in the eyes of the average voter.
Comments are welcome. However, please refrain from criticizing either plan, unless you have some credibility to do so (in which case, I would love to get a bit of material for a follow-up post).
One of the more common insults to Kerry is that he is running entirely on his Vietnam record, and that he has no or little plan for the future, because the media seems to cover only Kerry’s Vietnam record. The question behind the media controversy is: does either candidate actually have a plan for the future, and how much does that plan really matter?
I believe that an agenda is the most important part of a campaign. After all, Kerry was rarely mentioned before the primaries, while Howard Dean was both the media lightning rod and the expected winner. However, Dean’s entire campaign was centered on Bush-bashing, and there was no mention of a way to improve the nation (media analysts believed that the first primary was the perfect time for Dean to switch to the issues and say how he would be better than Bush, but he never did). Kerry, on the other hand, combined future goals and occasional Bush-bashing, which was quite capable of grabbing attention. I believe this is why Kerry won the primaries, and Dean’s rapid fall from grace defied the law of gravity.
Having proven that plans or goals really do matter, it is time to see who really has more/better plans on a leading issue, the economy. I will jump right to the major proposals of each side, as presented by each side, and explain my filtering technique at the end of this post.
And now, to present the 2004 Economic Plan Challenge!
Kerry’s 7-point plan (as edited by me). Details of the plan are in the column on the right:
1: strengthen the middle class by: tax cuts on Health Care, Child Care, and Education, create a New Jobs Tax Credit, lowering energy prices (through investment in new technologies), lower tuition costs, making housing more affordable, ensure equal pay for men and women, raise the minimum wage, and help balance work and family by creating after-school-programs (which may keep schools open until 6 PM).
2: improve worker’s rights by: reversing Bush’s new overtime law, oppose efforts by companies to replace unions, extend and improve unemployment insurance, improve workplace safety, ensure whistleblower protection, protect worker’s ability to form a union, and expand Trade Adjustment Assistance programs.
3: create good-paying jobs by: strongly enforcing trade agreements, investigating China’s workers rights abuses and ending its illegal currency manipulation, close international tax law loopholes that encourage outsourcing, create a one-time tax holiday (10% tax) for companies to bring profits back to the US, establish corporations to invest in manufacturing businesses, lower corporate tax rates by 1.75% (official website uses somewhat-distorted numbers), support jobs in America through “Buy American” guidelines, enhance job training, increase funding for Manufacturing Extension Partnership (website is slightly misleading), improve math and science education, pump more money into No Child Left Behind, promote Universal Broadband Access, reform the Advanced Technology Program, and develop new manufacturing technology at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
4: Restore fiscal responsibility by: cutting taxes for 98% of American, roll back Bush’s tax cuts on the “wealthy” (those who make more than $200,000 annually), restore discretionary spending caps of the 1990’s, cut corporate welfare, freezing or cutting non-priority programs to fund discretionary proposals, and giving the president constitutional power to sign a bill while vetoing specific spending items.
5: new opportunities for small businesses by: creating a "Small Business Opportunity Fund", allowing greater federal contracting for small businesses, simplifying taxes for small businesses, giving small business a cabinet level position, cut health care costs by two-thirds, exempting investments held for five or more years in small businesses, enacting a new "Small Business Retirement Initiative", and creating tax credits for called-up reservists.
6: help for freer and fairer trade by: holding A 120-day review of all existing trade agreements, Increasing resources for trade enforcement, and opening foreign export markets
7: help work and family by: increasing The Child Care Tax Credit to cover $5,000 of expenses
Now those are what I call plans! It’s hard to believe the media is missing all of this to report on some Vietnam controversies. Looks like Bush will need a brilliant proposition to put Kerry’s ideas to shame, and justify the media’s neglection of them.
Now, time for Bush’s 6-point plan (also as edited by me):
1: Make health care costs more affordable and predictable by: allowing small businesses to join together to purchase healthcare at lower rates, allow workers more control over their health care insurance and costs, and reduce frivolous lawsuits that drive up health care costs.
2: reduce the overall lawsuit burden by: allowing more class action and mass tort lawsuits to be moved to federal courts and ensuring that most benefits from a settlement actually go to people who are injured (instead of to the lawyer).
3: ensure an affordable and reliable energy supply by: upgrading the nation’s electrical grid, promote energy efficiency, increase domestic energy production, and provide enhanced conservation efforts, all while protecting the environment.
4: streamline regulations and reporting requirements by: simplifying and streamlining regulations, and ensuring that well-intentioned requirements do not cost jobs.
5: open foreign markets to American products by: continuing to work to open new markets around the world.
6: Enabling Families and Businesses to Plan for the Future with Confidence by: urging Congress to make vital tax reductions permanent.
Well isn’t this interesting! Not only does Kerry’s plan have an extra point, but also it is far more detailed. The question now is: why is Kerry’s economic plan, which is more comprehensive than Bush’s, getting snubbed by the media? It seems that Bush justifies his lack of substance with far superior style and clarity. Most of Bush’s points are written in the same pattern: the problem, the proposed solution, and an example. Meanwhile, Kerry’s solutions have the detail of Bush’s examples.
It appears that Bush has written guidelines or a policy which all his plans will follow, while Kerry has a step-by-step instruction manual. And, I believe the American people can understand basic guidelines more than precise directions. However, the disparities between these plans compensate for each other fairly well, so the winner must be determined by further analysis.
The candidates, like all good politicians, try to stay one step ahead of their detractors.
Kerry does this so well that he even has a chart here. However, there is one major problem; it shows Bush’s history compared to Kerry’s plans. Dare I mention that Bush’s column can be copied into Kerry’s, because Kerry served in the senate the entire time Bush was president, and he had an ability to change national policy just as Bush did (of course, he had less power, but that power covered a wide enough range)? After all, both the getaway driver and the perpetrator are held responsible for a crime (to make an insulting metaphor).
And Bush revealed the trick up his sleeve here. This page defends Bush’s history, explains his reasoning, and concludes with a bit of Kerry-bashing. That bashing happens to be against Kerry’s plans, not his past. And that is the winning point in the 2004 Economic Plan Challenge.
After three pages of summary, analysis, and debunking, it comes down to a technicality in bashing. I can’t wait to do this for the next election :).
Now, the rules.
Part 1: the source
A: the plan of each candidate will come from their respective official website, in text, or from another official text document claiming to contain the economic plan, with that claim supported by the candidate and/or his campaign, if a candidate does not have a website or that website does not have the required information.
B: if a candidate or his campaign does not have a written economic plan, then the Economic Plan Challenge can be delayed until said plan becomes available. If no plan is made available, said candidate loses by default.
C: the entire plan must be in a single document (of any number of pages) or must be found through a single webpage. That webpage can include links to other pages with specific parts of the plan. However, the linked-to pages must be labeled or named appropriately, and be in a convenient location. The linked to page(s) must contain part or whole of the economic plan and/or a breakdown of the plan, with links to the broken-down parts (“broken-down” is the past tense of “breakdown”, not a reference to an inoperable page).
D: Information that can be found only through a search engine, or through part of the website not limited to the economy, does not count unless it can also be reached as described in 1 C.
E: if a web page does not have a section specifically for economics, but the plan is reachable from the home page, then the home page can be considered the required economic page.
F: If the source is modified during the Economic Plan Competition, then the original (unmodified) version will be used, unless the modification was to correct a legitimate error (broken or incorrectly targeted hyperlink, spelling, and incorrect nouns or verbs count as legitimate errors). Other corrections of content should be ignored if possible.
Part 2: what goes into the summary.
A: Only items written in the future tense (or with a reference to their use in the future) go into the summary. Records of what has already been completed will be ignored, unless it is said that similar events will be attempted in the future.
B: If a point is repeated or reused, then only its first use is included in the summary. “first is determined by the standard method (top before bottom, left before right, or in accordance to a numbered or lettered order as provided by the source). By the way, this one counted against Kerry a few times
C: Any detail or item complying with both 2A and 2B must be included in the summary. The summarizer may not make any changes due to knowledge or belief of inaccuracy, error, a possible correction (if the item is corrected during the summarizing process, that item can be changed in the summary), or any other element that can introduce bias, whether it is justified or not.
Part 3: analyzing the summary.
A: because candidates are chosen based on popularity and not accuracy, the summaries must be judged based on how well they appeal to potential voters. That appeal can be based on clarity, detail, verbosity or conciseness, and the extent to which the average voter may understand the plan.
B: Analysis should have no mention or consideration of the accuracy of any particular item. Even if an item is a blatant lie to the summarizer, it should be assumed that the average voter does not suspect any inaccuracy in that item, and thus accuracy or lack thereof is irrelevant.
C: if one plan is clearly superior to the other, as determined in accordance with 3A and 3B, then the superior plan is the winner. If both plans appear equal or somewhat equal, then they can be further analyzed as described in part 4.
Part 4: further analysis.
A: additional information must be found in the procedure described by part 1, but justification or reasoning for the plan (or any item or detail within it), further evidence, items intended to convince a voter to agree with the plan, and/or bashing of the other candidate’s plan can be sought.
B: items bashing anything (or anyone) other than the plan of a candidate should be ignored.
C: the determination of whose plan is best is based on the items mentioned in 4A and 4B, and the procedure for determining which plan is best should follow the guidelines of 3A and 3B. In other words, the winner is the candidate who best supports his plan over that of his opponent(s) in the eyes of the average voter.
Comments are welcome. However, please refrain from criticizing either plan, unless you have some credibility to do so (in which case, I would love to get a bit of material for a follow-up post).
posted by Chris at
5:33 PM
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