President-Elect John McCain

This is a fictional blog, set in a better world where the votes for television show characters like Mickey Mouse, Donald Trump, and G.I. Joe were thrown out. In the resulting chaos, no one won the electoral college.

Today, for the first time in history, the House of Representatives selected the president because the Electoral College failed to do so. In November's election, Democrat Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but was unable to win the electoral college.

Because the congress of the United States is run by the Republican Party, the chief rival of the Democrat party, Congress refused to elect Clinton, instead choosing one of their own. The president-elect is now Senator and war hero John McCain. In a separate vote, the Senate selected McCain's friend and colleague, Lindsay Graham, to be his vice president.

McCain has already begun assembling his cabinet. Below is his pick for Secretary of State. In articles to come, I will detail some of his other picks.

Secretary of State - Douglas E. Lute

Douglas Lute is the sitting ambassador to NATO. He is a decorated war hero, but pundits seem to think that his position within NATO is a message: McCain intends to have a firm hand against Russia, but intends to use diplomacy when possible.

The Republican Candidates

Given that this blog is now fiction based in reality, I am going to rely on coverage from real news sources' coverage of the person I pick to be president. The decision on January 6th will basically be a referendum on how well the news media covers a candidate. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please read the first post in this new chapter.

Next week, the Republican-led congress will pick the president and vice president of the United States. As we discussed last week, the Electoral College was not able to pick a winner, because the woman who won the plurality of the votes, Hillary Clinton, was an unpopular candidate. Now, despite the fact that the Republican Party did not field a legitimate candidate, they get to pick a president from their own party.

The candidates who appear most likely to win are:

• House Speaker Paul Ryan
• Senator John McCain
• Ohio Governor John Kasich
and
• Indiana Governor Mike Pence.

Let's look at the way they have responded to various international incidents in the past few weeks. The three issues I will be addressing are the Russian hacking, the recent UN vote condemning Israel's settlements in Palestinian territory, and the Chinese confiscation of an American science drone.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan

Speaker Ryan has been very concise in his criticism of the current administration's responses to world crises. He simply said that the current administration has lost credibility in terms of Israel. His response to Russian Hacking is the patriotically correct response, that interfering in our elections is completely unacceptable. Paul Ryan didn't respond to China and the drone.

Senator John McCain

Senator McCain is a strong candidate with strong opinions on most subjects. As a war hero and as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he is frequently asked his opinion on matters of foreign policy. He believes that we should investigate the Russian hackers thoroughly, that our refusal to stand up for Israel is "dangerous", and that China is attempting to destabilize the Pacific region with a series of actions including the confiscation of our science drone.

Indiana Governor Mike Pence

Mike Pence is a Christian ideologue who wants to destroy the country. He has passed laws requiring funerals for miscarriages, and has spoken and written in favor of "conversion therapy" for homosexuals. Pence came out against the Russian hackers who influenced our election, saying that there should be harsh consequences. Pence made no specific comment on the Obama administration's failure to block the UN vote in Israel, but he has said in the past that Israel has no better friend, because support for Israel is an extension of his Christian faith. Pence also did not respond to China's confiscation of an American scientific drone.

Ohio Governor John Kasich

During the Republican primary race, Kasich was one of the last two candidates to drop out of the race, and the last who actually got along with the Republican establishment. He is a popular two-term governor of a purple state, who somehow thinks that women do not have the right to control their own bodies. Kasich did not respond to the Russian hackers, because there was a chance that he could benefit from the investigations. Though Kasich did not respond to the Chinese confiscation of the American science drone, he has both bragged about his success at bringing Chinese investments to Ohio, and has supported the TPP which was designed to antagonize China. This makes Kasich's China doctrine hard to predict. He also didn't directly respond to the recent UN actions on Israel, but has in the past defended Israel's settlement policy.

I think I know who will be president now, and if you read this post, you can probably figure it out. Whom the Senate will chose as vice president still needs to be worked out, and is actually important, just in case the president dies while in office.

What just happened?

I am not actually having a psychotic break. I have made the decision, in the spirit of this blog, that I will write as if it is not true that nearly half the country voted for a neo-Nazi who doesn't care whom he hurts while enriching his own children.

This is unprecedented. The electoral college was unable to elect a single winner, after roughly three quarters of the country refused to vote or voted for a TV show character. Although Clinton won the plurality of electoral votes (and the majority of the popular vote), this three-party race split four ways. A candidate who was never discussed in this blog, Evan McMullen, won Utah, and the rest of the states divided roughly evenly among Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.

For the first time in United States History, the Electoral College has failed to pick a winner, and the decision will be put to the House of Representatives. In two weeks, on January 6, congress will meet in a special session to officially count the Electoral College's votes, and then THEY will select the president and vice president by majority vote.

This blog has primarily been about the political perspectives of candidates for president, so I haven't really talked about Congress much. Next week, I will bring you the likely candidates for president, given that congress is controlled by the Republican Party, which did not nominate a candidate for president this year.

Economics #3: Poverty and the Social Safety Net

This month, we are discussing economics. We have already discussed unemployment and compensation, as well as deficits and debt. This week, we will discuss poverty and the social safety net.

Hillary Clinton wants to double the Child Tax Credit and expand it to 1.7 million more families. Despite that, and her important input into the creation of the Earned Income Tax Credit, Clinton and her husband did a lot of damage to the social safety net in the 90s by attacking the Welfare program.

Gary Johnson thinks that we should get rid of the social safety net. He believes that having less government means that markets can work better.

Jill Stein wants to increase access to food stamps, housing assistance, and clean water. Despite the fact that this sounds like something right up Stein's alley, this is all I could find on the social safety net. She simply doesn't talk about it.

I am not sure if I will be continuing to update this blog. Grad school is eating my brain, and this is just one more thing which requires brainpower. If you want more information on the three candidates, please watch John Oliver's "Last Week Tonight", on the same subject as this blog.

Economics #2: Deficits and Debt

In October, we are talking about Economics. Last week, we talked about Unemployment and Compensation. This week, we will talk about Deficits and Debt.

Our country has a schizophrenic relationship with money: we have one party which wants to spend lavishly in order to improve peoples' lives, and we have another party which wants to let Americans keep as much of their paycheck as possible after taxes. The party which likes to spend has been unsuccessful at raising taxes, and the party which likes to keep taxes low has been unsuccessful at reining in spending. This has led to some major debt issues in the past ten years.

Because Clinton wants to increase spending, she has a tax plan to counter-balance it. The Wall Street Journal says that Hillary Clinton's economic policies would increase deficits in the short term, but lead to economic growth which would eliminate those deficits within her first term. Clinton has said that our current debt levels pose a "national security threat". The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says that Clinton did a good job paying for her proposals.

When Gary Johnson was governor of New Mexico, he followed through with a campaign pledge to veto any bill which did not pay for itself, eventually vetoing almost 750 bills in 8 years. Though the budget of New Mexico grew under Johnson, he slowed the growth from 10% per year to 5% per year. A large portion of the increased spending in New Mexico was due to federal mandates, over which Johnson had no control. Johnson believes in small government, and wants to eliminate the income tax.

Jill Stein wants to reduce spending by ending the expensive "wars for oil" in the Middle East, which are major drivers of our debt. Even if we were to end all spending in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria right now, though, that would only save about $130 billion per year. Our current deficit is almost $600 billion per year, and Stein has proposed raising taxes to compensate for this. The Green Party proposes a wealth tax of 50 basis points (half a percent) per year, and also raise income taxes on the wealthy.

I apologize on the delay in publishing this week's discussion of the candidates' views on the economy. Next week, I really hope to be on time in publishing a discussion of Poverty and the Social Safety Net.

Late this week

This week's post will be posted late, due to the amount of homework I had this weekend.

Economics #1: Unemployment and Compensation

In August, we discussed American health policy. In September, it was crime in America.

For October, I would like to discuss economics. As with the previous three months, I would like to break this into three topics: This week we will discuss Unemployment and Compensation, next week will be Deficits and Debt, and the third week we will discuss Poverty and the Social Safety Net. After these three, there will still be two Mondays in October to talk about Foreign Policy, and I will spend the first week of November on another silly post about TV characters. I will probably change up which characters I talk about, though one or two will likely be the same.

Hillary Clinton believes that the minimum wage should be raised to $12 per hour. She has said that she would not veto a move to raise it further to $15 per hour. Clinton also wants to lower taxes for middle-income families and small businesses. Raising the minimum wage does have its detractors, but most current research implies that it will have a positive impact. Even if it doesn't, Clinton supports expanding the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit), which she helped to create back in the 90s.

Clinton also has plans to directly address unemployment, such as providing parental leave for childcare, being paid 2/3 of your income for 12 weeks. This would create two three-month openings, so that firms will need to replace both parents. Clinton backs a plan to fix our infrastructure, employing mostly Millennials.

Gary Johnson wants to eliminate minimum wag, claiming that if you show up on time and wear clean clothes, then you will make more than minimum wage.

Johnson wants to give the economy a little stimulus in the form of eliminating all payroll and income taxes, in exchange for a Fair Tax, a 23% consumption tax on all newly produced goods and services. Johnson believes that if government can get out of the way of the common person and the market, then jobs will be created.

Jill Stein favors raising the minimum wage to at least $15 per hour, if not more. She also wants to eliminate student loan debt, which would effectively give most people under 35 a $300 per month raise.

Stein wants to break up the big banks, which would create new white collar jobs by increasing redundancy in our banking system, and also create big profits for investors.

Next week, we will talk about deficits and debt.