Someone who would wreck the economy or someone who would wreck the rule of law?

Those who yearn for a gutter fight, those who bay for blood and the return of the Roman gladiators, for ultimate fighting in the political ring, weren’t disappointed by the second presidential debate. It pitted the ever smiling Democrat Hillary Clinton against the ever restless Republican Donald Trump. At times, the pacing Trump seemed as though he was going to sneak up and jump on her as though he was performing a feat in one of his wrestling matches. (In the soon to come next debate, these miscreants should be forced to sit quietly and not wander around the stage. They should be treated the same way that one would discipline disobedient children who want something. “Still down, children. And don’t open your pie hole until we call on you”).

The More Idiotic?

It’s difficult to know who was worse, who was more ridiculous or insane in this presidential two out of three falls extravaganza.

Once again, Hillary promised every government service conceivable and then some to everybody. The father Christmas approach to government approach under the Hillary plan apparently will be paid for by raising taxes on everyone who makes one million dollars a year. They will pay for all her proposed new programs along with a giant expansion of the old ones (Is anything the government does not vital? Must everything be expanded? Hillary apparently believes the answer is yes, although I wouldn’t say the Donald is exactly a Gladstonian economizer. Gladstone, who as prime minister kept costs low at 10 Downing Street, considered it his moral duty as prime minister to return every possible cent to the taxpayers. In the modern advanced welfare/warfare state democracy, there’s no such thing as a Gladstone).

Hillary also showed herself to be an economic illiterate. In her the rich can pay for everything idea she has ingested enough economic moonshine to make Huey Long stand up in his grave and salute her.

Mr and Ms. Taxpayer, Get Ready to Pay More When Hillary Is President

Since there aren’t enough rich to go around, the foolishness of this Clinton economic claptrap should be apparent to almost everyone.

Indeed, even the Hillary Clinton worshiper New York Times, in its editorial endorsing her, stopped in mid hosanna to actually ask a logical question: “Clinton and her team have produced detailed proposals on crime, policing and race relations, debt-free college and small-business incentives, climate change and affordable broadband. Most of these proposals would benefit from further elaboration on how to pay for them, beyond taxing the wealthiest Americans.”

Answer: Taking the superrich will not even begin to pay the bills of a welfare/warfare state run amuck for generations. And hiking taxes on productive people—regardless of whether they are productive through hard work and just good bloodlines—will not solve the problem of spendthrift governments of both the left and right. It will make things worse if anyone, rich or poor, is discouraged from working and paying taxes.

And the logic of paying for new programs at a time that the government is some 20 trillion in the hole—and mind you those are the government’s numbers and their books have all the creditability of those kept by Enron since they don’t include the obligations of entitlements—is inane. Sorry, Hillary there aren’t enough rich to go around. So it is obvious that, to carry out your expansion of the government, it will be middle-class people—one way or another—who will pay the bigger bills of a government that can’t control its over spending any more than Trump can control his ego.

Indeed, the Donald in the second debate was equally irrational. Trump showed himself to be a legal ignoramus.

You’re My Opponent? O.K., You Go to Jail.

But let us not forget the Donald, at his irrational, outrageous best, seemed to pull a page out of the movie Citizen Kane when he threatened poor little Hillary with “a special prosecutor” once he is elected. A special prosecutor? In the movie “Citizen Kane,” the lead character, seemingly on the verge of winning election as governor of New York, promises that his first act as governor will be to appoint a special prosecutor to convict “Boss Jim Gettys,” his political opponent.

Donald promised about the same for Hillary, caught up in endless email scandals and the “loss” of 13 mobile devices. The latter was an issue that the attention-span challenged Donald never brought up in the second debate. Does the Donald, threatening to sic the hounds of a special prosecutor on Hillary, understand that any justice system worth anything doesn’t exist to settle political scores? Does he understand that political scores are supposed to be settled at the ballot box and not in star chamber courts?

Had the Donald lived in the time of Henry the Eighth, he apparently would have found nothing wrong in prosecuting Sir Thomas More. He probably took Nixon’s side when Tricky, in a Charles I declaration, said the president couldn’t act illegally; that he or she was above the law. Trump is certainly dangerous. But his danger is as much from his thirst for revenge as his ignorance. For instance, he can’t even get the simplest fact straight. He told voters to come out on “November 28th,” about three weeks after election day. His desire for revenge is obvious in his seeming desire to use a victorious election as a way to even scores. Had Trump been king in another life, if you looked the wrong way at him, you would have been sent to the tower. His foolish statements combined with Hillary’s assault on the economy, on the fruits of labor of millions of Americans, are both bad for our country.

Avoid the temptation of voting for the winner or picking the lesser of two incredible evils.

Vote for a principle. Vote for sanity. Vote for a person who is not obsessed with winning office. Vote for anyone save Hillary or the Donald.

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Gregory Bresiger
Gregory Bresiger

Gregory Bresiger is an independent financial journalist from Queens, New York. His articles have appeared in publications such as Financial Planner Magazine and The New York Post.