I didn’t have the opportunity to record my thoughts on the debate as it happened, but here are some thoughts on the final Presidential debate. I’ll probably post some more as I get time.
Here’s a link to the debate transcript from CNN.
Let’s talk about education. Here’s John McCain talking about what he will do about science education. He’ll cut spending on things that are useful to science education as wasteful “pork”. Things like planetariums.
Sen. Obama has asked for nearly $1 billion in pork-barrel earmark projects… including $3 million for an overhead projector in a planetarium in his hometown. That’s not the way we cut — we’ll cut out all the pork.
I’m not sure who McCain thinks this tidbit – which he’s mentioned in the past two debates – is supposed to impress. I do know that he’s probably managed to alienate any science educator in the country who is paying attention. For those of you who weren’t – John McCain thinks science outreach is wasteful “pork”, and he will eliminate it.
And while we’re on the subject of “pork”, Obama happened to bring up an important point:
Now, Sen. McCain talks a lot about earmarks. That’s one of the
centerpieces of his campaign.Earmarks account for 0.5 percent of the total federal budget.
So McCain’s campaign is built on obsessing over half a percent of the budget? No wonder Republicans are so bad at controlling the national debt. They can’t see the forest for the trees.
