Last week, Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, was announced as the running mate for Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain. Palin’s strong conservative credentials make her an excellent choice for the Republican party, especially alongside McCain, whose conservative credentials occasionally leave something to be desired.

Palin opposes high taxes and wasteful spending, instead preferring to put the money where it belongs: back in the hands of the taxpayers. Palin has cut almost half a billion dollars out of the Alaska state budget, which now runs a surplus. As she said in her speech Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention, “When oil and gas prices went up dramatically and filled up the state treasury, I sent a large share of that revenue back where it belonged: directly to the people of Alaska.” She also eliminated a few unnecessary things from her own governor’s office, such as a luxury jet and a personal chef.

Senator Barack Obama, on the other hand, will increase taxes. As his campaign Web site states, He “will reverse most of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers.”

As one of his fellow Democrats, President Kennedy said when arguing for what became the revenue act of 1964, “Next year’s tax bill should reduce personal as well as corporate income taxes: for those in the lower brackets, who are certain to spend their additional take-home pay, and for those in the middle and upper brackets, who can thereby be encouraged to undertake additional efforts and enabled to invest more capital.

“The purpose of cutting taxes now is not to incur a budgetary deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous expanding economy, which will bring a budgetary surplus.” He was right. There was a dramatic increase in tax revenues as a result of Kennedy’s tax cuts, which lowered the top marginal income tax rate from 91 to 70 percent and the top corporate rate from 52 to 48 percent.

Obama would be wise to listen to his fellow Democrat.

Palin is also an advocate for the second amendment. She has said, “I support our Constitutional right to bear arms and am a proponent of gun safety programs for Alaska’s youth.” In response to the overturning of the Washington D.C. handgun ban, Palin said, “This decision is a victory for all Alaskans and individual Americans. The right to own guns and use them responsibly is something I and many other Alaskans cherish. I applaud the Court for standing up for the Constitution and the right of Americans to keep and bear arms.”

Palin’s position is similar to that of our founding fathers, who wrote the second amendment. For example, Thomas Jefferson said, “What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”

Founding father James Madison said, “To disarm the people — that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”

Thomas Paine, author of the pamphlet, “Common Sense” which helped spark the American Revolution, said of gun control, “The peaceable part of mankind will be overrun by the vile and abandoned while they neglect the means of self-defense … The weak will become a prey to the strong.”

John Lott, economist and author of the book, “More Guns Less Crime,” estimates that guns are used about two million times per year for defensive purposes.

Obama, on the other hand, said, “I am consistently on record and will continue to be on record as opposing concealed carry,” and in reference to the bitterness of small towns over lost jobs, remarked, “they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Obama, it would seem, doesn’t quite see the importance of the second amendment.

Palin is also a strong supporter of not only drilling in ANWR as a temporary solution, but things like nuclear power as a more permanent solution to high energy prices. In her speech at the RNC, Palin stated, “the fact that drilling, though, won’t solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all. Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we’re going to lay more pipelines, and build more nuclear plants, and create jobs with clean coal, and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative sources.”

This is in contrast to Obama’s energy plan, which mainly consists of ways to continue to drive up energy prices.

Palin’s strong conservative stances will no doubt appeal to the strong conservative foundation of the Republican party and will, hopefully, play a part in keeping this country capitalist and free for the next four years.

— Blake Hasenmiller is a senior in industrial engineering from De Witt.