As a new voter I’m challenged to make sense of the American system and to effectively evaluate my choices of ”Democrat,” ”Republican,” ”Libertarian,” ”Green,” and ”Independent.”

I’m wary of the Democratic Party for it’s characterization as the ”Tax and Spend” party. I’m especially wary of the Republicans because of the sad legacy of Reagenomics and the fallout of their platform plank of de-regulation. Sadly, tax cutting and de-regulation are still at the top of the Arizona Republican platform.

Much of the Libertarian approach makes sense yet strikes me as unrealistic and impractical. In a sense, Libertarians, Greens, and Independents may amount to little more than ”ticket splitting.” Studies of Independents have variously characterized them as either a party realignment in process or as a values and beliefs voting block who are strongly anchored on one issue and who choose candidates according to that issue.

My preliminary considerations clearly suggest that I am most strongly aligned with Democratic policies at this point. The current economic detritus brings the imperative of appropriate financial regulation to the political forefront. It is also clear that budgets cannot be balanced by forever rolling back taxes. Nobody likes taxes but current levels of services cannot be funded without anteing up increased rates of contributions to the public purse at all levels of individual and corporate income.

YLE reports that despite the economic downturn in Finland, those who retain their jobs can expect to see an increase in real income of 4.6% this year.  By contrast, last year’s increase was 1.5%.

Quoting the Taxpayer’ Association, YLE notes that ”The group attributes the improvement to slowing inflation and tax cuts. This year earned-income taxes are to be lowered overall to the tune of 870 million euros. The government — under the lead of conservative Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen — has also removed some tax penalties for raising one’s earned income”