Why I'll Vote for Obama
I was recently asked by my brother-in-law why I want to vote for Obama. So I started to put together a response to him and once it hit 12 pages I decided I should wrap it up. I thought I would post it here in case anyone else would be interested in reading it.
Abstract
This is my attempt to put down in one place most of the reasons why I believe the US will by stronger, safer, and a better place to live if Barack Obama is elected President. I will summarize my main points in the abstract here and then provide the details and supporting data in the rest of the paper. My main reasons fall into three categories:
- The current Republican executive administration has damaged the United States and has weakened our security. It has violated the laws of the US and the Geneva Convention by kidnapping terrorist suspects, holding them indefinitely for years without trial, and torturing them. In a time when we need all the allies we can to fight the “war on terror” this administration has driven away allies, destroyed our moral high ground, and given ammunition to our enemies with its “my way or the highway” diplomacy and through the atrocities it has committed. We MUST elect someone outside of the Republican Party to serve as a rebuke to the actions of the current administration, to say to them and to the world that they have gone too far, and say that their actions cannot be condoned by any nation that considers itself to be good and righteous.
- John McCain has shown through his horrible decisions that he is unable to translate his years of experience into the true wisdom and ability that we need to lead this nation in these troubled times. Experience is not enough, even Forest Gump had a wealth of experience, our next president must have wisdom, forethought, and true convictions. John McCain was a chief supporter of going to war with Iraq and has made so many conflicting statements on how to proceed with the war that it is clear that he has no plan at all for bringing it to an end. Worst of all, in the last 4 years, John McCain has reversed himself repeatedly on almost all of the major issues currently under discussion including: a) handling of Iraq war, b) off shore drilling, c) mortgage crisis bailout, d) Afghanistan, e) Bush tax cuts to the wealthy (annual income over $250,000), f) being a maverick.
- Barack Obama has documented plans, with real substance, for how to take on the biggest issues and troubles of our time. He has a history of working across party lines and building consensus. He said from the very beginning that we should never attack Iraq and foretold many of the problems that we now face there. He understands that global warming is a true and present danger to us all and must be addressed. His approach to the “war on terror” will make us safer than the horrible handling we have seen by the Republicans. As his trip oversees showed, he can heal the wounds with our allies that the Republican administration has caused and strengthen the bonds that we desperately need in the “war on terror” and tackling global warming.
I will now try and take each point from above and elaborate on them and provide as much documentation and links to supporting data as I can. Note that I do not believe that Obama is perfect nor that he will solve all of our problems. I disagree with some of his policies and some of the things he has done. But all of my disagreements with Obama pale in comparison to my disagreements with McCain and the Republican Party for this election.
Section 1: Current Republican Administration Must be Rebuked
In this section I will try to demonstrate why I believe that the current Republican Administration has done serious damage to the US through its actions. Note that I don’t just say the President George W. Bush, but rather the Republican Administration as a whole. We must rebuke their actions by casting the Republicans out of the Executive branch and replacing them with Barack Obama who will have his job cut out for him fixing all the mess and damage the Republicans created. I will flip through these pretty quickly since most of these have been fairly public.
1 Iraq War
1.1 Going to War
1.1.1 The US Senate investigated the justification for the war and their conclusion clearly states that the Republican Administration lied about the justification of going to war. Note that some Republicans on the investigation agreed with this analysis while others yelled that it was purely politically motivated. My impression is that they lied, but if you don’t think that, then at the very best all you can say is that they were horribly reckless and royally stupid. (reference)
1.1.2 We relied heavily on information from a greatly suspect source: Ahmed Chalabi. If they didn’t know he was lying, they should have. I point this out here both as an issue with the current administration and as a foot note for some issue with McCain that I will discuss later (reference)
1.1.3 Remember Valerie Plame? Bush promised to get to the bottom of whoever leaked her identity and prosecute them. Of course, that was before the investigation traced it back to the Executive office, before Libby got convicted for obstruction of justice, and before Bush commuted his sentence.
1.1.4 Propaganda: Apparently the Pentagon had a program where it brought in many of the “independent experts” that the TV networks used and got them to speak in line with whatever the Pentagon wanted. I thought our government wasn’t supposed to run a propaganda machine.
1.2 Conducting the War
1.2.1 Clearly, there was never ever any plan for what to do after we won the war. Remember all of the looting of weapons dumps? Looting of hospitals? No plans to protect any of the infrastructure?
1.2.2 They disbanded the Iraqi army after they won the war. The biggest bonehead move ever heard of.
1.2.3 We are now in year 6 of a war that relies completely on a volunteer military, national guard, and army reserves. I personally think it is a disgrace that we have time and time again sent the same national guard units to the war zone. This is not what they signed up for.
1.2.4 Thanks to the never ending Iraq war and Afghanistan War, the US military is worn way too thin, making us vulnerable.
1.3 Getting us Out
1.3.1 Up until very recently Bush has labeled any hint of planning to come out of Iraq as failure and surrender. Bush and McCain both hit on Obama for wanting to surrender.
1.3.2 Bush had intended to make a long term agreement with Iraq government to keep US troops there. It was his intention not to run this by Congress at all and tie the hands of the next President. Happily, Iraq government balked at the idea of long term US troops in Iraq so they wouldn’t signed the deal.
1.3.3 On August 21 the Iraqi government won agreement on a time line for pull out.
1.4 Let’s not forget that we spend 10 Billion dollars a month on this war, nearly a trillion dollars overall already. This is all straight deficit spending. Just think of all the problems we could have addressed with 10 Billion a month: school financing, health care, social security, alternative energy… the list goes on.
2 Afghanistan
2.1 This is the war that the Republican Administration forgot. This is the true war against terror. Since so much of our troops are in Iraq, we have few troops in Afghanistan and instead we are trying to keep things going through commitments of UN troops.
2.2 Thanks to our loosing focus on Afghanistan, the Taliban is resurging.
2.3 We can’t send any more troops to Afghanistan until we reduce our troop commitment in Iraq.
2.4 One of the prices of the Surge in Iraq was that lack of troops in Afghanistan.
3 Kidnap, Torture, Holding forever
Ever hear of the country that kidnapped someone off the streets in another country, spirited them off to a secret jail in a different country, tortured them, and held them for years without a trial? Yeah, that would be the U.S.A. And this wasn’t a decision by a few bad apples; it went all the way to the top.
3.1 The administration made it “legal” to torture people:
3.1.1 Torture memo
3.1.2 Time line for memo
3.2 How many suspected terrorists do we have holding in Gitmo and other jails? How many of them have had a trial so many years after they were arrested?
3.3 We currently have CIA agents on trial in-absentia in Italy over kidnapping a terror suspect.
3.4 The best part of it all is that there has never been any evidence that the torture ever worked.
3.5 Ok, I can go on and on here. If you have any doubt that we torture people and hold them indefinetly without a trial, then just google around and you will find tons.
4 Spying on Americans
Bush approved the illegal spying on American citizens and got the telephone companies to give them mounds of data and access to their systems. Here is a summary.
5 Environment
This administration has a horrible track record on environment. Not only did it weaken the Clean Air Act, it did everything in its power to convince everyone that global warming wasn’t a problem. Only now has it agreed that it is a problem, but not one that we really have to worry about.
5.1 Allow me to provide one small example of this. Bush appoints one of his guys to head the EPA. This guy routinely disregards the advice and opinions of his scientists and staff and makes rulings in accordance with what Bush wants. Finally the states get fed up and sue EPA into action on global warming, they win, and the head of EPA stone walls for another year in defiance of the supreme court.
6 Executive Powers above all else.
The underlying current beneath all of this is the seeming belief that the President’s power trumps the constitution, the congress, and the Supreme Court. They have stonewalled congress and the Supreme Court time and time again and destroyed the very idea of checks and balances.
Section 2: McCain – Lots of Experience, But No Wisdom Gained
McCain is a war hero and former POW. For this he deserves our respect and appreciation. This however does not mean McCain would make a good President. After all, a war hero leading the country in the wrong direction is still bad for the country. So we must ask ourselves what type of leader John McCain would be and what direction would hel lead the country.
1. What is different between Bush and McCain? McCain used to have this “maverick” mystique about him. He used to go against his party when he thought it was right. But in the last 4 to 8 years he has had a complete and total turn around. What important issue does McCain still stand against the Bush Administration?
1.1. Listen to his own words and he will tell you that he has supported Bush on all major issues.
1.2. In the last year or so he has voted with Bush 95% of the time.
2. Total Reversal McCain has totally reversed himself on so many of the main issues that it is hard to know what he stands for, and even where to begin. So, let’s kick off with some montage videos for you:
2.1. Video 1
2.2. Video 2
2.3. He used to be against Bush’s tax cuts (or tax cuts for the wealthy as they have been called). Now he supports them and wants to extend them.
2.4. He used to be against off-shore oil drilling. Now he is for it, even though it will take 20 years to see any impact and the expected impact will be only 3% - 6% difference compared to today’s supply.
2.5. Abortion stance change. Yes McCain has always been pro-life, but he use to rail against Bush for not having an exception in the case rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s health. But now he has adopted Bush’s position.
3. Iraq War
3.1. McCain recently said that he was the chief critic of the Iraq war in the first several years. Take a look at this video clip. But this isn’t actually the truth. McCain was a huge supporter of the war all along. Let’s take a look of many of his statements on this over the years.
3.2. But it is even worse than that. Just after 9/11 McCain was already saying we should attack Baghdad. With no proof, no connections, he was one of the first to beat the drums of war to attack Iraq.
3.3. Start of War
So as you saw in the videos above, McCain was huge for going to war with Iraq. One of the most important decisions our leader must make and he completely got it wrong. His years of experience in the military and congress did not give him the wisdom necessary to make this decision correctly.
3.4. The surge
McCain likes to point out the fact that he was right about “The Surge”, which he says turned the corner on Iraq war. He misses a few points here:
3.4.1. First, he actually hedged his bets on it and said that he thought there wasn’t enough troops in the Surge and may not work.
3.4.2. Second, while the 30,000 extra troops did indeed help, there was also a great shift in the Iraqi population to throw out Al Qaeda. This shift first started in Anbar and was called the Anbar Awakening. By the way, McCain wanted to attribute this to the Surge, but it happened several months before the surge. He seems to get this confused though:
3.4.2.1. Video on Anbar History
3.4.2.2. Watch the MSNBC video on this, very good, long, but well worth it:
3.4.2.3. Side note for this: Why did CBS edit out McCain’s wrong answer? They didn’t just delete out the question and answer, they actually replace his incorrect answer with a different answer. Why is that?
3.4.3. But what of the cost of the surge? Wouldn’t it have been nice to have those 30,000 in Afghanistan fighting the war on terror?
3.5. When will it end
3.5.1. Should we stay in Iraq like we have in Korea and Germany? McCain used to say we should not have permanent basis in Iraq. Then he said that we should. Now he says that he has no idea.
3.5.2. McCain hammers on Obama for saying he will withdraw troops carefully in 16 months based on conditions on the ground and force the Iraqi’s to stand up. McCain says among other things:
3.5.2.1. Obama is naïve for wanting to withdraw
3.5.2.2. Obama doesn’t understand the facts
3.5.2.3. Obama is willing to lose a war to gain the presidency
3.5.3. All of McCain’s arguments fall to shreds with one simple fact: Iraq wants us out in 16 months:
3.5.3.1. Video
3.5.3.2. McCain simply tried to ignore Iraqi’s desire for a long time saying that Maliki didn’t mean what he said. McCain was either in total denial or totally oblivious
3.5.3.3. Now McCain says that a timetable based on conditions on the ground isn’t that bad. Somehow he says that this is different then what Obama wants.
3.5.3.4. And as noted above, we now have an agreement between the US and Iraqi government which clearly states a timetable for pull out.
3.5.3.5. So it looks like McCain was completely and totally wrong on this and Obama was completely right. It was McCain that had no idea about the conditions, McCain who no longer understood what Iraq wanted, and arguably, it was McCain who wanted to continue the war for all the wrong reasons.
3.5.4. One extra note here. McCain likes to say that the difference between his time table for pullout and Obama’s is that McCain’s timetable is based on conditions on the ground, while Obama’s is not. This is false. Obama has clearly stated that he will take the advice of the commanders in consideration and “we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting into Iraq”.
3.6. He has lied repeatedly about the status of the Iraq war:
3.7. Does he not understand who we are fighting or does he deliberately lie about it? In multiple speeches he seems to mix up who is fighting whom and who the real enemy is. We need a leader who can keep these things straight and educate the American population, not confuse us.
4. Foreign Affairs
4.1. His chief advisor for foreign affairs was a huge proponent for going to Iraq war. And worked with the Iranian spy Ahmad Chalabi. Why, why, why are these same people his foreign affairs advisors? What does it say about McCain’s decision making ability if he sets up as his chief advisors people who have a track record of making horrible decisions and either lying to the American people or allowing themselves to be totally duped?
4.2. Chief foreign affairs adviser is a lobbyist who pulled very very hard for the war in Iraq:
4.3. McCain wants to form a League of Democracies. This to me is the most dangerous idea in foreign policies. Remember the adage of keep your friends close and your enemies even closer? Apparently McCain likes to alienate our enemies and back them into corners so that their only option is to fight. Why throw off the UN? Why not work hard to improve the UN and work to make it the success it can be.
4.4. Russia and Georgia: McCain’s top advisor on foreign affairs was working for McCain and at the exact same time, a paid lobbyist for Georgia. Around the time Russia invaded Georgia, McCain made tough statements that made the matter worse. This is not the foreign diplomacy that we need. Oh, and McCain saber rattling has even surpassed Bush’s saber rattling. I truly believe that if McCain was president at the time, we would be on the brink of war with Russia. Just watch this, it’s painful:
5. Torture
McCain used to be against torture, but when a bill came up to prohibit the use of torture, McCain voted against it.
6. Off Shore Drilling
6.1. McCain used to think that off shore drilling was bad. Now he says it is good. But in reality, it is just such a small percentage of the demand that it wouldn’t make any real difference, while simultaneously putting the coastline at risk for oil spills. So why does he push it so hard? Because it sounds nice, sounds like we are doing something, and oil companies like it.
6.2. Here is a nice discussion about the facts of off shore drilling:
6.3. McCain is lying when he says that we didn’t spill a drop of oil when Hurricane Katrina came through. And yet, the truth is that there was indeed oil spilled But why let the truth get in the way of a good argument?
7. Economy
7.1. McCain himself says that he isn’t strong on economics.
7.2. He says that he leans on the likes of Phil Graham, who was his chief financial advisor and helped craft his economic policy. That is, until the day that Phil Graham publically said that we aren’t having problems and that we have become a nation of whiners. Of course McCain says he disagrees, but these comments of Phil Graham’s couldn’t have come out of left field for McCain’s camp. This must have been the basis for all of the advice that Phil Graham was giving McCain. It is only when Phil Graham said it out loud to the press that it became a problem.
7.3. Oh, and for the record, Phil Graham is still part of McCain’s campaign. Listen to this video to hear about various advice from Graham and how Graham is still on the campaign.
8. Environment
8.1. McCain’s environmental track record is so abysmal that there really isn’t anything to say here.
8.2. One piece of McCain’s environmental policy is the Cap and Trade program for green house gases. Unfortunately, McCain sends so many mixed signals about how this policy would work (mandatory or not??) that I can’t honestly say if it is a bad policy or a horrible policy.
9. Tax plans
9.1. Even though McCain’s ads say differently, Obama’s tax plan gives more to middle and lower class. Meanwhile McCain’s plan gives lots of tax breaks to the filthy rich.
9.2. Social Security: McCain says that Social Security is a disgrace and calls for privatization of it. He took all sorts of flack for this and back tracked off of this fast. His idea of privatization is the same as Bush and is a horrible idea. Just think, if you had your private Social Security account and the stock markets takes a down term, then your Social Security just took a down turn. Not very secure eh?
10. Health Care
10.1. So an advisor to McCain on health care just said that everyone in this country is actually insured since everyone can go to the emergency room and get health care. So there you go, no problem at all.
10.2. McCain’s camp now says that this person doesn’t speak for him, but uhm, if you have been taking his advice all this time, what advice was he giving you? And besides, his statements fall perfectly in line with the McCain health insurance plan.
10.3. Believe it or not, I actually agree with the first part of this guy’s statement. Since everyone can go to the emergency room, we already have a universal health care system in place. Unfortunately, it is the most expensive, broken down way to pay for it. Here is the root cause of the problems in the health care system in my humble opinion: the US government mandates that hospitals care for everyone regardless of money, but then the US government does not provide a direct means for hospitals to get paid. Obama’s plan directly attacks this issue by making sure everyone can get health insurance.
10.4. McCain has some weird idea of making a health care tax rebates, which, runs the great risk of actually increasing the cost of health insurance for the middle class.
11. VP Pick
11.1. So after hammering Obama for months on lacking experience (which I believe Obama has experience) McCain now manages to pick a running mate that has so little experience that it is practically non-existent. Seriously, what was McCain thinking? Or more importantly, what does this say about his decision making skills to pick someone that he doesn’t even know at all, who has never been involved in national politics, and who was never fully vetted before the decision?
11.2. So what is her experience:
11.2.1. She is the governor of Alaska and was sworn in December 4, 2006. Yep, not even a full 2 years.
11.2.2. Before that, she was the mayor of Wasilla Alaska. The total population of this place is 5,469 according to Wikepedia. So that puts it at roughly twice the size of my high school.
11.2.3. Here is some discussion on her experience
11.3. She wasn’t actually vetted before McCain picked her. McCain had months to pick a running mate and he rushes it at the end so much that they didn’t have time to truly do a deep background check on her. This is not the way I want my President to make big decisions.
11.4. She apparently was heavily involved with Senator Stevens, who has now been indicted on 7 counts of corruption:
11.5. She was strongly for earmarks when she was mayor and governor. She actually hired a lobbyist to get lots more earmarks for her town. Including the now infamous “Bridge to Nowhere”. Oh, side note, during he acceptance speech she said that she was against the “Bridge to Nowhere”. Well yeah, after pushing for it for a long time and finally getting it, she turns against it at the very end since there was such an outcry over it. But she doesn’t actually give the money back, just funnels it into other projects.
11.6. Apparently she is already embroiled in an abuse of power scandal back in Alaska. They are still investigating the charges right now, but she has already had to correct her story. She had said she would cooperate fully with the investigation, but now she is stonewalling it and refusing to talk about it.
11.7. Full recap of the top issues with her.
11.8. What kind of a Vice President would she really be? Does anyone have an idea? Does McCain? If you don’t know, then why pick her? And how would she do on the international stage where she has no experience? We desperately need allies, so this is very important.
11.9. It has now been over a week since she has been selected, but she has yet to do any meaningful interview with any news reporter. Why is that? Why is she in hiding? Have they taken her someplace so she can cram on all the issues so she won’t embarrass anyone? And is that what we want in a VP?
11.10. Here is a nice run down of how this decision reflects on McCain. Long story short, it comes across as a desperate decision made solely to try and win an election without any regard for what would happen should she actually become the Vice President.
12. POW
As I said before, McCain sacrificed greatly for his country and he should be honored for that. But it appears that his campaign is using that as an excuse for any problems that he has. From owning 7 houses, to offering his wife up to a topless beauty contest, and everything else, his campaign falls back to the fact that McCain was a POW.
12.1.1. Article 1
12.1.2. Article 2
Section 3: Obama “America, we can do better”
In Obama’s acceptance speech he said that we are a better country then these last eight years have shown. He has shown time and again that he will lead by inspiring people, not be bullying and using fear tactics. To back up his speech, he listed no less than 29 specific plans of how he wants to make things better, and all of this was in just one speech. Obama has shown that he has the wisdom to make good decisions, a willingness to take on the tough problems of our times (healthcare, environment, energy, war on terror, etc.), and an ability to call each of us to be better. This is the type of leader that we need. This is the change that we need now more than ever.
1. Experience
1.1. Yes, Obama is not as experienced as McCain. But he still has 7 years as an Illinois State Senator and 4 years as a US Senator. This is actually longer then Bush had before he became President, though admittedly that isn’t saying much. But he has a proven track record of truly working with both sides of the aisle and making things better.
1.2. Here is a web page that pulled together a nice list of some of the many bills and issues that Obama made a difference on:
2. Iraq war
2.1. Obama was against the war in Iraq from the very beginning. No wishy washy statements, no flip flopping, no equivocating, he was against the war, against giving President Bush the authority to go to war, and he said so on the record. He did this at a time when few people agreed with him and when it could have cost him his election.
2.2. If you listen to the above clip, you will notice that the concerns that he raised about the possible pitfalls of going to war are EXACTLY the problems that have come to pass.
2.3. Let us not understate this issue. Going to war in Iraq is one of the biggest national security decisions that have been made for this country in my life time. We thumbed our nose at the international community and decided to go in with only a few staunch allies. We have lost over 4,000 soldiers, spent nearly 1 trillion dollars, gotten bogged down in nation building, and all because of a pack of lies that was either sold to the Bush administration or by the Bush administration. Obama was right on this issue. Had he been the President at the time, none of the Iraq war would have ever happened.
2.4. Obama has been a strong proponent for getting us out of Iraq for a long time. For quite a while McCain and Bush have hammered at Obama’s stance that we need to responsibly withdraw. They would still be saying Obama is being reckless, if it wasn’t for the Iraq government demanding a time table to withdraw. So it appears that Obama was right about this as well and was out in the forefront.
3. Afghanistan
3.1. Once again Obama has been out in the forefront of the call to send more troops to Afghanistan. McCain used to say that we could muddle through there with the troops that we have, but now he has changed his tune and is finally agreeing with Obama. So once again Obama was right and out in the forefront of this issue. Here is a more recent statement about in on his trip overseas.
4. “War on Terror”
4.1. Obama has been outspoken about his belief that Bush and McCain have lost focus on the true “war on terror” and that their approach is all wrong. McCain and Bush fire back that Obama is horribly naïve on his stance on the “war on terror” and couldn’t protect us. So who is right? Well, how about we listen to a think-tank that does research for the Pentagon by the name of Rand Corporation. They released a study at the end of July this year that agrees with Obama. To fight an effective battle against terror groups, it is better to approach it as a police action and not a war. Oh, and did I mention that this is the shift that other countries have already been making?
4.2. Since Obama has a better approach to the “war on terror” and he has a plan to stop the distraction of the Iraq war, I truly believe we will be safer from terrorist underneath Obama then underneath McCain.
5. Foreign Affairs
5.1. In this day and age, we need all the allies we can get. Bush has systematically driven away allies. McCain has made many statements that make things even worse. Obama realizes that the more allies we have, the less likely we will need to go to war. And if war should come, the more nations that will stand behind us and support us. Just take a look at his stated foreign policy and you will see the stark difference to what we have.
5.2. When Obama went overseas he was greeted by huge crowds of cheering people. They weren’t there because they loved Obama, they were there because of the true change in America and American foreign policy that Obama represents. Just think, when was the last time you saw huge crowds of people waving the American flag OUTSIDE of America? I clearly remember, it was after 9/11. At that moment in history the world all wept with the US. Then we invaded Iraq over the protests of countries like France and Germany and many others. From then on we acted like a bully on the international stage, and we have paid the price. Make no mistakes, we need allies. Obama will bring them back. The world is waiting for the US to lead again and reclaim the moral high ground that we threw away, Obama can do that for us. Just listen to Obama’s speech over in Germany and look at the 200,000 Europeans who came to listen.
5.3. Obama has a completely different approach to diplomacy. He has said that he is willing to sit and talk to everyone (after careful preparation). Bush and McCain say he is naïve (or worse, appeasement). They took special pains to point this out with regards to Iran. Obama said he was willing to talk to Iran. But wait, just in July, Bush has reversed course and has done exactly that. Once again, Bush and McCain attacked Obama on a position of his that turned out to be correct.
5.4. Obama has also pledged to rebuild our armed services and bring them back from the brink of failure that they are now at. This will make us more secure and safer as a nation.
6. Torture
Obama has always been against the use of torture. When he becomes President he will stop the use of torture and close down Gitmo.
7. Health Care
7.1. The health care system is broken because hospitals are required by law to treat people that can’t pay for the treatment. The cost of this is then passed on to all of us in the most inefficient, horribly expensive, poorly managed way. Add to that the fact that those that can’t afford good health care end up in the emergency room with a condition that often could have been treated easier and cheaper if they had access to medical treatment sooner.
7.2. Think of it this way: Dell sells computers. They do not have any issues with immigrants, poor, or working poor, because these people can’t afford a computer and so they never interact with Dell. But what if the government suddenly said that Dell had to give computers to everyone, even if they can’t pay, and the government doesn’t provide funding for it? Then Dell would go bankrupt. That is what is happening to our health care system.
7.3. Obama’s healthcare plan would create a path that would give everyone in the US access to medical insurance. Note that this is NOT socialized health care. The hospitals are still independent businesses. But now, everyone will be able to pay for any treatment that the hospitals are required to provide. The plan has a structure to get people to pay for as much as they can afford, and then help out. Remember, we already pay for the uninsured, this is just a better, more efficient way of doing this that will relieve the stress on hospitals.
7.4. You can read Obama’s detailed plan here.
8. Environment & Energy
8.1. Obama has been pushing environmental issues and the need to address global warming for a while. His environmental score card is way higher the McCain’s (but it isn’t hard to beat McCain’s).
8.2. Obama has an energy plan. And yes, don’t believe the Republican campaign adds, there is real meat and substance to Obama’s energy plan. He places a much larger emphasis on replaces fossil fuels permanently.
8.3. Read it here.
9. Tax plan
9.1. I already gave some brief discussion and documentation of Obama’s tax plan. Let me briefly reiterate then that he only raises taxes on folks who earn over $250,000. Everyone else gets more money under Obama’s plan as compared to McCain’s plan.
10. Social Security
10.1. Yep, Obama has a better plan than McCain’s here as well.
11. Inspiration
11.1. I am tired of having a President that constantly tells us to be afraid. I want a President that calls us all to be better than we are. I want a President who won’t ignore issues because they are inconvenient, but instead, take them head on. But most of all, I want a President that wants to work hard to truly make the world a better place for our children. You may call me naïve and say that Obama will not live up to that, but at least he will try, McCain won’t even try.
11.2. Obama’s style of leadership is a refreshing breath of fresh air. Just look at the way he has conducted his campaign. He listens to people, encourages differing opinions, and brings people together towards the common goal.
11.3. Just to show you one example of him following through on his ideals, right after he became the presumptive nominee, he stopped the Democratic national committee from taking any money from big lobbyists and special interests. Note that this is something that McCain never did.
Section 4: Important but Not Critical
For the last 8 years we have had some big debates in this nation about issues like gun control, abortion, same sex marriage, and others. There are those that will make their selection of President based solely on one or all of these issues. But I put forward that while these are important issues they are not critical. Critical issues threaten the very existence of our country. An overstretched military, greatly weakening economy, global warming, these are the type of issues that threaten our nation; these critical issues are the issues that we should use to discern who should lead us. Obama and McCain have stark differences on their approach to dealing with the critical issues. I strongly believe we should pick a President based off of the critical issues.
Section 5: Conclusion
So I end this where I begin. I truly believe that President Bush has done great harm to our nation. I have watched McCain flip on so many issues and come completely in-line with Bush’s policies. I have witnessed his horrible decision making when it came to invading Iraq, ending Iraq war, foreign policies, and even his VP pick. I do not trust that McCain has the wisdom it will take to lead our nation. Obama has demonstrated the wisdom that we need, the willingness to take on issues, and the ability to inspire us to be better. I truly believe that our nation will be safer and more prosperous with Obama as President. And that is why on November 4th I will be voting for Obama and praying that everyone else in this great nation does the same.
