Barack Obama

President

If you are content with the way things are going in this country, vote for John McCain.

Despite attempting to run as the anti-Washington reform candidate (after being in Washington for 28 years and after voting with President George Bush more than 90% of the time), with McCain you can expect almost no changes in the War in Iraq (McCain wants to continue it), the economy (McCain has been Washington’s biggest de-regulator, and the elimination of regulations has helped get us into this mess), and healthcare (actually, McCain does want a change here—he wants to tax employer-provided health benefits for the first time in American history).

Want statistics to back up why these things are problems? Here are some.

A total of $10 billion is being spent every month on the War in Iraq, racking up an astronomical debt that we taxpayers will have to pay off.

A total of 47 million Americans are without health insurance, and McCain has no plans to insure them. There are 450,000 new unemployment claims every week, and McCain has no job creation plans.

The budget deficit (America ran a budget surplus in the last few years of the Clinton Administration, by the way) is $482 billion this year, thanks in part to McCain’s support of Bush’s fiscal policies and McCain helping to hand Bush a blank check for Iraq.

We do not like the way things are going in this country, and neither does Barack Obama.

Obama’s economic proposals include $30 billion in tax rebates for the poor and middle class—not the corporations. He would divert $10 million of the government’s money (a drop in the bucket compared to the $10 billion being spent every month in Iraq) not back into the pockets of the richest 1%, as McCain would do by making the Bush tax cuts permanent, but in aid to the states to finance infrastructure projects that would create new jobs and stimulate the economy. A good first step; much more is needed.

While the economy is the number one issue on most people’s minds, the president must deal with other issues as well. Obama would strengthen public schools, yet make them more accountable. He would push for a national energy policy. He would stop privately run Medicare Advantage plans that drain more than $10 billion a year from Medicare and put it into private hands while costing seniors extra money in premiums, and he would extend the signup period for Medicare drug plans to help seniors avoid late enrollment penalties. He supports the Employee Free Choice Act that would restore workers’ bargaining rights.

Obama would end the war, which, by the way, is what the Iraqis—the people we are supposedly fighting for—want. Even Bush supports a timetable for withdrawal at this point. The only holdout for staying in Iraq 100 years (an exact quote) is McCain. Obama has laid out a plan to get America out of Iraq that has largely been affirmed by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton.

Obama would have the help of an experienced, knowledgeable vice president in Senator Joe Biden, longtime member and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee (a committee Obama is on as well) who would be more effective in international relations than the inexperienced small-population state Governor Sarah Palin, who never has dealt with international issues.

Obama also has those intangible qualities—coolness in crisis, the ability to inspire—that make his supporters and hopefully the people of this country want to roll up their sleeves and go to work to make things better.

A vote for Obama is a vote for tomorrow. A vote for McCain is a vote for yesterday—and yesterday was not that great. The Gazette endorses Barack Obama for president of the United States.