Dear Presidential Candidates,
We are eighteen month away from the d-day. The list of your names is extremely long. The debates are already too many. The questions are repetitive at best and the answers seem insincere although well rehearsed. The formats covered town meetings, direct questioning, and internet conversing, in addition to raising hands or shaking heads if you disagree. To sum it up, I am tired and confused. Even more concerning is the fact that going into coma now, and then voting to satisfy my civil obligation along party lines later might not be an option this time around. We all know that this is how we got here.
Therefore, as a patriotic citizen of this country I will attempt a brand new strategy. This time you the candidates will need to stop talking for a change. Also, please do not tell me you know it all, because if history is any guidance you sure need lots of learning. After all, it is my vote. I intend to use it, and your future depends on it.
I am a free spirited hard working American, and a capitalist to the core. I also happen to believe that affordable health care is a basic right for every citizen. Health coverage is a human need such as security. So unless our government plans to privatize the navy, the army and the police it should not hand the wellbeing of this nation to Wall Street. In today’s global economy, any of us can lose a job overnight; to lose health coverage simultaneously, compounds the problem, and makes recovering harder to achieve. Finally, all other industrialized western nations provide some sort of a national health care system, so it is not a forbidden communist sin to have such guarantee in life.
Education is another major concern. The United States continues to slip in worldwide ranking measured through student achievements. The only method to reverse this dangerous and continuous trend is by investing in a national program for training teachers and enhancing curriculums for grades one through twelve. Insuring the availability and quality of pre-K training will play an important role in preparing small children for grade schools. In addition, quality college education is the only route to stay competitive globally. Hence, it should be accessible to all qualified candidates.
Our sons and daughters in uniform need to come back home quickly and orderly. The postponement of the decision to withdraw the troops is mounting loses in lives and treasures. The current criminals in the helm of Al-Qaeda trained twenty years ago in Afghanistan. We cannot afford to wait another twenty years to discover the product of the mess in Iraq. Any upcoming American government need to put in place a marshal plan to rebuild the Middle East not by guns but through real programs that would improve people lives and make them partners in the future. Only such plans will guarantee the end of extremism, bring the Middle East out of the Middle Ages, and deliver real security to America and the world.
America’s children should not have to pay for their parents mistakes. The future president that will earn my vote has to commit to balancing the broken budget. The United States government had a surplus six years ago; today we own the largest debt in human history and this has to change.
Wait that is not all, I refuse to pay any additional taxes because I think I am already paying too much. I believe that the current resources available to our government can pay for all these programs without a single dime of additional taxation. Corporations and individuals prioritize their investment dollars on regular basis to achieve their goals. The government has to do the same when it comes to spending people’s hard-earned money.
The Center for Arms Control and None-Proliferation report published earlier this year comparing worldwide military spending finds that the United States spends five times more than the next highest spender “China”, eleven times as much as Russia and outspends the remaining “Axis of Evil” by a ratio of seventy-two to one. http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/archives/002279.html
Does three times as much as China spends make us less secure? How much security we would get if we spend only fifty times as much as Iran and North Korea combined instead of the current seventy-two times? The disturbing discovery does not end at the spending amount. Out of the six hundred and sixty four billions proposed in the 2008 budget, only one hundred and forty two planned for the Global War on Terrorism. The rest, or five hundreds and two billions are funding weapon systems that will probably never see the light especially in a fight where the enemy uses IEDs.
Dear candidates, if you agree to fund national health coverage, invest in education, bring the military forces in Iraq home, and balance the budget without raising taxes please sign on the dotted line.
Now I have to warn you, earning my vote can result in losing a load of special interest money.
