America Still Needs Obama
By Hansook Oh
Opinion Editor and liberal democrat
While the GOP does maintenance on Romneybot before the election results are hopefully announced tonight, the Obama administration should crack open a few beers and relax – this is no contest. Conservatives have wasted too much money trying to buy the White House and will never see their binders full of women be shelved in the presidential library. At least Paul Ryan will never have to paint Romneybot’s face orange again.
Here are four reasons why Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hilary Clinton will continue to keep this country going for the next four years.
1. It’s the recession, stupid
Those who blame Obama for the pace at which the economy is improving, completely ignore the historic magnitude of the 2008 recession and the mess he inherited from the previous administration. Economists are still arguing about what caused it, but some of the likely factors were the mortgage crisis, faulty lending practices; deregulation of the banks caused by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act of 1999, which a
Republican Congress and Bill Clinton passed; the national deficit, a big part of it due to over $1 trillion spent on military operations since 9/11; a weak dollar and the highest income inequality between the richest Americans and the poor since 1979.
The economy is recovering not in spite of Obama’s policies, but partially because of them. His concern for the middle class is a stark contrast to Romney, whose party wants to extend tax breaks to the wealthy, but cut them for most Americans. Obama is a president who cares about the 100 percent, not just 53.
But in the end, the president does not have too much power to improve the economy. The presidency is merely a symbol for the vision a party has. The legislature, corporations, people and factors out of our control such as natural disasters are all active agents that shape our economy. We cannot expect either candidate to magically heal our financial wounds.
2. His foreign policy achievements and cuts to military will improve society
One of Obama’s strongest selling points is his foreign policy experience, other than having Osama Bin Laden finally killed. His presidency has improved our standing in the world, after the eight embarrassing George W. Bush years. According to an article by the Washington Post, the world is not ready for a Romney presidency, despite our poll numbers here.
Obama is uniquely bold to take a stance against expanding our military-industrial-complex. Not only has Obama cut military spending during the recession, in January he announced his plan to cut spending by $487 billion over the next eight years. We spent $700 billion on defense last year alone, which according to the New York Times, is half of all military spending in the world. I think we can handle a cut of about $500 billion over the next several years.
Romney supports a highly militarized America and has called the cuts as “devastating.” A highly militarized country is not something we should be proud of, as it was not an American quality until the Cold War. To support a big military is supporting a kind of big government, which is exactly what Romney opposes.
3. Gender issues, education and health care still matter
Obama may be the first president who will not violate minority groups’ rights. Any president who believes that we should reverse our progress on issues affecting women, such as abortion, contraception and equal pay, should not be president. Any president who believes that LGBT people do not deserve the same constitutional rights as their heterosexual counterparts, should not be president. This should be a no brainer, but the GOP does not get it. We need to move past these archaic views, into a future where all of our citizens are equal.
Obama believes healthcare and education are rights, not privileges based on income. Because of Obamacare, health insurers are not allowed to drop people because of pre-existing conditions. He has not flip-flopped as egregiously has Romney has on social issues and he generally sticks to his values and stances.
4. Obama believes in the fact of climate change
The Obama administration is a huge improvement over the Bush administration because it does not deny climate change. About 97 percent of scientists believe that human activity is changing our climate. In the wake of superstorm Sandy, global warming has finally entered the conversation in this presidential race, and Romney falls flat compared to the president.
Obama’s administration has set unprecedented standards on fuel efficiency, and will raise standards to 54.5 mpg by model year 2025. He supports climate change research and rejected hasty implementation of TransCanada’s Keystone Pipeline to gain more information on how the pipeline would affect our environment and the economy. After the BP oil spill catastrophe, which is still hurting the gulf, America needs to be very cautious about drilling close to home, especially from an irresponsible companies like TransCanada.
Closing Statement
Obama is a game-changer not only in American politics, but American history. He is our first multiracial president and understands growing up in marginalized spaces. He was raised by a single-mother in a middle-class home, so he understands the struggles that most Americans go through. Though he does not have the big-business experience that Romney has had, Obama got to where he is because of his talent and self-reliance. We can benefit from four more years of such a leader.
– Hansook Oh is an angry, bat-shit crazy Korean homosexual and dreams of reporting on some battlefield somewhere, someday.
Romney Needs to Needs to Take Charge
By Arman Gospirini
Contributor and conservative Republican
There are a thousand reasons why the American people should fire Barack Obama on Nov. 6 and hire Mitt Romney instead. From broken promises, to a still wounded economy, to the bloody scandals like Benghazi and Fast and Furious; writing every little thing down could potentially fill the considerable amount of shelf space already reserved for more fun stuff like comic books and novels by Terry Pratchett. Nobody wants that.
Here are just four reasons, in no particular order, why Americans should vote for Mitt Romney.
1. Mitt Romney is a businessman
Say it isn’t so! It’s difficult to comprehend reasons why “businessman” seems to have become a slur. Without sounding too much like an Ayn Rand devotee; businessmen move this country. They’re the steam that pushes forward the pistons of progress – actual progress – not the regressive nonsense the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators pursue. Businessmen remain the primary source of every innovation, every job, and every dollar that makes American life so relatively comfortable compared to a majority of people on this planet.
Romney’s career was spent taking horrible situations and turning them completely around. Despite the Obama campaign’s caterwauling over Bain Capital, the truth remains that the private equity firm saved a majority of the companies it took over, in turn saving more jobs than it lost to bankruptcies. One of those companies was Staples, a succesful American business and employer, and only one of the many victories on Romney’s resume, including the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.
These skills translate directly to this nation’s current financial predicament. America needs a president who can run our government with the same efficiency and sense as the successful businesses he has run in the past.
2. Mitt Romney will reopen our vast energy resources
Reality must be viewed as it is, and not as we want it to be. The failure of the solar panel manufacturing company Solyndra is only one example of how the green economy the Obama administration touts is neither practical nor viable. That little disaster cost the taxpayers $535 million, but it is nothing compared to the long term damage to our economy if we continue to turn our backs on America’s vast natural resources.
President Obama has rejected the Keystone pipeline that would have brought us oil and jobs from friendly Canada instead of hostile Venezuela. He placed a crippling moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and also has reduced the number of permits for oil drilling in the U.S.
Romney, on the other hand, has pledged to increase our energy production, and to move us towards the path to true energy independence.
3. Mitt Romney will engage in smarter than “smart diplomacy”
The devastating cuts to our military that are inevitable under a second Obama term are certainly a grave danger to this nation’s security, but cuts can be easily reversed. Relationships with other nations, however, take years to rebuild. No president has offended our allies, and cozied up closer to our enemies, more than Obama.
Obama canceled the missile defense shield that Poland had, at great risk, spent years collaborating with the U.S on. A few years later, Obama was caught on an open mic assuring the Russian president that in a second term he would effectively screw Europe over a second time once re elected. To appease the Russians in order to gain a meaningless nuclear reduction treaty, Obama surrendered the serial numbers of Britain’s trident missiles against their protest. No president since Carter has shown as much contempt for our middle eastern ally, Israel, going so far as to demand that Israel begin land negotiations on the basis of indefensible borders that would all but guarantee an invasion, and the list goes on from the apology tour at the beginning of his term, all the way down to the current Benghazi scandal.
Obama has the made the U.S. a very unreliable friend, and a very good enemy to have. In contrast, Romney has promised, in both the debates and the campaign trail, to restore our alliances. He has been outspoken about Poland and Israel, and will not turn this nation’s back on its allies.
4. Mitt Romney is actually a pretty cool guy
This one has to do more with character than policy. Romney gave his inheritance to charity. While Romney had his college paid for by his parents, as many students do, his fortune is self made. He gave the money earned as CEO of the Olympics to charity, which totaled over a million dollars. Most importantly, Romney has never taken money from the taxpayers, going so far as to pass up his salary during his term as governor of Massachusetts. It is refreshing to find a candidate that views public office not as a lifelong occupation, but an act of public service.
Add this to the fact that throughout the campaign, Romney has been much calmer, much more collected, much more gracious, and certainly more presidential than his opponent, who has instead resorted petty attacks on meaningless matters like Romney’s wealth, Big Bird, and “binders of women”.
Closing Statement
Romney is the man for the job. He has been the man for the job time and time again throughout a long and impressive career in business and politics. Romney is a kind, mild mannered, charitable, and gracious candidate, but above all he is a shrewd, practical businessman who will, as he has been called upon to do time and time again, roll up his sleeves, and get to the work of restoring, not transforming, America.
In 2008, Americans elected a man who could talk a good game. In 2012, Americans should elect a man who can actually read a balance sheet.
-Arman Gosparini is a pre-CTVA major who, if elected, would promise to be the bestest, most awesomest Galactic Dictator the universe has ever known. All hail our glorious space king.
