O’Hea is a first-year law, politics and society and journalism double major and can be reached at olivia.ohea@drake.edu
Photo by Rachel Collins, staff photographer
I could tell you 50 – probably 100 – reasons why I voted for Barack Obama. I voted for him because he truly cares about women’s social rights as well as their health care. I voted for him because he wants to remove the stigma of isolation the United States has steadily created for itself in the post-World War II era. I voted for him because he supports investing in, not heavily taxing, the middle class. Barack Obama has the platform, strategy and experience to lead this country for the next four years.
Barack Obama successfully passed a universal health care plan, an agenda important to both parties beginning under Nixon. He was able to negotiate during House and Senate deliberations with both parties on issues of employer mandates and government insurance programs, eventually enacting a law that remains budget neutral while providing care to those who need it most: uninsured children, students, and adults living in poverty.
Obama also represents a strong social rights platform. As the first president to support gay marriage, he works to create equality for all citizens. His health care plan expands women’s access to health care and provides funding for contraceptive needs. He signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to fight workplace discrimination and opposed attempts to defund Planned Parenthood while continually defending a woman’s right to choose.
While in office, Barack Obama successfully removed troops from Afghanistan and pledges to do the same for Iraq. Rather than increasing our extensive military budget, he seeks to restore open communication between nations by creating coalitions to combat issues like the world economy and poverty. Finally, he condemns any terrorist attack from Iran while combatting the popular misconception that Iran has the materials and technology to create nuclear weaponry at this moment.
Economically, Barack Obama has maintained 32 consecutive months of job growth and created just over four million private sector jobs according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. He successfully enacted budget-neutral programs like the health care reform and supported measures like Wall Street Reform to end the ‘too big to fail’ mentality.
Barack Obama represents a candidate with ideals and goals and has a tangible plan for achieving them. Like any candidate, he’s made political gaffes, yet these mistakes should not define his campaign or presidency. I voted for Barack Obama as a student, a woman, a member of the middle class and a future taxpayer, and I feel confident that I made the right choice in my first presidential election.
43 straight months of unemployment over 8%. The unemployment rate when Barack Obama took office was 7.8% and today it is 8.1%. Worse, the labor force is shrinking to record lows. People are giving up looking for work. Since Obama took office, median household income has declined more than $4,000. More people are on food stamps than ever before — 46.7 million. The poverty rate is around 15%, the highest since 1993. The average retail price of gasoline has more than doubled under Obama, rising from $1.84 per gallon to more than $3.80 per gallon. In spite of this, he stopped the approval of the Keystone pipeline for further review.
Obama inherited a bad economy, but his policies have made it even worse. The $800 billion stimulus package failed, according to the standards promised by an Obama administration economist. With Democrats in control of Congress, Obama then spent the next two years of his political capital on health care reform. Subsequently, the nation, mired in a debt crisis, underwent its first-ever credit downgrade. With our national debt exceeding $16 trillion, he has offered no credible plan for the nation’s long term fiscal health. Our country is hurtling toward a fiscal cliff in January 2013. His economic team promised that his $800 billion stimulus package would keep the unemployment rate under 8 percent. In 2008, he promised to tackle entitlement reform in his first term.
I’m not even mentioning things like his own version of the Dream Act, his problems with Operation Fast and Furious, or the promises he made in Cairo. He has over promised too many things.
Typical liberal.