A time for change?

The Second Coming has occurred. Wait, no it hasn’t, it’s just Barack Obama, chanting his slogan of “Change!” to millions of Democratic fanboys and fangirls. Somehow, a slogan of “Change” is the big thing this year, and it sounds like the Democrats across the country are embracing it. A looming question, however, is what does this really mean for a policy platform and for the future of the country?

First, let us define “change” as Merriam-Webster Online does, “to give a different position, course, or direction to,” which fits very well with the idea of politics in general. Going from there, we can assume that Obama believes in his website’s slogan “Change we can believe in,” because if we don’t, well, that makes for a bad slogan to throw on your website of the campaign.

Moving from there, let’s see from what we are changing. This would be what President Bush has accomplished, done, and/or pushed for over the last four years. These topics would include such nice things like Social Security reform, taxes and fiscal policy, immigration policy, and the continuing explosion of pork-barrel spending.

Social Security reform: President Bush wanted to reform Social Security right after his re-election in 2004. This plan died a horrible, painful death in Congress, and no one has spoken of this good ol’ skeleton in the closet since then. So, does this mean that Obama will be pushing through Congress a plan to make Social Security solvent and not give it up at the first sign of a challenge? (Of course, this plan should be suitable to all Americans, and not just the elderly or poor.) When Social Security owes $6.8 trillion more than it receives in taxes (according to the Heritage Foundation), it sounds like high time for reform.

Taxes and fiscal policy: President Bush wanted to make his tax cuts permanent, which arguably led to the nice boom in the economy over the past few years. Will we see a tax policy that is favorable to all Americans? Now, now, I know what you’re thinking. “Soak the rich! Tax the wealthy!” Yeah, we’ve all heard that before. But, how much more can we really soak the rich? According to the conservative-leaning think-tank “The Tax Foundation” (they bring you the “Tax Freedom Day”), the richest twenty percent of American taxpayers paid 52.8% of the federal tax “burden” in 2004. I argue the rich are already soaked. Maybe we should work on making this distribution a bit more equal? Also, his website platform for “Fiscal Policy” states, “President Bush’s policies of giving tax breaks for the wealthy will cost the nation over $2.3 trillion by the time they expire in 2009.” This is dead wrong, and I take issue with it. As far as I know, the US Government does not have “first-dibs” on our money. They do not “allow” us to keep a certain amount of our paycheck. We give them the money to finance what we want, not they claim they own it and allow us to have the rest.

Immigration policy: Ideally we would make all non-citizens go home, apply for citizenship, then move to America, learn English, become normal members of society, live the American Dream, and so on. Realistically, that won’t ever happen (sadly), so the best we can do right now is enforce the laws we have, secure the borders, and deport those that are criminals (yes, illegal aliens – not “undocumented workers” or any of that other claptrap that masks the true nature of the problem). They are not citizens and have broken our laws after breaking into our country. They obviously do not care for our way of life, nor respect our laws. Seeing as how none of this has been done, maybe Obama could start there and then work his way up? He is the candidate of change, and we are looking at a whole lot of non-action going on right now in this field.

Pork-barrel spending: Bridge-to-Nowhere, bogus museums all across the country, and general wasteful spending that American taxpayers have no business forking over their hard-earned money to pay for what should be ended as soon as possible. Seeing as how President Bush didn’t veto the latest spending bill (if only he would have!), but promises to veto the next one; let’s see if Obama is going to push to end pork-barrel spending, or even promise to veto it. The nice thing is that his website does say he’d cut pork-barrel spending to 2001 levels (still too high, in my opinion) and make the budgetary allotments more transparent. That’s not the issue, Mr. Obama. The issue is the fact that this money is going to pet projects that are used by all of 100 people. This should be ended.

Barack Obama is the self-anointed candidate of change. He asks us to believe in his “ability to bring real change in Washington.” Let’s hope he actually does, should he win the nomination and the presidency. And one final thing — let’s not go crazy over him like he’s some “American Idol” contestant or some other huge celebrity. He’s a candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America. Let us critique, analyze, and review his platform, his statements, and his history of voting as we consider which candidates we support this election cycle. It’s our duty as voting citizens to decide where our country goes for the next four years.