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Have you looked into your wallet lately? If it’s
like mine, the lint-to-cash ratio has been trending heavily towards the
lint.
The failed domestic and economic policies of the Bush
administration have caught up with all but the privileged few, not just
the poor. Gas prices have exploded because the Republicans in
Washington refused for eight long years to fund solutions to our
dependence on foreign oil. John McCain says he is for encouraging
alternative forms of energy, but as a senator, John McCain voted
against a bill that would increase incentives for energy companies to
come up with alternatives to oil. He also refused to support extending
tax credits for wind power and solar power investments, credits which
are due to expire at the end of this year (just when we need them most).
Health insurance premiums are going up every year, and
the price of prescription drugs and doctor visits are increasing, too.
In many families, parents go without health care so that their children
can see a doctor when they’re sick. John McCain says that he has
a plan to make health care affordable for middle-class families, but as
a senator he voted against expansion of the State Children’s
Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP).
The Bush administration’s plan to expand the
economy was to give tax cuts to the richest families, in the
expectation that their investments would “float all boats.”
But the boats the middle class and poor are on might as well have been
named the Titanic. The tax cuts took us from record surpluses to an
exploded national debt, average working family incomes declined more
than $2,000, and more than five and a half million Americans fell into
poverty.
John McCain says he has a plan to create new jobs and
reduce the tax burden on the middle class and reduce the national debt,
but it seems to consist only of extending tax cuts for the wealthy.
John McCain says he is sympathetic to families losing their homes to
foreclosure because of predatory loans they had no chance of ever
repaying, but he supports a “do nothing” approach, allowing
the market to “self-correct.” I guess if you have more
homes than you can count, it wouldn’t matter if you lost one or
two.
It’s not what candidates say that counts.
It’s what they do and how they vote. Like Mama always said,
actions speak louder than words.
There is a better way. Barack Obama and the Democratic
Party have new, innovative ideas to jump-start our economy. As
president, Obama will provide tax relief to the people who really need
it, the middle class of America. And he’ll work to establish a
foreclosure prevention fund for homebuyers, not real estate
speculators, a plan that includes pre-foreclosure counseling and the
means to help responsible home owners.
Obama wants to eliminate income taxes for senior
citizens who make less than $50,000 a year and restore tax fairness for
the rest of us. He also wants to create new jobs by investing in clean
and green energy technologies and rebuilding our infrastructure, like
our highways, railroads, and public buildings. This is especially
important to us North Carolinians, since our state has some of the
worst bridges in the nation.
But don’t take my word for it, or even
Barack’s words, because actions do speak louder than words. As
U.S. Senator, Barack Obama has consistently voted for legislation that
is important to the middle class and poor, like S-CHIP and the raising
of the minimum wage. He has voted against legislation that would strip
millions of dollars from child support and college loan programs and
against tax cuts targeted at the rich.
As a state senator in Illinois, Obama helped create
programs like the state Earned Income Tax Credit, which in three years
provided over $100 million in tax cuts to families across the state and
an expansion of early childhood education.
So this year we have a clear choice. We can support the
Bush-McCain rhetoric which tries to gloss over policies with a proven
history of failure. Or we can take action to strengthen our country by
voting for the positive change of the Democratic Party and Barack Obama.
Actions speak louder than words.
Matt Walpole lives and
works in Sugar Grove with his wife Marsha and son Chandler. Matt and
Marsha try NOT to talk about college basketball during the season,
since one bleeds Duke blue, and the other N.C. State red.
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