Presidential Road

Presidential Election Process

Who is Barack Obama?

Barack Obama was born on August 4th, 1961 in Hawaii. He lived in Hawaii, Kansas mostly and spent a couple of years in Indonesia. He later went to New York and in 1983 graduated from Colombia University. After college Barack moved to Chicago to work for a church group looking to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods. He realized that to make a big change there needed to be more done on a political level, and in 1991 he graduated with a law degree from Harvard University. Afterwards, he returned to Chicago and practiced law for a number of years before running for Illinois State Senate. In 2004 he became the third African American elected into the U.S. Senate after the Reconstruction. Growing up in a few different places, and having to work with both Democrats and Republicans has prepared Barack Obama for presidency. He has dealt with many issues pertaining to the middle class, and has always been trying to speak out on issues that America may have for the 21st century. Barack Obama, his wife Michelle, and their two daughters, Malia and Sasha live in the South Side of Chicago.

What Do We Think?

We think that Barack Obama should be our next president (and Joe Biden vice-president) because he has a better plan for our country. Obama's plan for the wars are to get us out, and not only will that save lots of American lives, it will also save us trillions of dollars. His plan for the trillions of dollars we save is to spend them on jumpstarting the economy and putting that money to better use. Better use to Barack Obama is putting that money into renewable energy, education, health care, jobs, and much more. To get people out of debt is always a good thing. Obama plans to cut taxes for the middle class and not for the wealthy who don't need them. He also plans to reform Medicare, and change lots of laws we have now that aren't working. Overall, we believe that Obama has a better plan for all of the issues, and his plans are all for the good of the American people.

Social Security

Strengthen Retirement Savings - Barack Obama and Joe Biden will make sure that banks place the workers higher on their priority list than they are right now. Employees will receive annual disclosures about their current pension fund investments to make them more secure. They will fight age discrimination for young and old employees.
Affordable Healthcare - Obama and Biden will let governments negotiate for lower drug costs and will not let drug stores block out generic drugs. They are doing this to make prescription drugs cheaper and more affordable. This will help strengthen Medicare and make it so that it is cheaper than other plans.
Protect and Honor Seniors - Barack and Joe will ensure that people who make a low income will have heating and air conditioning through the winter and summer and the government will pay for it. Obama will make it so senior citizens can be more involved in community service if they wish to do so.

Poverty

Most of the 37 million poor Americans are working, but still aren't making enough money to afford what they need. Obama and Biden plan to invent a program that will directely engage a disadvantaged youth to provide them with practical skills. They will improve transportation by making sure additional federal public transportation money is given to communities with the highest need of it. Obama and Biden will work to ensure that ex-offenders have thge oppurtunity to work and attend counseling. They will increase income tax credit for working parents, parents using child support, and families with three or more children. They also plan to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2011. This way, families earning minimum wage will be able to pay for basic needs like food, transportation, and hosing. They will provide low and middle income works with tax relief and will eliminate taxes for seniors making under $50,000 a year. Obama will strengthen families by promoting responsible fatherhood with teh Responsible Faterhood and Healthy Families Act he will pass, supporting parents with young children by expanding the nurse-family partnership to first time mothers each year, and insuring that all workers have seven paid sick days per year. Obama andn Biden will invent 20 promised neighborhoods in areas with high levels of poverty, crime, and bad education. The Promise Neighborhoods will provide early childhood education, youth violence, prevention efforts, and afterschool activities. They will improve more rural areas by improving their schools and businesses and attreacting more doctors to create a better healthcare system.

Homeland Security

Terrorism - Barack Obama will end the war in Iraq and focus on Afghanistan. They will share their information with other agencies and try to stop terrorists. He will not be frightened by having to take out terrorists and he will make sure our military becomes more stealthy and agile.

Nuclear Terrorism - Obama and Joe Biden will lead a world wide effort to try to secure all nuclear weapons materials within four years. Barack will try to work with other countries to make nuclear fuel from becoming a nuclear bomb. They will set a goal to have a nuclear free world and make treaties with other countries. Barack Obama will appoint someone to be the White House Coordinator for Nuclear Security.

Strengthen U.S. Biosecurity - Obama and Biden will set up an intelligence collection overseas to stop would be terrorists before they can strike. Barack will make sure that we have the tools and communication to be able to manage disease outbreaks by linking hospitals, health care agencies, and public health agencies. He will continue to support international efforts to create new vaccines and medicines cure life threatening diseases.

Protect our Information Networks - Barack will support a next-generation secure computer for national security applications. He will make innovations to software because things are being stolen from American businessmen at a high rate. He will make sure that personal data in your computer is better protected and will better protect our rights.

Improve intelligence capacity - Obama will improve our intelligence system and make it so that even the local intelligence agencies can share information with all the levels of the government. He will install a security program overseas that will improve cooperation between U.S. and foreign intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

Protect Americans from Terrorists Attacks and Natural Disasters - Barack will eliminate the waste, fraud, and abuse that cost us billions of the Department of Homeland Security's dollars. Barack Obama believes that the state and federal governments should work together better and should listen to local concerns and priorities.

Protect Critical Infrastructure - Obama will make sure that companies and people have enough funds for natural disasters and are protected from terrorists attacks. He will provide federal chemical security regulations for chemical plants. We will develop a way so that passengers have their privacy while still being safe from terrorists. He will make our public transportation safer by adding many improvements.

Modernize America's Aging Infrastructure - Barack Obama will make sure that new infrastructure has new and improved security in it. He will update our electrical grid and upgrade highways, railroads, ports, water, and aviation materials. He will prioritize to make our infrastructure stronger than it is today.

What the Media Thinks

With the media being so unreliable, do you know what to think? Well, not all media sources are unreliable. Some of the reliable sources would be CNN, NBC, or ABC. These sites are usually unbiased (but can be a little bit) and will give you an accurate sense of what's going on. Other reliable sources would be The Huffington Post or The Drudge Report. These sites are biased, but might give you a accurate description of what's going on for their prefered party.

To read different stories about both candidates, click on the links below.

http://elections.foxnew.com/2008/10/29/ap-fact-check-obama-ad-avoids-budget-realities/ -conservative,
http://abcnews.go.com/politics -unbiased
http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/ -liberal
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032553 -liberal
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ -liberal

Foreign Affairs

Barack Obama and Joe Biden have a lot of new ideas for foreign policy.  In Iran, Barack and Joe want to solve the nuclear issues and then reduce troop presence.  They want to remake certain allies, and gain new ones from old enemies.  Another huge point with the candidate is that threatening the terrorists with nuclear bombs is a bad idea, the important thing to do is to get the nuclear material out of terrorist hands and either safely destroyed or stored.  The Obama-Biden Campaign wish to create strong ties with Israel and Russia.  All in all, Barack and Joe want to send diplomats all over the world to countries that we have had problems with in the past and re-secure some of those ties.    

Economy

Economy is a very big issue in this presidential election. Barack Obama and Joe Biden first plan to jump-start the economy. They will do this by putting windfall taxes on big oil companies and give Americans an emergency $1,000 to help with bills. Obama and Biden will also put 50 billion dollars into the economy. 25 billion dollars will go into state funds to prevent cuts in important areas such as education or health care. The other 25 billion will go into a Jobs and Growth fund to save over 1 million jobs from being cut. Another plan that Obama and Biden have is to cut taxes for the middle class working families. They will also get rid of income taxes for seniors who make less than 50,000 a year. Making tax filings for the middle class simpler is also part of the plan. As president Obama will fight for free trade and try to amend the North American Free Trade Agreement. Obama and Biden will end tax breaks for the companies that send jobs overseas, and reward the companies that support the American worker. Going green is very important to Obama and Biden. They will focus on the manufacturing sector and create 5 million new green jobs. Investing in the next generation and job creators is one way they will do this. The manufacturing extension partnership funding will be doubled, and there will be new job training for clean technologies. They will invest in the clean energy economy, put more into the renewable energy sector and create 5 million new green jobs. Obama and Biden will also add new jobs by the national infrastructure. They will create a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that will expand and enhance federal investments. Obama and Biden will invest in the sciences. They will make the tax credit on research and development permanent, and they will start the next generation broadband. Small and start-up businesses are very important to Obama and Biden. That is why small and start-up businesses will get tax relief, and they will get rid of capital gains on these businesses. Also, Obama and Biden will invest in incubators that help entrepreneurs create start-up companies. If you create more jobs, then you also have to protect the workers, and that is what Obama and Biden are going to do. They want to protect striking workers, and they will give workers the right to organize and unionize. They will also raise the minimum wage. It is bad when people can't pay their mortgage, and Obama and Biden want to make it so that no one will have that problem. They plan to create a mortgage credit, make accurate loan disclosure mandatory, close the bankruptcy loophole that mortgage companies have created, and ensure that the mortgage companies are more accountable. Also, they will start a credit card Bill of Rights to protect customers, and improve disclosure by making a credit card rating system. One of the main goals of Obama and Biden is to make sure that people don't go into debt, or get out of it. They will do this by reforming the bankruptcy laws, encouraging banks to give out small consumer loans, and reform laws to protect families with medical crisis's. One final point of Obama and Biden's economic plan is that they want to create family and work balance. They want to make sure that everyone can have health insurance, people can have paid leave, and that working parents can send their children to high-quality child care and after school programs.

Energy

Energy, as you should know, is very important. The Obama-Biden Plan will attempt to create a temporary relief to Americans by lowering prices while other energy solutions are negotiated. They plan to eliminate many imports from the Middle East and Venezuela by 2020. To do this, they are going to increase fuel standards, put 1 million electric hybrid cars on streets by 2015. They are going to make a $7,000 tax credit for people who buy these hybrid plug-in cars. They are also going to lay down a law that makes oil companies use the acres upon acres of land they have, but don't use.

They are also going to try to create many new economy friendly jobs. They guarantee that 10% of the US's energy comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25% 2025. They know that we can't just instantly break off from coal, but they suggest developing and using clean coal. They also want to work with the Canadian Government to build the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline.

Their plan is to shrink our Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 80% before 2050. They want to make the United States a leading country of climate change.

One final inspirational video.

Healthcare

Barack Obama and Joe Biden want to make sure that health care is available to everyone. They also want to make sure that insurance companies cover people regardless of their current health or history. Small business will be able to provide affordable health care under the Small Business Health Tax Credit. They want to make health insurance and care work for everyone, people and businesses, and not just the drug and insurance companies. Obama and Biden are going to reduce the costs of drugs and making the drug companies unblock generic drugs from the market. They want to reduce the costs of very bad illnesses for employers and employees and make hospitals report their health care costs and quality data.

Education

One of Barack Obama and Joe Biden's plans for education is to expand early childhood education. They will do this by making a "zero to five" plan that will make kids ready for kindergarten. Improving the head start program and starting an early head start program will also help kids. Obama will reform the "No Child Left Behind" law so that it is more about rating college readiness and it will improve student learning in a timely matter. They will also improve charter schools and give benefits to states with good charter schools so those states can expand the schools. Charter school funding will also be doubled. They will be able to intervene on struggling schools, and have a clear process for closing the schools that consistently under preform. Obama and Biden will make math and science national priorities and also they will support english language learners. They will address the dropput levels and create more high-quality afterschool programs. College is also a big part in Obama and Biden's plan. They plan to have college outreach programs for people that come from low-income families, and they will also create an opportunity to lower the college tuition. Simplifing the application process for financial aid is also a priority. Obama and Biden want to recruit more teachers, and retain them. They will make sure that all teachers are very well prepared, and will pay all teachers better.

The Iraq War

The Problems

The Iraq war is an important issue to the Obama campaign. The problems in Barack Obama and Joe Biden's eyes are that there is a lack of security throughout Iraq for US troops. They also feel that there isn't enough political progress, meaning that the Iraqi's are not stepping up to the plate as much as we would like them to. Barack believes that it is President Bush to blame for both issues.
Obama and Biden also see the amount of military use somewhat unnecessary. Over 1,750,000 people have served in Iraq or Afghanistan just from the US. Over 620,000 have been there twice. Because of this, our military equipment is wearing down at 9 times the normal rate, which makes it become less helpful faster.
The final problem that I am going to cover , although there are many more, is the issue of needing a new strategy for war. The Iraq War has lasted longer then WWI, WWII, and The Civil War. Over 60,000 soldiers have been hurt, and over 4,000 have died. The US has spent over 2.7 trillion dollars on the war. The rest of the world doesn't really agree with the decisions that the government has been making and we are losing allies. Even in the country, people will get in fights and start riots and protests about the war. We have been able to keep violence to a minimum, but we are forcing the Iraqis to take responsibility the wrong way. With our current strategy, we will never restore our position in the world and remake allies.

The Obama Solution

Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. The very instant Barack gets into office, Barack is going to give his Secretary of Defense and Military Commanders a new task, to end the war in Iraq. Barack wants to take the troops out orderly and in phases that would remove every soldier within 16 months. That means that our soldiers could be safe at home by 2010.

Barack plans to send diplomats to try and make Iraq and its neighboring countries (Iran, Syria) to become stable. That would make it easier to locate and corner al Qaeda. These diplomats will help certain Iraqi organizations make peace with themselves, and their country. He also plans to provide financial support to keep Iraq moving along mostly by itself.

Obama's Record

Barack has opposed the war since it's start in 2002. He said that the war would become "an occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs and undetermined consequences." In 2007 he suggested a phased removal of troops from the war zone.

Immigration

One part of Barack Obama and Joe Biden's plan for immigration is to create secure borders. They will do this by adding additional personnel, infrastructure, and technology on the borders. They will also improve the immigration system overall. Increasing the number of legal immigrants will keep families together and meet the demand for jobs that employers can not always meet. They are going to try to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country by creating harsher consequences for employers who hire undocumented immigrants. Prospering illegal immigrants will have to pay a fine, learn English, and wait longer to become citizens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are also going to work with Mexico to decrease the number of illegal immigrants by promoting economic development.