By Sam Doughton, Staff Writer
Election time almost always produces a mixed bag of emotions for me, ranging from pride, rage, joy and everything in between. I value our country and will never back down from defending what I believe is its best course of action.
This is why I’m about to tell you why the 44th president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, should be reelected on Nov. 6.
During this campaign season, the Republican Party and its presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, have been consistently criticizing the president on one major issue: the economy. Their claim is that Obama didn’t do his job and the economy is collapsing because of this. While I’ll be the first to admit I’m not 100 percent satisfied with everything Obama has done economically – namely letting the deficit continue to increase – he has done a fine job considering the recession that he came into office with.
When Obama was inaugurated in January of 2009, he inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression with an unemployment rate on pace to reach 20 percent by the end of his first year in office. Currently, the unemployment rate sits at around 8 percent. This is not a great number, by any means, but after the initial spike of unemployment up to a peak of 10 percent in October of 2009, the rate has steadily declined until this year, when Congress couldn’t agree on any measures to help the stagnant job market.
Additionally, from his inauguration to January of this year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had risen 60 percent, the third-largest increase in one term for a president.
Vice President Joe Biden’s take-away quote from his speech at the Democratic National Convention was, “Bin Laden is dead. GM is alive,” and this is a good representation of Obama’s overall job in office. Obama pushed for and signed the auto bailout, saving thousands of jobs in the process. Additionally, he was the Commander-in-Chief when our military took out Osama Bin Laden. Although the Bush administration deserves some credit in this, it was ultimately Obama and his administration that put all the intelligence together and gave the order for the raid.
Obama’s foreign policy has been very sound and reasoned, and he also led us out of the war in Iraq and has given an exit strategy to leave Afghanistan.
It is generally considered that Obama’s chief accomplishment during his first term was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. This act was the first real attempt to solve the healthcare crisis our country is facing, and while it’s not perfect, it’s a good start. It prevents those that have insurance from paying higher premiums because of others who use medical facilities without insurance. Many conservative critics dislike the individual mandate in the law, which is ironic considering that a conservative think-tank organization named the Heritage Foundation first proposed the mandate as an alternative to total government control over healthcare.
More so than any of the issues addressed during his first time, the overall reason President Obama should be reelected is fairness. His policies better serve the American people as a whole, while Romney’s seem to favor the top financial bracket heavily. Romney was caught on a now-infamous recording claiming that he “didn’t need to worry about” 47 percent of voters because they didn’t pay any taxes.
I want a president who worries about 100 percent of Americans.