Why You Should Re-elect Barak Obama

We all know that every major presidential candidate receives campaign contributions from special interests and, upon being elected, is typically beholden to said special interest. Social, labor, defense, economic, agriculture and "from the heart" (religious) special interest groups all vie for the candidates attention and, more often than not, get that attention once their candidate is elected. When a Republican president is in office, you see moves to reduce firearm control (citing the 2nd Amendment) and restrict abortion. When a Democrat is in office, you see moves to increase firearm control (citing the symptom of urban decay i.e. poor neighborhood gang violence) and more Freedom of Choice.

No matter the party affiliation, every elected official is worried about one thing: getting re-elected. When speaking of congressional members, this scenario happens over and over. Too often, congressional members make politics their lifetime career and would rather face an easy re-election whilst making popular and fiscally unhealthy choices instead of facing a hard fought re-election bid whilst making the hard decisions (and sometimes unpopular decisions) needed to steer our country straight on social and fiscal issues.

There is one official in this country who should find re-election a liberating experience: the President of the United States. This one person is in a unique position to do the most good for our country no matter the party affiliation once they are re-elected. So long as he can survive his first term, a re-elected President might be a "lame duck", but he is also free to do what ever he wants. Seizing upon this idea, Obama's first term election promises are but a spring board to bring us "change we can believe in." The rest of this article will be broken down into broad areas for concern in our country and how they can be addressed by a liberated president. Future articles will address specifically the broad areas presented here.

Budget
Having a balanced budget is nearly impossible given the gridlock (i.e. re-election posturing) with the current two party system. Upon his start of his second term, Obama can immediately end this by pushing for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. Once the legal and obligatory framework is in place that requires congressional members to pass a balanced budget, Congress can get down to work of actually making a balanced budget instead of legislating a shit show and blaming it on the other party.

Once a balanced budget is mandatory, it's time to work at our back debt. Using budget numbers from 2010 (because current numbers are rife with math trickery and balance sheet magic), the United States total estimated deficit at the end of 2012 comes in around $15 trillion. Unfortunately, you can not single out one specific part of the budget to study because things like obligated medical care (entitlements) are broken up between seniors, non-seniors that don't make enough money and military (active and veterans) members. Likewise, part of the defense and veterans administration budgets are also split between the civilian and military populations for medical treatment.


To tackle such a large deficit will require a two pronged approach: making cuts in the yearly budget and addressing the total deficit apportionment. There are probably thousands of line items in each budget bill that is passed by Congress. Most people find process of looking at them all to be tedious; this includes me. But there are some larger items that immediately jump out at you.

Example 1: about 1.64% of our budget is aid to foreign countries - time to trim this budget. We can't solve the issue of fungal growth in Ethiopian crops or solve the African AIDS epidemic by throwing money at the issue. And why are we sending money to Russia or China?!? All they give us back is spam mail and cheap products made with questionable materials.

Example 2: the corporate tax code (both state and federal) is rife with loop holes created by lawmakers in the pocket of special interest groups and corporations. For example, in this country, corporations are not taxed on their gross income but, rather, are taxed on the income they do not spend at the end of their fiscal year. In the last 60 years, corporate taxes fell from more than 30% in the 1950s to 6.6% in 2009. Why did current federal revenue from income tax top out at $1.1 trillion but corporate taxes only came in at $181 billion?

Example 3: Congress (both the Senate and House) passes a new budget each year. What you may not know is that the unbalanced budget they legislate follows procedural rules that automatically raises the debt ceiling every year. In fact, Obama's re-election year budget relies on these procedural rules to further raise the debt ceiling. Time to end this bogus status quo.

Social Issues
There are many social issues to address that I will list that, at first glance, may not be typical "social" issues. But to me, they are all related. The standards, or lack of standards, and the average American's surroundings, contribute towards their perception of their life and status in life. These issues include, but not limited to: lack of national standards for education and teacher training, urban decay, gang violence, crumbling infrastructure, quality of ingredients in food, safety of food and water, local/state/federal fiscal responsibility, healthcare, etc etc etc.

As I said, I believe all these issues contribute to national social issues. An African-American or Latino youth in the inner city may not have access to safe (i.e. healthy) food or water; they may not have access to thorough or affordable healthcare; may not have access to a proper education; may not be able to walk down their street without ducking for cover from errant bullets. All of this contributes to the average inner-city's kid growing up to not give a shit because nothing changes or gets better for them. Indeed, they don't try to get the education or healthy food or healthcare or to demand better from those around them and in their governments because they grew up with people in their lives who didn't give a shit.

There is no magic band aid solution to solve this. What it does require is the people AND the government to make conscientious decisions. It requires the people to take a vested interest in their community and who is running their government. It requires the top (well-to-do and governments) and bottom (middle, working and poor classes) to better what they can and work towards each other and a better America.
Summary
At the end of the day, I don't really care who wins the presidential election. All I care about is keeping my job, paying for my house, raising my children and hoping that my fellow Americans can do the same things as I; free from apathy, government stupidity, and grossly unhealthy foods. I'm not looking for Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood or utopia, what I am looking for is people to start giving a shit. I'm looking for a leader who can actually lead and I believe that a second term President is free to do all that. I'm not willing to wait another four years for someone to be in that position again.