Spring Break
Kerry or Bush?
An Easy Choice
Avelino Maestas
Issue date: 10/28/04 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
Let me begin by saying that, above all this November, you must vote. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. This election will affect you in some way, if not immediately then down the road, but right now is the only time you'll be able to do something about it. So vote!
Now, as Editor of The Mustang I have been accused of being "partisan" in my handling of certain news stories and events. This was not something I actively tried to do, and in fact I have always strived to present both sides of an argument.
If you feel I've been partisan in the past, you ain't seen nothing yet.
So, if you consider yourself a die-hard supporter of President Bush, you should probably turn the computer off. Stop reading right now - you're not going to like what I'm about to say.
There is a clear and conscionable choice for president this election, and that choice is not George W. Bush.
The choice becomes even more apparent if you're a young voter. While President Bush (and Senator Kerry) will deny it until they are blue in the face, there is a very real possibility that the United States will restart the draft in the coming years. There is simply no way around the fact that we do not have enough troops to do what Bush is asking our military to accomplish, and if some other hotspot flares up we're really in trouble.
Paul Bremer, the former US head official in Iraq, said we needed more troops in Iraq. On October 9, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said more troops would be needed to help with Iraqi elections in January. In June another 'stop-loss' order was issued, preventing members of our 'all volunteer army' from leaving combat when their enlistments expired. Whole platoons are being arrested for refusing to go on "suicide missions."
The National Guard recently said that they had failed to meet recruitment targets for the first time in ten years. The Army is struggling to meet recruitment targets as well, and there are even reports of the Army threatening to send soldiers to Iraq if they did not re-enlist. Non-threatening measures the Pentagon is pursuing include bonuses of $40,000 and increased salaries and benefits for soldiers. Does this sound like a military that is capable of sustaining operations using volunteers? Who's going to pay for all this?
Time magazine recently published an article (called Does the US Need the Draft?) saying that in the last two years, the number of active and reserve military personnel overseas had increased more than 100-percent. The article quoted retired Army General Barry McCaffrey as saying, "we can't respond to another major crisis right now."
A previous issue of The Mustang featured a letter to the editor claiming that Democrats in Congress authored draft bills. This is correct. These lawmakers contend that the current military structure takes advantage of certain segments of the population, and they feel that a draft would fairly distribute the burden of the war. Republicans won't even discuss the issue, as they won't discuss anything that might cast doubt on their rosy description of the war in Iraq, or the economy, or education, or health care.
The economy offers just as much incentive to vote for Kerry as the draft does. What happens when we start thinking about spending: $120 billion for Iraq (with another $80 billion earmarked) already. Bush is planning on asking for $75 billion more next spring. Fifty billion dollars through 2009 for a missile defense shield that is being deployed despite never hitting a test target successfully under realistic circumstances. Total defense spending is expected to average $485 billion between 2010 and 2022. Tack on another $540 billion for the Medicare plan.
Current estimates put our deficit between four and five trillion dollars. Now, according to the Congressional Budget Office (a non-partisan organization that provides analysis for Congress), that level will increase continually until 2011, when it will level off at $6.3 trillion.
Now, President Bush will say that he's going to cut the deficit in half during the next five years. Guess what: he made a similar promise in 2000, when he promised to pay down the national debt. Instead, he had to increase the limit of the debt by $750 billion, and his administration pulled retirement money from federal employee plans to avoid defaulting on the debt.
And speaking of broken promises, we can look to our own back-pockets. Pell Grants, touted by President Bush during the debates, have been given to more students because more students were in need of the aid due to the bad economy. Bush actually capped the award even though tuition costs keep rising. The only proposed increase for what students actually receive came from, you guessed it, 'liberal' Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy.
Of course money is a pressing concern for us college students, but health care is also something that we should be thinking about. For starters, many of us are among the 45 million Americans who don't have it. What about flu shots? Like several other aspects of our lives, vaccination against disease is something that we must rely on the government to provide.
How does a critical shortage in flu vaccine make you feel about our country's homeland security? This is a disease that hits every year, that we can predict, that kills an estimated 36,000 Americans annually.
Bush's solution highlights his greatest flaw: he blames lawyers. Sure, there have been warnings of a shortage every year since 2001, but we'll leave that aside. It's a problem with too much court litigation.
President Bush either will not or cannot admit he's made a mistake. I prefer the first option, because that presents a conscious choice. If he's unable to admit he's made mistakes, that just means he lives in a reality so unlike our world that we're in some serious trouble.
Abu Grahib: some misguided soldiers, although Rumsfeld gave the order to use those interrogation techniques. A busted economy: inherited from the Clinton administration, which created 20 million jobs, compared to Bush's 2 million (I should add that Bush is still negative 500,000 jobs since taking office, and his job growth doesn't even keep up with population growth). The inability to pass laws: Democrats' fault, even though Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress. 370 tons of missing high-explosives in Iraq: John Kerry's fault - he's speaking badly about the troops!
It's the same story over and over: President Bush blames everything bad that happens on somebody else, some force outside of his control. He never accepts responsibility. It's like a baseball player who thanks God for hitting a home run, but says nothing when he strikes out. Where does the personal responsibility belong?
The latest issue of The Mustang was a week late: that's my fault. You failed a class last semester: that's your fault. Over 1,000 Americans die in Iraq, with almost 8,000 wounded: a liberal senator from Massachusetts is to blame. Sure, it may have been a war started by Bush, and he may have told terrorists to "bring it on," but Kerry is to blame because he's sending "mixed messages."
Folks, this is the most important election of our lives. I've made up my mind, and I'm hoping you'll make the right decision too. If you're still undecided, I'll add one last thing. Four years - we've had Bush as a president for four years. Think about that. If you're undecided after four years, you probably have no reason to vote for George W Bush. I've given you plenty of reasons why you shouldn't.
Now, as Editor of The Mustang I have been accused of being "partisan" in my handling of certain news stories and events. This was not something I actively tried to do, and in fact I have always strived to present both sides of an argument.
If you feel I've been partisan in the past, you ain't seen nothing yet.
So, if you consider yourself a die-hard supporter of President Bush, you should probably turn the computer off. Stop reading right now - you're not going to like what I'm about to say.
There is a clear and conscionable choice for president this election, and that choice is not George W. Bush.
The choice becomes even more apparent if you're a young voter. While President Bush (and Senator Kerry) will deny it until they are blue in the face, there is a very real possibility that the United States will restart the draft in the coming years. There is simply no way around the fact that we do not have enough troops to do what Bush is asking our military to accomplish, and if some other hotspot flares up we're really in trouble.
Paul Bremer, the former US head official in Iraq, said we needed more troops in Iraq. On October 9, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said more troops would be needed to help with Iraqi elections in January. In June another 'stop-loss' order was issued, preventing members of our 'all volunteer army' from leaving combat when their enlistments expired. Whole platoons are being arrested for refusing to go on "suicide missions."
The National Guard recently said that they had failed to meet recruitment targets for the first time in ten years. The Army is struggling to meet recruitment targets as well, and there are even reports of the Army threatening to send soldiers to Iraq if they did not re-enlist. Non-threatening measures the Pentagon is pursuing include bonuses of $40,000 and increased salaries and benefits for soldiers. Does this sound like a military that is capable of sustaining operations using volunteers? Who's going to pay for all this?
Time magazine recently published an article (called Does the US Need the Draft?) saying that in the last two years, the number of active and reserve military personnel overseas had increased more than 100-percent. The article quoted retired Army General Barry McCaffrey as saying, "we can't respond to another major crisis right now."
A previous issue of The Mustang featured a letter to the editor claiming that Democrats in Congress authored draft bills. This is correct. These lawmakers contend that the current military structure takes advantage of certain segments of the population, and they feel that a draft would fairly distribute the burden of the war. Republicans won't even discuss the issue, as they won't discuss anything that might cast doubt on their rosy description of the war in Iraq, or the economy, or education, or health care.
The economy offers just as much incentive to vote for Kerry as the draft does. What happens when we start thinking about spending: $120 billion for Iraq (with another $80 billion earmarked) already. Bush is planning on asking for $75 billion more next spring. Fifty billion dollars through 2009 for a missile defense shield that is being deployed despite never hitting a test target successfully under realistic circumstances. Total defense spending is expected to average $485 billion between 2010 and 2022. Tack on another $540 billion for the Medicare plan.
Current estimates put our deficit between four and five trillion dollars. Now, according to the Congressional Budget Office (a non-partisan organization that provides analysis for Congress), that level will increase continually until 2011, when it will level off at $6.3 trillion.
Now, President Bush will say that he's going to cut the deficit in half during the next five years. Guess what: he made a similar promise in 2000, when he promised to pay down the national debt. Instead, he had to increase the limit of the debt by $750 billion, and his administration pulled retirement money from federal employee plans to avoid defaulting on the debt.
And speaking of broken promises, we can look to our own back-pockets. Pell Grants, touted by President Bush during the debates, have been given to more students because more students were in need of the aid due to the bad economy. Bush actually capped the award even though tuition costs keep rising. The only proposed increase for what students actually receive came from, you guessed it, 'liberal' Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy.
Of course money is a pressing concern for us college students, but health care is also something that we should be thinking about. For starters, many of us are among the 45 million Americans who don't have it. What about flu shots? Like several other aspects of our lives, vaccination against disease is something that we must rely on the government to provide.
How does a critical shortage in flu vaccine make you feel about our country's homeland security? This is a disease that hits every year, that we can predict, that kills an estimated 36,000 Americans annually.
Bush's solution highlights his greatest flaw: he blames lawyers. Sure, there have been warnings of a shortage every year since 2001, but we'll leave that aside. It's a problem with too much court litigation.
President Bush either will not or cannot admit he's made a mistake. I prefer the first option, because that presents a conscious choice. If he's unable to admit he's made mistakes, that just means he lives in a reality so unlike our world that we're in some serious trouble.
Abu Grahib: some misguided soldiers, although Rumsfeld gave the order to use those interrogation techniques. A busted economy: inherited from the Clinton administration, which created 20 million jobs, compared to Bush's 2 million (I should add that Bush is still negative 500,000 jobs since taking office, and his job growth doesn't even keep up with population growth). The inability to pass laws: Democrats' fault, even though Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress. 370 tons of missing high-explosives in Iraq: John Kerry's fault - he's speaking badly about the troops!
It's the same story over and over: President Bush blames everything bad that happens on somebody else, some force outside of his control. He never accepts responsibility. It's like a baseball player who thanks God for hitting a home run, but says nothing when he strikes out. Where does the personal responsibility belong?
The latest issue of The Mustang was a week late: that's my fault. You failed a class last semester: that's your fault. Over 1,000 Americans die in Iraq, with almost 8,000 wounded: a liberal senator from Massachusetts is to blame. Sure, it may have been a war started by Bush, and he may have told terrorists to "bring it on," but Kerry is to blame because he's sending "mixed messages."
Folks, this is the most important election of our lives. I've made up my mind, and I'm hoping you'll make the right decision too. If you're still undecided, I'll add one last thing. Four years - we've had Bush as a president for four years. Think about that. If you're undecided after four years, you probably have no reason to vote for George W Bush. I've given you plenty of reasons why you shouldn't.
