Obama's One Major Gaffe

During the first presidential debate Obama did a good job not letting McCain roll over him, however he made one major gaffe which really scared me, and brought up an issue which every American citizen regardless of political party, race, class, or anything else should know about. Obama made the statement that if elected president he would go “line by line” to cut unnecessary spending, like the example which keeps getting floated around of testing the DNA of bears (was it a paternal or criminal case, it was funnier the first time). There is only one problem; he is not allowed to do that. The president is not allowed to cut out parts of a bill, he has to approve it all or none. This is the one major reason America has a $2 trillion budget deficit. To explain what happens in our political system I’m going to give an example;
Let’s say someone proposes a bill to make children’s healthcare more affordable for the poor for let’s say $28 million. Everyone agrees that is great and should be done. Then a senator decides to cash in a favor that one of the other senators who worked on the bill owed him. He’s up for election and the highways in his state need some work. So he asks his friend to add on a line at the end that gives $8 million to his state for road construction. Another Senator decides to turn in a favor after that. He wants to halt global warming and scientists in his state want to study the effects of cow farts on the atmosphere (this really was studied). It will only cost $2 million, so it’s added on. This keeps happening and some of the most insane things are passed under the ruse of important items. What happens if the president vetoes the bill because of the crazy things added on? Well, the news reports that the president doesn’t care about poor children, and the veto goes down in the records.
It has been proposed that something called a “line item veto” be put into place, it is a veto that allows the president to metaphorically take a pen and cross out the highway construction, DNA tests of bears, and cow fart studies and just pass the children’s healthcare part. Now I know what you’re saying. Why wasn’t this put in place before? Guess who the only people who can put this into affect (alright if this isn’t irony I don’t know what is) The Senate and the House. So needless to say it probably never will be passed, but I encourage you to let everyone know about this, and perhaps maybe one day the will of the people can one day drown out the greed of politicians.

The First Debate: Who won?

The first debate between John McCain and Barack Obama was last night. Like most competitions there are bound to be winners and losers, so the question everyone is asking is who won? Democrats are saying Obama won and Republicans are saying McCain won, big surprise. The truth is that John McCain won the debate, but Barack Obama certainly didn’t lose, and here is why.
John McCain- John appeared a little more knowledgeable about the issues than Obama. He stayed on the offensive most of the time which is vintage McCain, he is a fighter. He seemed pretty calm (for John McCain standards) the entire debate. He started out a little slow but was throwing some very bold jabs at Obama towards the end. One thing that bothered me however was that he wouldn’t look directly at Obama, but I do understand that is very John McCain, he was annoyed with Obama and I imagine that had he looked at Obama more he was bound to say something out of aggression that he would regret. McCain did surprisingly well in the economic section of the debate, but I feel didn’t take advantage enough Obama in the National Security section where he should of dominated.
Barack Obama- Barack seemed a little less knowledgeable than McCain but I attribute this to his style of debating. McCain stuck to his guns on all issues, while Barack said a lot of “I agree with John, but this is where we differ” which is his style of debating, finding the middle ground. One thing that really stuck in my mind was how in the beginning of the debate Obama seemed like his regular calm self. Obama is a really calm and collective person, but as the debate rolled on he became visibly annoyed. John McCain really got under Obama’s skin; this was one of the first times I had seen Obama as flustered as he was. Obama was average on the Economic portion, but did surprisingly well in the National Security section.
In the end because McCain came out looking more knowledgeable, and seemed in control and because of that I have to give the win to him. Don’t worry Obama fans, Obama didn’t lose. McCain did not have a major victory as some people expected. Obama didn’t make any major mistakes which could cost him the election and he did well in the National Security section which McCain could of steamrolled over him, but didn’t. Most importantly, Obama didn’t make any comments that could be turned into “sound bites” against him except his “line by line” comment which I will touch on in a later blog.