Job Creation:
Since the national unemployment rate reached 10 percent in Oct. 2009—President Barack Obama’s first year in office—it has slowly and steadily decreased. We look forward to this trend continuing over the next four years, but we hope the decrease can be accelerated with some smart decisions by Obama and Congress.
The first and most important thing to be done by Congress is passing Obama’s proposed American Jobs Act.
The act would cut payroll taxes for the first $5 million in payroll for businesses around the country, which would especially help small businesses and their employees.
It would also provide a payroll tax holiday for businesses that hire workers who had been unemployed long-term. This would encourage business owners to focus their hiring on those who need it most.
Finally, the plan would invest $50 billion in infrastructure improvements, likely creating thousands of jobs for construction workers, along with an additional $15 billion in funds to renovate foreclosed businesses and homes.
But a single act will not do everything. Another hope we have is that Obama considers lowering the corporate tax rate. In an ideal world, corporations would use the extra money to hire more workers.
However, we are not totally confident that would happen, so we would hope any cut in the tax rate would be coupled with a requirement to use the extra funds to hire workers.
With these solutions, among others, we hope the unemployment rate will continue to decrease during Obama’s next four years, and we hope both he and Congress will make the issue a focus immediately.
Campaign Finance:
In 2012, a record-breaking $45 million was spent on the U.S. Senate election in Wisconsin. The two candidates, U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin and former Gov. Tommy Thompson, spent a total of $35 million on attack ads against each other. The question is, where did all this money come from?
As it turns out, most of the money spent on both campaigns came from outside organizations. Because of the 2012 Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which eliminated spending limits on political campaigns for corporations and unions, SuperPACs, nonprofits and organizations alike have dumped money into campaigns all over the country.
This board believes politicians running to represent their states should not be allowed to receive an unlimited amount of money from out-of-state organizations. Although politicians like Tammy Baldwin are running for national-level positions, their job is to represent and voice the opinion of Wisconsin. Outside organizations do not have the best interest of Wisconsin in mind when they blindly throw money at whatever candidate is on their side. Most of this money goes toward running attack ads anyway, which are frankly annoying and sometimes blatantly false.
Outside organizations that donate money to political campaigns truly serve no purpose. There needs to be a limit on the amount of money that can be donated or all we’ll see is yet another barrage of pointless attack ads. Politicians should be elected by the people they intend to represent, without the influence of outsiders.
Expanding access to higher education:
President Barack Obama has already proven his commitment to the cause of expanding the reach and accessibility of higher education during his first four years in office. During his first term in office, Obama expanded education tax credits, expanded the federal investment in Pell Grants and helped maintain a low interest rate on Stafford loans.
Having relied heavily on both these past initiatives and future intended initiatives during his campaign, Obama has even more to live up to in the next four years—and as college students, it is extremely important to us that he does. Obama has promised to work with Congress to expand the affordability and accountability of community college education systems across the nation. If he can fulfill that promise, it will drastically increase the number of children from working class families that are able to attend college and expand the skilled work force in these trying economic times. In addition, making college more affordable will help decrease the achievement gap along class and racial lines and make our nation stronger as a whole.
However, we also acknowledge the very real concerns of the deficit that is looming over the heads of the students of our generation, already swimming in debt from higher edcation. It is somewhat unrealistic to assume that Obama will be able to continue expanding federal research and aid grants to college students, as the federal government will undoubtedly have to tighten its belt over the coming fiscal year. What we expect from the Obama adminsitration is to simply continue to fight for the interests of the young people who voted for him and work to maintain and continue the progress of the last four years.
Establishing new Immigration laws:
As students, we strongly believe that education provides a pathway into appreciating and understanding the virtues of the United States. In this, we support the DREAM Act and believe that Obama should continue pushing to implement it on a national level. We believe that it would be unfair to punish an individual for being an undocumented immigrant to the United States if they were brought into the country as a child without a say in the matter.
Not only does the DREAM Act provide these individuals with a pathway to citizenship, but it also encourages them to see the value in education, thus driving them to become productive members of society.
This being said, we also believe that the immigration process should be revised so that fewer individuals and families feel pressured to migrate without legal documentation.
During his second term, former President George W. Bush proposed a plan that would tighten border control while providing a legal way for current undocumented immigrants to become citizens. While we do not necessarily endorse this specific proposal, we believe that President Obama should, like Bush, recognize that the current process for becoming a United States citizen is inefficient.
We believe that with this recognition and a simpler process for obtaining citizenship, the incentive to legally immigrate to the United States would be stronger, ideally leading to a decrease in undocumented immigration. Even then, however, we believe the DREAM Act needs to exist to protect individuals who have no say in coming to the United States in the first place.
New Supreme Court Justices:
Over the next four years it is likely that one or more Justices will retire from the Supreme Court, leaving newly re-elected President Barack Obama to nominate replacement appointees. Who is appointed could change the composition of the court, which could have enormous implications for future cases brought to the court.
Currently, conservative justices hold a 5-4 majority in the Supreme Court. Replacing even one conservative justice with a liberal one would immediately shift the majority to a liberal court.
We expect Obama to carefully consider the justice or justices he appoints. This editorial board recognizes that gay marriage, Roe v. Wade and Affirmative Action are all issues that could be brought before the court in the near future. Liberal justices will ensure individuals’ rights remain intact.
A majority liberal Supreme Court would likely align with Obama’s liberal attitude toward social issues, which is a viewpoint we favor. We believe a conservative court would be more likely to strike down affirmative action, Roe v. Wade and legalization of gay marriage. These are important issues that will likely come before the Supreme Court and we hope Obama nominates justices who will not ban gay marriage, affirmative action and abortion.
Please go online to read more about what The Daily Cardinal Editorial Board expects from another four years of an Obama administration. Send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
