It's clear that the most supported political party at our university is the Democratic Party, a party that preaches ideals that I see to be in conflict with one another when applied.
It has been my feeling from the get-go that Sen. Barack Obama will be our next president, primarily because he has mostly led a positive campaign. Surely it would be easy to write about the internal conflicts of the Republican Party, but with an identity changing nearly every day, the Democratic ideals need to be examined more carefully.
The red flag that intrigues me the most is the potential increasing role of the government in medicine and health care and its relation to the Iraq War issue. Most, if not all, Democrats believe that our situation in Iraq is dismal, while looking to the Democrats in Washington for help.
So far, the Senate and House, both controlled by the party, have done nothing substantial to decrease our involvement in Iraq. They have continued to write checks to Bush and allow this continued war, out of political fears of being labeled as "denying troop support."
What I don't understand is the notion that these same politicians will miraculously save our health care system. Lessons should be learned from the government's handling of Iraq about how well Washington can handle something so massive.
My faith in congress, be it Democrat or Republican, has severely been questioned, especially after the blues took over two years ago. If a voter cannot have faith that their anti-war congressman or senator will stop the war, how can a voter trust a pro-health care candidate to do anything for our health?
The party has also often preached of helping the advancement of working-class families, but the proposed tax cuts may fail to help the middle and lower classes due to their conservationist ideals. The Democrats are clearly adamant about becoming a "greener" America by using government money.
Though this has good intentions, these sacrifices will hurt the poorest of families the most. When we as a society are forced to change our energy sources, it immediately incurs a drastic price increase. Sure, an extra $10 on gas per week helps lower emissions, but for struggling families, this can be devastating. Also, the price of rising energy causes the cost of transported goods to increase as well, landing another blow to the working class.
The majority of Washington believed that ethanol was a great substitute in place of gasoline, and since then we often see "contains 10% ethanol" on our gas pumps. What we now know is that the production of ethanol ends up costing more due to the expensive process required to produce this "corn gas."
So, regarding the environment, it hurt more than it helped. The real tragedy was the devastating effects ethanol had on the food market, drastically rising prices. Again, the middle class may not have noticed, but this hurts the poor Americans and even poorer foreign nations at ever-increasing levels. It has been over five years since the government got involved in ethanol, and now we finally find out what its true effects were.
My only plea to any voter is "buyer beware." We as humans do not know all the effects of our causes, and we should have a better understanding of sacrifices before we hastily burden the poor with them. The issues the Democratic Party focuses on all have good intentions, but voters should be wary of the price that must be paid for these changes, and who these sacrifices will affect the most.
