In last night’s State of the Union Address, President Obama
laid out proposals to increase economic growth and build a stronger middle
class. Such proposals included widening the pre-school education system so
everyone can get a fair shot at an early age; restricting gun ownership to law
enforcement and military personnel; and raising the minimum wage to $9.00 an
hour. These are common-sense proposals that everyone should accept as right, right?
I’d
like to live in a world surrounded by free puppy dogs and ice cream too, Mr. President,
but this is not the united states of Candyland. This term, “common-sense
proposals,” has been thrown around by many Democratic members in Congress and
the White House but they couldn’t be farther from common sense.
Pre-school education is important,
but not necessary. Recently, a government study showed that any benefits from
the pre-school program, Head Start, will wear off by the time that child
reaches third grade. At this time in a child’s development the family should be
responsible for nurturing their own child’s education and curiosity. If we put the
responsibility back in the family’s hands and save the taxpayer money for
growing the higher educational system, then maybe they can, once again, afford
to go to a good college. The family unit should focus on teaching the child
basic human morals as this stage and that should provide the strongest foundation
in preventing adulthood crime, drugs, and violence.
If we would
just provide our children with basic morals then maybe we can drop the argument
of excessive gun control. Restricting gun ownership of private citizens is not
only harmful to their own self-defense, it’s unconstitutional. The drafters of
the Bill of Rights wrote the second amendment so that, in the face of a
tyrannical government, the people could rise up against it—after all, the government
is supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people. Even though
this situation has little chance of happening today, situations have recently
arisen in Newtown, Denver, and Los Angeles in which American citizens needed a
weapon to defend themselves. How many innocent victims could have been saved
from these unnecessary tragedies caused by out-of-control aggressors? We can
agree on background checks and securing those weapons in a safe. But we cannot
agree to give up our second amendment right and open ourselves up to becoming a
victim. However, our threat of becoming a victim does not stop there.
Our
economy is in no state for this President to demand wage increases. The State
of our Union may be strong, but the state of our economy remains weak. And
proposals to increase the minimum wage to $9.00 an hour crush business’s hopes of
hiring additional employees and growing our economy. I’m not sure whether our President
is betting on inflation, half the population going into retirement, or just
promising more things to a people already disappointed by false promises of the past; but
this policy of raising the minimum wage to such an excess will only cause
massive firings and a higher unemployment rate. If someone cuts your budget,
then you must cut your costs—which means cutting employees. This is the common-sense
repercussion.
It’s
not difficult to see the false promises made in last night’s speech if we only
think about this rationally. Someone, somewhere, somehow has to pay for these
policies. Unfortunately, it will fall on my generation—most of whom voted for
this President because of his liberal social agenda. So I say to my generation:
when you’re broke, jobless, drowning in college debt, and are not living your dream,
just remember that this could have changed with real common-sense proposals.
Let’s think before we vote so we may have the opportunity to be the greatest
nation on Earth.
No comments:
Post a Comment