OBAMA'S PRIORITIES

On January 20, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama will take the oath of office with virtually no time to bask in his historic accomplishment of being the first African American elected to the highest office in the land. His first term will begin amid what are arguably the most challenging days for a newly elected president since Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration in 1933. Obama ran on the promise to bring change to Washington. Of course with the economy in disarray, the nation’s treasury draining, and the demand for a "bailout" coming from every corner of the country, Obama's #1 priority will be an Economic Recovery Plan to get the nation’s business system back on track and people back to work. However, there are other priorities like ending the war in Iraq, making America energy independent and ensuring affordable health insurance that all tie into improving our economy.

Like many of my Conservative friends I believe the most effective change comes not from Government, but from individuals working with and through businesses and civil society (non-government organizations, churches, charities, etc), but I also believe that these sectors of our society can not alone solve the problems we face. Government should be an active partner in protecting and serving the most vulnerable, aggressively promoting and ensuring equality, and attacking social injustices at home and abroad. I believe our biggest challenges today include extreme poverty in the midst of extreme wealth, a planet in peril due to our failure to be good stewards of God's creation, global pandemics stemming from the lack of clean water and available medicine for treatable diseases, genocide and violations of human rights, threats of terrorism, war as a response to violence, and the breakdown of communities into persistent divisions of race, socio-economic class, religion, ideology, and ethnic tribe.

With the understanding that no government can or will solve all these problems, what should the Obama Administration (along side the Democratic Congress) strive to accomplish during his first year in office?

1. Passing an Economic Recovery Plan that includes:
• Tax cuts for low-income and middle income Americans
• Expanding the Work Opportunity Tax Credit which encourages and rewards new hiring,
• Ending taxes for senior citizens making less than $50,000 a year,
• Rolling back Bush's tax cuts for wealthy,
• Increasing the annual capital gains loss deduction limit on income taxes to help working Americans who are seeing huge losses in their retirement accounts and kids' college savings.
• Stabilizing the housing market (leaving the details on this one up to the policy gurus)
• Extending unemployment benefits
• Creating jobs by investing in our national infrastructure, expanding broadband and communication technology, and alternative energy sources.

2. Extending SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Plan).
• The United States is the only affluent country that does not ensure all citizens are provided with health care. Nearly 47 million Americans (16% of the population) live without health insurance and the number of uninsured children in 2006 was 8.7 million (11.7% of all children in the US). For a little perspective, let's consider that the federal government spends about $8,287 a year educating one pupil and the state's spend on average another $10,000 a year per pupil. That's almost $20,000 a year our Government spends educating children. I believe we should place a similar priority on ensuring each child in America has access to affordable health care, and we could do it for a lot less than $20,000 per child.
• In October 2007, President Bush vetoed a bill that would expand SCHIP, a program that gives health insurance to uninsured children that cannot qualify for MEDICAID. This is unacceptable.
• Obama's plan should expand the eligibility for the Medicaid and SCHIP programs to cover all children. There should be a progressive sliding contribution scale, where families with incomes closer to $80,000 a year would obviously pay more a month than families making $24,000 a year. This would most likely result in upper-middle class and wealthy families to elect private insurance over coverage supplemented by SCHIP program, but the plan would ensure that all low and middle income earning families are able to find coverage significantly less than the current average of $8,000 to $12,000 a year for a family of four.
• I propose raising the Federal Excise Tax on Cigarettes and Alcohol to fund this program. I also believe states should have the right to legalize small amounts of Marijuana and tax the heck out of that as well...but that's an entirely different post.

3. Reach Agreement with Iraq to end America's Illegal Occupation:
• Obama must work aggressively with the Iraqi Government to reach a timetable to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq, preferably by the end of 2010. An agreement should also be struck to make Iraq more accountable for funding the reconstruction, training and services in their own country. I have high hopes that the illegal Iraq War will come to an end during Obama's first term and America's foreign policy will move from one based on redemptive violence to a policy of diplomacy, humanitarian aid, reconciliation, and support. A policy in the mold of Desmond Tutu, Gandhi, MLK, Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

4. Pass a Comprehensive New Energy Plan:
• I believe very strongly that the environmental degradation of our planet is the most crucial issue facing our generation. The economic downturn will reverse itself, the Iraq war will eventually come to an end, Religious factions will find ways to live in peace, and passionate people around the globe will continue to fight the causes of poverty, but as long as we continue to spill poisonous CO2 gasses into our atmosphere, consume and discard at alarming rates, and pollute clean water supplies, our world will collapse. It's not just about saving trees, squirrels and whales, it's about the quality of human life and preventing extinction and system breakdowns as resources become too scarce for our population.
• By the end of 2009, an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050 must be passed. It would contain climate change by putting a charge on carbon emissions. Companies would no longer be able to poison our air at the current rates without paying a price. As long as it is free to pollute our air, businesses and individuals have little incentive to clean-up. While this will be an expensive endeavor, it will be one of the most life-saving investments ever made by government, individuals, and business.
• Either this Energy Bill or the Economic Recovery Bill MUST include investments in clean-energy jobs and renewable resources like wind, solar, rain, tide, geothermal heat, and incentives for producing and purchasing "green" appliances. Cutting emissions will not be possible without this investment.
• Increase Fuel Economy Standards for cars and trucks, Get 1 million plug-in hybrid cars and other "advanced" vehicles on the Road by 2015, and create a new $7,000 tax credit for purchasing "advanced" vehicles.

5. Enacting a Pregnant Women's Support Act.
Perhaps no issue has been more politicized and manipulated in America than Abortion--by both parties. It has been used in every election cycle to galvanize highly partisan political bases in each party. With the emergence of the Christian Coalition and Moral Majority, it became for many Christians the defining issue, so important that they vote for a pro-life candidate even if the candidate's other views run contrary to their faith (i.e. war, tax structure, environment, social justice, death penalty, etc). However, after years of Democratic control and then Republican control we have seen year after year, the number of abortions remain roughly the same, no matter what party is in control. This is an issue that has created a lot of tension within myself as I struggle to balance my love and support for life from conception to natural death with deciding what public-policy will actually reduce the number of abortions in America. I am still in search of the words to untangle and illustrate my position on this issue and will attempt to tackle in a future post.

One thing that is clear is that the Evangelical Agenda has broadened for many young Christians to include concerns for poverty, war, the environment, immigration, and social justice, just to name a few. This affords Obama and the Democratic Party an excellent opportunity to live up their pledge of unity and to forge a new identity in politics by putting the administration's full support behind the Democrats for Life initiative known as the Pregnant Women Support Act (its goal is to reduce abortion by 95 percent over a 10-year period).

Statistics indicate the vast majority of unwanted pregnancies are terminated for financial reasons. Overturning Roe Vs. Wade would do very little to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions in America, as its result would be to send the decision on abortion rights back to the individual states. Liberal states like New York, California, Massachusetts, and Illinois would surely uphold a women's right to an abortion. I propose that the most effective way to reduce abortions in America is not criminalization the procedure or simply overturning Roe. Instead we should push for out government to address the economic causes of abortion, while we as individuals take a stronger initiative to support single mothers and unwanted babies. This is a great opportunity for us to make both poverty reduction and abortion reduction become nonpartisan issues and bipartisan causes.

Highlights of the bill should include:
• Provide child care to low-income and student parents.
• Fund Maternity Group Homes that would provide support and care during and following pregnancy for low income, single and teenage mothers.
• Provide parenting education in maternity group homes.
• Make the Adoption Tax Credits permanent.
• Ensure that pregnant women are not denied health care by insurance companies and that coverage is continued for newborns.
• Extend coverage under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to low-income pregnant women and unborn children.
• Increase funding for the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Nutrition Program.
• Provide grants to institutions of higher education to fund pregnant and parenting student services.
• Provide new mothers with free home visits by registered nurses.

As Ghandi said, "You must be the change you want to see in the world." We cannot simply hope that Obama is that change. But I have high hopes in Obama and believe that if these initiatives are passed in his first year we will be well on our way to building a future of greater justice, broader prosperity, and larger freedoms for all Americans and citizens of this world.

OBAMA WINS

On Tuesday, November 4th, Senator Barack Obama shattered a racial barrier and was elected President of the United States of America. In his acceptance speech Obama declared, "a new dawn of American leadership is at hand." I was filled with pride as I watched my country and my home state of NC elect the first African-American to the most powerful position in the world. In light of America's long and dark history of racism, colonialism, and its white-male hierarchical domination, Obama's election illustrated the opportunity and rejuvenation that America promises. In America's journey toward a more just and truly democratic society, Tuesday was another milestone. And not just because an Hawaiian-born, son of a black Kenyan father and white mother is now President-Elect, but also because the decisive outcome was a declaration that we are once again a nation more driven by hope and promise than a nation driven by fear.

Election day for me began at 6:30 AM early Tuesday morning. After waking up to the surprise of some awesome "Obama" sugar cookies that Jess made for me, I met my friends Steve Cook and Ted Rosenau to canvass for Obama in the Wesley Heights neighborhood. We met some extraordinary people and even felt like we made a difference when we were able to find a lady a ride to the polls (Obama supporter of course). After spending the day "getting out the vote," Jess and I went over to South Meck to vote, and then headed over to the home of Billy and Tracy Strickland and watched the election results with some other "like-minded" folks from Watershed. Jess made me this awesome election map so we could color in the states as the results were announced. We popped the champagne at 9:30 when OHIO went for Obama.

The final electoral count is Obama 365 to McCain 162, which includes one of Nebraska's 5 electoral votes, which are split up by congressional districts. This is pretty close to my 353 to 185 prediction. The only state I predicted incorrectly was Indiana and Nebraska's 5th district (which includes Omaha). This was more than a victory for Progressives and the Democratic Party, it's a possible realignment campaign that comes only two or three times a century. In the last 100 years there have only been two presidential elections that fundamentally changed the course of American politics -- Franklin Roosevelt's victory in 1932, which ushered in a generation of Democratic rule, and Ronald Reagan's triumph in 1980, which marked the beginning of 28 years of Republican dominance of national politics. Though it is far too early to be certain, Barack Obama's victory could well be the third such realigning election.

I have high hopes for the Obama Presidency, but it will take more than big dreams to help America dig out from the many crises we face. From the global economic crisis, to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to a planet in peril from our failure to be good-stewards of God's creation. But, as we all know, "Great presidents do not emerge from quiet times; they arise in times of chaos and crisis." Tuesday was a night to celebrate a candidate whose victory reminds all Americans that the sun always rises and a new day dawns. I believe this is the time for America to recapture it's youth and optimism. It is our time to change America, living up to the sacrifices of our grandparents generation, who fought fascism overseas and endured the Great Depression. The dark years of the Bush regression are almost done. It's time for another American breakthrough.

In other election news...Kay Hagan stomped Elizabeth Dole in the race for the NC Senate once held by Jesse Helms. This was a race I only paid casual attention to this summer, as Dole appeared poised to win an easy re-election. However, after the economy collapsed and Hagan and the DNC began running great Ads against Dole the race tightened. And then a week before the election, Dole ran one of the most offensive ads of the campaign, implying that Hagan held anti-God views and associated with "Godless Americans". The ads were universally criticized and I couldn't be more happy than to see Dole go down in defeat. Not sure how effective of a Senator Kay Hagan will be, but its nice to see Jesse Helm's Senate seat held by a Democrat.

Coming Soon:
What do we expect and demand from Obama and the Democratic Congress in the first two years? I will lay out four or five of the most pressing issues that must be tackled by Obama and the Congress in order to see the hopes and prosperity talked about so much by Obama become real for ALL Americans.