Jackson Simon
Mr. Hallahan
Honors History
					2011 Political Project
	President Barack Obama has diverse views on a range of critical issues that threaten to damage the integrity of our nation.  Obama feels the richest people should be the ones giving up some of their tax freedoms to help with the debt crisis.  The President believes we need to turn our educational system around, especially in rural areas and cities.  Obama also believes that the economic boom was “illusory”, and we need effective federal programs.  He believes we should work to integrate immigrants into our country that are already here, but we also need to erect measures to keep illegal immigrants out.
	President Obama has strong views on our debt crisis that he expresses in strong points.  Obama believes we had a budget surplus in the year 2000 that we used to cut taxes, but meanwhile two wars and an expensive prescription drug program that could have been paid off by the budget surplus were added to our nation’s debt.  The Recession also added to our National Debt because we had less money coming in that required us to spend even more on aid to state, which came in the form of tax cuts for middle class family to spur the economy, so we could prevent more teachers, police officers, and fire-fighters from losing their jobs.  Businesses are not going to open shop in a country that cannot balance its own funds, and interest rates could climb for everyone that borrows money and cause the economy to stall.  Obama believes that neither of the parties should be blamed for the Debt Crisis.  Amidst these difficulties, Obama has a solution to these problems.  President Obama’s first solution to the National Debt Crisis is to live within our means; he proposes doing this by making historic cuts in government spending so we would increase the amount of money coming in and not increase how much money we spend.  He believes we should cut domestic spending to its lowest level since Dwight Eisenhower was president which was 7.5% of our Gross Domestic Product.  Obama wants to cut defense spending at the Pentagon by hundreds of billions of dollars, as in Medicare, but have the cuts be modest enough so as to have it for future generations of United States citizens.  President Obama’s last solution to this crisis is asking the wealthiest Americans and the wealthiest Corporations to give up some of their breaks in the tax code, and to give up special deductions.  All of these are the views and solutions Obama proposes to solve the national debt crisis that connects to my next point directly due to the next topics need for funding.
	Obama’s views on the education system and how to turn it around are elaborated upon in this paragraph.  Barack Obama believes we are at a pivotal turning point pertaining to our educational system, and that we need to turn our school systems around.  He believes if we want to produce more jobs, first we must invest in our educational system, which will create more jobs.  Barack believes it is also difficult for students to learn due to problems on the street following them into the classroom.  He points out a statistic; in two-thousand high schools in America, twelve percent of these produce nearly half of high school dropouts.  This twelve percent is mainly located in rural areas, or in cities.  He also points out that within this group most of them are Latino, Asian, and African American. Obama stated, "A world-class education is the single most important factor in determining not just whether our kids can compete for the best jobs but whether America can out-compete countries around the world.  America's business leaders understand that when it comes to education, we need to up our game.  That's why we’re working together to put an outstanding education within reach for every child".  Barack Obama has solutions to go through to accomplish in getting quality education for the children of America.   Obama believes to fund his program, there has to be a 5 year freeze on annual domestic spending.  Freezing the annual domestic spending would lower our deficit by four over hundred million dollars.  This, in turn would give us more money to spend on hiring teachers, going to travel around the country, talk to parents, students, educators, and to achieve reform, promote responsibility, and deliver results in education.  Barack has organized “Education Month” to reform how things are done, and that we should come together, not as Republicans, or Democrats, but as Americans.
	Barack Obama believes we need to create a real economic boom and not an ‘illusory’ one.  Obama believes the budget surpluses of the 1990’s arose in part due to the pay-as-you-go law that stated we should pay as we go and live within our means, just like families do every day.  Obama believes that some of the wealth was an illusion. This was due to the fact that the Federal Reserve System has a unique power that it alone possesses.  This is the power of being able to create money out of thin air, the power to weave illusions that will appear real for as long as they last.  This is the power of the Federal Reserve System.  President Obama stated that the reason for the economic boom going ‘bust’ was: “I think it’s important to understand that some of that wealth was illusory in the first place.”  Obama believes effective federal programs are necessary to protect the rural area economy.  The President proposes a three-year freeze in discretionary spending that is other than what we need for national security. He has said that the freeze will require painful cuts, including cuts to community action programs. The Secretary of Defense has also agreed to cut tens of billions of dollars in spending that he and his generals believe our military can do without.