Viewpoints
Were the Democrats really
out of line at the
State of the Union Speech on Tuesday?
By Cindy Schwartz
February 06, 2006
Monday
I read the arguments of both sides in Sitnews. The beauty
of Sitnews, your editorial and your news policy, is that your
readers do get to read the opinions of both sides. Sure,
the Democrats were certainly disrespectful when the President
talked about Social Security and they did act sort of "jerky",
giggling and chuckling about Social Security. That
is what our political system has come to in the past twenty years
or so; giggling, chuckling and harrassment.
When I was taking Political Science classes in high school and
college in the 1980s, they taught about the two party system
which was supposed to be about two ways of managing our
government with negotiations between the two sides on particulars
which was supposed to get us regular citizens, the best solutions
to the problems facing us. Lately, since the Bill Clinton
years for sure, there is so much bad will between our political
parties that they don't work together for the good of the citizens.
The out of power party tries to make the party in power fail
no matter what it costs the country. Republicans pushed
the impeachment of Bill Clinton even though it was about a private
sex matter and now the Democrats try to demonize George W. Bush's
terrorism war to get even. If the Democrats have a better
way to fix Social Security they should tell us about it.
Social Security has to be fixed. My friends and myself
in our 30s have to be made comfortable that Social Security will
be there for us since we and our employers pay between us, as
much as 16% of what we earn into the system. It was wrong
for the Democrats to whoop it up about the failure of Congress
to get anything done recently to fix Social Security. At
the same time, Republicans have to address the concerns of the
middle class and working class people who have to live paycheck
to paycheck. Why can't our two major political parties
work better together? Our voters can make them cooperate
if we demand that they do so. The two party system seems
to work a lot better here in Alaska. The rest of the United
States has much to learn about the way we do things.
I am an independent voter and I wish a pox on both the major
parties if they keep on fighting and bickering instead of working
to earn the salaries we regular citizens pay them.
Cindy Schwartz
Juneau, AK - USA
About: Cindy Schwartz is the mother of three children ages three
to fourteen years old. She works part of the time at a
family business - a restaurant. She and her husband and have
lived in Juneau since they were in elementary school and they
both have relatives and family connections in Ketchikan."
Note: Comments published
on Viewpoints are the opinions of the writer
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sitnews.
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