Many people have heard the case against George W. Bush, but how many people have heard the case for John Kerry? Polls seem to show that, while many people are dissatisfied with President Bush, they haven’t been given a reason to vote for John Kerry yet.
Because this is an election against an incumbent candidate, comparisons between the candidates become inevitable. When trying to defeat an incumbent, a challenger must make a case why that elected official should be thrown out. However, a candidate must also make a case for why they should be elected as well.
The core of the message of Kerry’s campaign is “America can do better.” If America is this far behind from where we were in 2000 under Bush’s leadership, then why should we expect that we will fare any better after four more years under Bush? Bush is telling us that we should trust him, and that if we stick with him things will get better.
However, Kerry is asking the most basic of questions: why should we trust Bush? On what basis can Bush say that he can do better in the next four years than in the last four years?
Despite what you may have heard from the Bush campaign, Kerry does indeed support the No Child Left Behind Act. Bush’s own campaign web site has a quote where Kerry called the act’s goals “laudable.”
The problem currently is that the act is underfunded, and states have to pick up the difference, costing their citizens money or services. Kerry wants to fully fund the No Child Left Behind Act so that states can do what they have to do to improve education without having to worry about funding those improvements.
Kerry plans to offer all Americans access to government health care plans. Kerry’s plan is meant to fill the holes in the current health care system the places where the market sees little or no profit in offering meaningful health insurance coverage. Kerry’s plan does not replace business or individual insurance. It acts as an added low-cost choice to those who would otherwise not be able to afford insurance.
Kerry will rollback Bush’s tax cuts for those making over $200,000 meaning that the vast majority of Americans will keep Bush’s tax cuts. This will create an estimated $800 billion in revenue for the government. Kerry also plans on creating revenue by closing corporate tax loopholes, implementing cost-saving, pay-as-you-go policies in government and increased tax revenues from a growing economy. This money will be used to pay for Kerry’s programs.
A group which analyzes the costs of proposed policies estimated that Kerry’s programs would cost $2 trillion over 10 years. However Kerry disputes this number because the Kerry campaign claims that the estimation is too high and that it doesn’t take into account added revenue other than the tax rollbacks.
However, even if one accepts the figure that Kerry’s plan will cost $2 trillion over 10 years, the same group estimated that Bush’s initiatives would cost the nation at least $3 trillion over the same time period.
Kerry has also stated that he would consider holding back on or scaling down some of his policies if added revenue do not hold up to his projections.
In a time of war and deficits, flexibility is a virtue. Flexibility is something Kerry has, but is something Bush has not be able to demonstrate that he has. If one looks at President Bush’s and Sen. Kerry’s plans in the war against terrorism, they are quite similar. Neither one plans on pulling out of Iraq until the job is finished. They both say they want more international cooperation in Iraq. They both say that the war on terror should be fought on all fronts.
However, Kerry believes that Bush’s actions have made him lose credibility in the world, thus making Bush ineffective in his attempts to get international help in Iraq.
Kerry’s new leadership, while not guaranteeing that other nations will help us in Iraq, makes such an event more probable than if Bush were re-elected.
Kerry’s policies aren’t perfect, but no one is saying that they are.
The difference for Bush and Kerry is that we have no reason to believe that Bush will do any better in a second term than he would in his first.
Bush has to hope that either his tax cuts really do start creating more quality jobs or thus more tax revenue, or else he will have to cut spending, or continue to increase the deficit.
Kerry’s plan of revenue increases and being flexible so that the government does not outspend this new revenue is a much safer course to take.
Which president would you rather have?
Do you want a president who has a net loss of jobs, has changed surpluses to deficits, and has given no reason why he can do any better if re-elected, or a candidate who has a real vision – and flexibility – for how to deal with the future?

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