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A Vote for John Kerry is a Vote for Employment

Perhaps you’re expecting a rundown of where Senator John Kerry stands on the issues. This editorial is supposed to be about why I am voting for Kerry, but I am not sure how to explain that without speaking from my personal experience.  I am voting for Kerry because I am one of the millions of Americans who has suffered at the hands of the current economic downturn. 

                 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, when George W. Bush took office in 2001 the total unemployment rate was 7.3%.  In 2003, it rose to a whopping 10.4%.  Right now, it has settled at about 9.5%.

                 For the last four years, my husband, Steve, has moved in and out of those statistics.   

                 In March of 2000, Steve had been making a decent salary as a programmer, and we were fairly well off.  He lost that job right after the November 2000 elections, and it took him almost an entire year to find full-time employment again.  Luckily, he did, right before 9/11 happened.  Literally, he was offered a job the day before the two towers collapsed.  Granted, it was at 75% of his former salary, but he was glad to have the job, and I was glad to keep our house.  This job only lasted eight months, though, before the company closed its doors.  Now he’s once again employed at a fraction of his previous salary, and this job has no more guarantees than the last.

                 Kerry has made strong commitments to the economy, saying, “I'm desperately concerned about those jobs.  But you don't fix them by pandering to people and telling them you're going to shut the door. You have to grow jobs.  We need to increase our commitment to science in America, to venture capital, to the kinds of incentives that draw capital to the creation of jobs.  Democrats can't love jobs and hate the people who create them.  We need to encourage job creation and trade.”

                 In the last four years, Steve has only been employed half the time.  It’s not from laziness or lack of trying.  He has experience, marketable skills and is a strong interviewer.  He has sent out literally hundreds of resumes, applied online, and knocked on doors, but still averaged less than one interview every few months when unemployed.  The problem isn’t him; he’s been unemployed so much because the economy has gone bust under the guidance of the current President.

Last year, in a speech at Take Back America, Kerry addressed Bush, saying, “Mr. President, [they] don't want a photo opportunity, they want job opportunities, and it's long since time that we created them in this country.  I am running for President of the United States to put America back on track, to put Americans back to work, and to make it clear that the one person in the United States who ought to be laid off is George W. Bush.”

                 I don’t understand the financial wheeling and dealing of the current administration.  I don’t understand how one President could make such a difference in the lives of ordinary Americans, like myself, but he has.  What is undeniably clear to me is that, in the four years we’ve had Bush, the country has gone downhill and taken us all with it.

                 Ideologically, I am more liberal than John Kerry.  However, he supports most of the things I do, including more educational funding, a woman’s right to choose, better health care, equal rights for minorities, including gays, and a sensible foreign policy that won’t make the world hate the United States.  If you don’t believe me, I recommend that you go to Issues2000.org and read up on the subjects that matter in this election.

                 I could go on forever about the issues behind why I am voting for Kerry, but the truth is that I don’t have to slowly reason through all this, step by step, to know what my experiences have already shown me: Bush is bad for America.  Fundamentally, the only question we each have to ask ourselves to decide who to vote for in the upcoming election is, “Am I better off now than I was four years ago?”  For me and the rest of America, the answer is a resounding no.  This is why I am voting for Senator John Kerry for President of the United States.

Copyright 2005

John Kerry

By Amanda Evans

Date: 10/14/05