Sebelius for VP, not Hillary

The War in Iraq

Stay the course. I think the key to winning in Iraq is actually not political deals. A relatively small handful of insurgents are going around committing terrorism and we do not have the troops or the political support to hunt them down. The key to winning the war (IMO) is to train an Iraqi military, police department and intelligence unit that most countries have to deal with the insurgents. I don't know what is taking so long, but I assume that the generals and the Bush administration are not stupid. They obviously want the training to succeed, especially under all this pressure. You may think the Bush admin are liars and neo-cons, but they want Iraq to succeed, so they are not just allowing the training program to fail. They must have reviewed it and there must be serious problems with it. Our forces continued help in Iraq will help to make it better. Obviously, leaving will not.

Illegal Immigration

Need a compromise. A centrist solution has to be found. Some groups (Latino, liberals, businesses, etc) want the illegals to stay and have some kind of earned citizenship for those who have been here for some time. Other groups do not want them to stay. A reasonable compromise needs to be found. We need to have an actual debate on this, in the country. We need to really talk about the economic benefits of allowing more unskilled labor into this country, if there is any.

Social Security

Your current taxes pay for someone who is retiring now. I don't see any way to get out of that. I think it would be wrong to leave people who are going to be retiring in the near future in the lurch with no one to pay for it, and their Social Security funds having been spent SOMEWHERE by the government when it shouldn't have been. People must be fully re-imbursed by the government, before any talk can be considered of moving everyone off of govrnment SSI. I think we could talk about reducing the amount of SSI taxes and allowing people to decide more what to do with their own money.


Public Education

There is no excuse for a high student/teacher ratio. Say what you will about public education. Levy every possible attack and criticism against it. After all that is said and done, there is still no excuse for a high student/teacher ratio. That is not the fault of the teacher, or the student that the ratio is high, yet the ratio is vital for educational performance. The ratio must be lowered where it is high.

Gun Control

Not a pressing issue for me. This is politically divisive, yet accomplishes little. I would leave it alone.

Marijuana Legalization

Opposed. Firmly.

Environmental Policy

Very green. Very. More research to green technology. Have heard that current funding levels are a joke. Would try to find ways to make it cheaper to use home solar panels.

Minimum Wage

The real debate is not so much minimum wage per se, but the WORKING FAMILIES who rely on it. The key is to target funding to go to working families struggling to make ends meet, and not to increase MW for teenagers who don't need a wage hike. MW increases to keep up with the level of inflation. EIC programs for working families.

Abortion

Opposed to abortion in general, yet this is a very politically divisive issue and I would not waste my political capital on too extreme a measure. Would attempt to ban abortions after the first trimester.

Iran

I believe they are on the road to the bomb. We cannot strike them now since Iraq is unstable and we cannot afford another front on that war. Isolate Iran like we are doing to North Korea. Attempt to offer some kind of re-conciliation about our cultural/historical and politically symbolic differences while remaining firm about our opposition to their WMD program. Try to beat the mollahs "Hitler strategy" of appealing to Iranian nationalism to justify their totalitarianism and poor economic performance of the economy.


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