My Vote is Up For Grabs…

After watching the presidential debate on ABC tonight and the Iowa Caucuses earlier this week, my vote is still undecided. Below are my personal requirements (lets honestly call it a wish list) for the problems in need of fixing that the next president of the USA should take on:

Taxes
Americans are taxed too much, too often and on way too many things! If you lower the taxes of the average citizen, you put money back into the economy. No more worries about recession, period.

Transportation & The Environment
We have ability to create 70+ MPG and 100% electric transportation options. Lets make them available to consumers at a reasonable price! We need more cyclist and pedestrian friendly streets and cities too. Make public transit in the USA one of the best systems in the world (like that in the Netherlands) and not a complete joke (like in Chicago, IL!) No more worries about high gas costs or dependence on foreign oils if it’s a green system. Until it’s better on the checkbook to create & use renewable energy, the USA will not change it’s addiction to oil.

National Security
We have our current president to thank for helping to make the world hate us. Let’s get our weapons out of Iraq and bring in humanitarian aid. Our leaders have screwed up and now it’s worse over there then it was before they started. The US borders need to be secured and the immigration process needs to become simplified as well. It’s way too hard for upstanding foreign nationals to become Americans.

Education
When it’s nearly impossible for a full-time worker (like myself) to legally afford going to college there is a major problem. Until higher education is made more accessible to every day citizens, other countries will continue to turn out more professionals. America is no longer a world leader in education and is quickly falling behind in technology. We have no excusable reasons for that.

Net Neutrality
The government needs to make sure that the internet stays freely accessible to everyone! I want a president who is going to make sure that cooperations like AT&T and Comcast will not be able to dictate what sites will be viewable and what sites will not by the individual internet user in America. And that the internet will continue to be a toll-free zone. (It would be cool if free wi-fi was added all over the USA, but that’s not the presidents job.)

Always Learning,
-joel