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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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