Re: Election Issues

While I believe that we spend more money on defense than is necessary or healthy for our democracy, it is not more than healthcare. 53% of our FY2008 budget was mandatory spending: entitlements like social security, medicare, medicaid etc. Defense is included in discretionary spending, and that took up 22% of the budget, which is about half of what we spend on social welfare. Nevertheless, I still feel this is an absurd amount to spend on defense. For instance, while I'm all about retaining our technological and qualitative edge over any foreseeable conventional opponent, we don't need to be spending billions on deck-mounted rail guns for the Navy (while I think that's awesome, there's other priorities the US government should have).This year the proposed defense budget is about 4% of our GDP, i think it was 700 billion or so, not counting specific costs for waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I definitely feel that there are ways to slim the defense budget without compromising national security in the slightest, but that topic isn't relevant here.

The most import issue domestically for Americans this election is the economy, followed closely by immigration. I think that Lou Dobbs is an idiot, and that Mexicans aren't trying to destroy our way of life, and so immigration is not that big of a deal for me (it's still really important, I actually agreed w/Bush's plan). Civil rights is still a big one for me when it comes to liberties, unfortunately it's not a very big issue this election. When it comes to foreign affairs, nuclear proliferation is definitely a big one for me, as is handling Russia, China, and India. Also, I feel that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is still very important, even though most people are numb to the whole process. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is such a symbolic conflict that if it ends peacefully, our relations with much of the world will improve.