Debate: Should Obama get his second term?
Side: yes

I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to follow-up your lengthy argument with a lengthy redress.While it is true that we do not know who will face-off against Pres. Obama, we can have a pretty good idea. Any of the republican candidates mentioned so far, Palin, Pawlenty, Huckabee, are more right than Bush or Obama, but they have managed to build small contingents of vehement supporters. Some of the possible candidates still question Pres. Obama's citizenship. That is simply ignorance. I would hate to see the country fall back into the lap of an embarrassingly inept executive.Now I cannot argue that Pres. Obama is much different than the last president. Mr. Bush should not be defended for he was a reckless spender (Medicaid, Bail out), drove us into two extended wars, led us into massive debt, was utterly divisive, and spoke much more like Ford than Lincoln or Clinton for that matter. Has Obama (stimulus package, health care, war in Libya) done much to differentiate himself from his predecessor? I can't say that he has. However, we would at least have the possibility of change with a democrat in office. Republicans are called conservatives for a reason. What our government needs to do is tackle the core issues that no one is willing to address: the poverty gap and incarceration rates. I'll briefly address part of the poverty gap issue by looking at the top money earners in our country. The extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, enacted by a Democratic-controlled Congress in December with the approval of the Obama administration, pumps $700 billion over the next ten years into the pockets of the rich. Reclaiming two years of that tax windfall would eliminate all of the state budget deficits combined.Total compensation at Wall Street banks and securities firms last year hit a record $135 billion, according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, on all-time-high revenue of $417 billion. The recipients of the Wall Street bailout could bail out the states out of their own pockets.The 400 richest individuals in the United States dispose of a staggering $1.37 trillion in assets, an average of nearly $3.5 billion apiece. A levy of 10 percent on the resources of these billionaires would also erase the deficits of all 50 states.US corporations are currently sitting on $2 trillion in cash, refusing to hire workers despite collecting tax cuts that are supposed to be incentives to do so. A levy of 10 percent on that idle cash would provide enough money to eliminate not only the deficits of the states, but the deficits of all cities and local governments too, as well as preserving the jobs of hundreds of thousands of public employees.Hedge funds assets rose to $1.92 trillion in 2010, the highest ever, up from $1.18 trillion at the beginning of the year. Given a standard earnings formula of 2 percent of total assets plus 20 percent of the increase, hedge fund bosses stood to collect roughly $186 billion in personal income. An 80 percent tax on that income—less than the percentage rate on multimillionaires levied under the Eisenhower administration—would produce more than enough revenue to put all 50 states in the black. (It should be pointed out that the top hedge fund manager, John Paulson, had a personal net profit of more than $5 billion in 2010, while more than a dozen hedge fund bosses had personal incomes above $2 billion and many more took in over $1 billion).This is a small portion of the discrepancies. I haven't mentioned the top paid CEOs of the big six health insurance providers. For that information I suggest looking at the Sick for Profit website. That's why I think we should stick with Obama no matter who opposes him, unless it's someone like Russ Feingold or Bernie Sanders. Then I'd go with Sanders.