by Betsy Thompson
During this financial crisis sometimes all the news offers are sound bites and "he said, he said". It's hard to get a clear picture of where each candidate stands.
On October 1, Senator Barack Obama explained on the Senate floor what
the approach of his administration will be:
"Just as families are planning for their future in tough times, Washington will have to do the same. Run-away spending and record deficits are not how families run their budgets, and it can't be how Washington handles people's tax dollars. It's time to return to the fiscal responsibility we had in the 1990s. We need to go through the budget, get rid of programs that don't work and make the ones we do need work better and cost less. With less money flowing into the Treasury, some useful programs or policies might need to be delayed in the years ahead.
But there are certain investments in our future that we cannot delay precisely because our economy is in turmoil. We cannot wait to help Americans keep up with rising costs and shrinking paychecks by giving our workers a middle-class tax cut. We cannot wait to relieve the burden of crushing health care costs. We cannot wait to create millions of new jobs by rebuilding our roads and our bridges and investing in the renewable sources of energy that will stop us from sending $700 billion a year to tyrants and dictators for their oil. And we cannot wait to educate the next generation of Americans with the skills and knowledge they need to compete with any workers, anywhere in the world. Those are the priorities we cannot delay.
I know that many Americans are feeling anxiety right now - about their jobs, about their homes, about their life savings. But I also know this - I know that we can steer ourselves out of this crisis. We always have.
During the great financial crisis of the last century, in his first fireside chat, Franklin Roosevelt told his fellow Americans that '..there is an element in the readjustment of our financial system more important than currency, more important than gold, and that is the confidence of the people themselves. Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan. Let us unite in banishing fear. Together, we cannot fail.'
We cannot fail. Not now. This is a nation that has faced down war and depression; great challenges and great threats. And at each and every moment, we have risen to meet these challenges - not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but as Americans. With resolve. With confidence. With that fundamental belief that here in America, our destiny is not written for us, but by us. That's who we are, and that's the country I know we can be right now."
Confidence and courage. This is the philosophy of leadership of not only Barack Obama, but of Jim Himes, John Hartwell, and Di Masters. Please support them all on November 4th.
Betsy Thompson and has been a resident of Ridgefield for 10 years and is a member of the Ridgefield Democratic Town Committee which supplies this column.