In the long time it took me to write the above (had emails to send in between) there was mention of socialism by Obama. I think this is a silly American fear. Americas fear socialism because of WW2 (Nazi) and Cold War (Soviets), although both of these parties got in power on the promise of socialism, none of them actually delivered it. They both turned into states which just took advantage of their powers and were mostly capitalist rather than communist. Calling Obama a socilaist though, as many americans seem to think, is so silly. Obama is centre-left, and McCain centre-right. Neither of the candidates were even just left or right, let alone far-left or far-right. I think that Obama is jsut trying to take America into the kind of systems Europe has had for ages.
Many places, including here in the UK have national healthcare that is free (taxed). It makes no difference if you are rich or poor, when you fall ill you will get treated. There is no fear of massive medical bills or huge insurance premiums, and the healthcare is pretty good too. The UK is certainly not socialist, yet we have had systems like this since the 50's. Sure, our taxes are very high. Obama won't copy things exactly, but just take the best bits of a good idea.
IMO the best president in recent times was Bill Clinton by far. He was young (47) like Obama is (he will be 48 when takes office) and is also Democrat (centre left) like Clinton is. Clinton left the white house with the US having a $550 billion surplus - that is a lot! I am not saying Obama will be anything like Clinton (I fear he won't be nearly as good) but there is certainly nothing wrong with being a little to the left in America (unlike here where Labour can't get any worse). Clinton also wanted to reform healthcare too, couldn't get the people to buy it. But if he thought it was a good idea...
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Jason Moller
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