Two Sides of the Asian American Vote
October 28, 2008
Asian American leaders Sasha Gong and Dale Minami explain why they are voting for McCain and Obama, respectively.
Why I Am Voting For McCain: Obama’s Numbers Do Not Add Up To Asian Values
By Sasha Gong
Asian American families have the highest personal savings, the highest home and business ownership, and achieve the highest post-secondary education on average. So why do so many of us consider ourselves Democrats when the values that produced these fundamentals are so contrary to those of the Democratic Party?
Millennia ago, ancient Chinese described the redistribution of wealth through two proverbs: “Wool comes from the sheep” and “drawing a pie to feed the hungry.”
It is remarkable that the philosophers of old had already cautioned us against the risk of taking comfort in empty promises during a time of crisis. Yes, the U.S. economy is in a crisis and we need experienced leadership, integrity, and the right kind of change to protect our hard-earned assets and investments. Yet, Sen. Barack Obama’s plan and accompanying soaring oratory offers only temporary emotional relief. The numbers just don’t add up.
“Drawing a pie to feed the hungry” will seriously harm the U.S. economy. During an economic crisis, we need to cut wasteful government spending and cut taxes. When Obama says he will “roll back the tax cuts,” that literally means “tax increase” for Asian Americans. His eloquent words give Americans a false sense of security. Let me explain further.
Under his proposal, “hope” and “change” involves government solutions for everything from education, healthcare, to alternative energy. However, taxes and government spending are two sides of the same coin. The more numerous and costly government programs that are offered, the more in taxes the government would have to collect from American taxpayers. Remember, Asian Americans have the highest personal savings and the highest incomes, so that means higher taxes for us. Is this the kind of change you want?
Based on Obama’s speech in Colorado, the price tag for his government spending programs ranges from $300 billion to over $1 trillion, depending on which expert you ask. Furthermore, he promised to cut taxes for 95 percent of working Americans. Yet 40 percent do not pay income taxes. His economic plan would result in a “tax-cut handout” from your pocket to non-taxpayers. This redistribution of wealth will cost American taxpayers $70 billion per year. Is this how you want to spend your hard-earned money?
The second proverb “wool comes from sheep” is an accurate way to describe Obama’s plan to increase corporate business taxes. Sure, he promised only to increase taxes on “big businesses.” While this Robin Hood notion of offering wool to keep people warm is altruistic and will not rouse much sympathy towards the corporations, what will the impact really be on you? If corporate taxes were increased, corporations will surely pass the higher costs on to the consumer in order to cover their expenses and provide a return to their investors. Or they may cut jobs or move them overseas. Also, what about your 401K? You might be surprised that you own some “big business” stocks. You should check! Obama’s economic plan will hurt your retirement fund.
Yet, Obama claims that his plan, led by tax increases on job-providers, creates jobs. This does not make sense at all.
While you may think that corporate America is the “fat cat,” the backbone of that cat is made up of small businesses that you and I either work for or own. According to the Congressional Small Business Committee, small businesses account for half of the U.S. gross domestic product, more than half the jobs, and three-fourths of new jobs created each year. Increasing business taxes will severely injure the cat, if not bleed it to paralysis.
More than two million Asian Americans own their own business, and employ a total of three million people. My great-grandfathers came to this country from China in the 19th Century as railway laborers. Their descendants became owners of small businesses - laundromats, restaurants, convenience stores, etc. Small business owners in my community understand that Obama’s tax plan does not add up.
Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain’s promise not to raise taxes and to cut government waste is the reform that can restore the strength of our economy. McCain’s solution makes sense to Asian Americans whose profound sense of self-reliance, self-governance, and entrepreneurial spirit will continue to make us the fastest growing and most successful minority in America.
Yes, we need change, but we should choose change judiciously.
Sasha Gong is a scholar, a writer, and a journalist. She has taught sociology at UCLA and George Washington University, and worked as the director of the Cantonese Service at Radio Free Asia.
——————————-
Why I’m Voting for Barack Obama
By Dale Minami
On Nov. 4, I will cast my vote in a Presidential election for the 11th time. I believe it will be the most important election in my life, as we are standing on the abyss of a national catastrophe. What Katrina did to New Orleans is a metaphor for what eight years of failed Bush policies have done to this country.
The evidence is everywhere: Our economy is in a freefall, caused by an endless war, by deregulation of financial markets, and by the rapaciousness of free market policies pushed by an Administration that favors the rich over all other Americans. Our health care and educational systems are in shambles, and global warming and the failure to protect the environment are destroying the quality of life for future generations. Our civil rights have been compromised by this Administration’s concentration of power in the
Executive Branch. We have become an international bully, trying to impose our will by the brute force of bullets, bombs and torture rather than by diplomacy and international partnerships.
In short, we are in a much worse place than we were in 1968, the first year
I voted for a president.
1968 was a tumultuous year filled with events that painted a picture of a Nation at crossroads - the tragedies of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, the riots at the Democratic National convention, the raging Vietnam War, the racial divide epitomized by the raising of black gloved fists by Tommie Smith and Lee Evans at the Olympics in Mexico City.
Since then, I have gone to law school, became a lawyer, started a law firm, and worked on civil rights and social justice issues. I gained the opportunity of a lifetime to work with a team of great lawyers to represent Fred Korematsu in his quest to overturn his conviction for refusing to obey the military orders aimed at Japanese Americans during World War II. In the midst of a historic quest for Redress for Japanese Americans, his case represented the trial that Japanese Americans - including my parents, grandparents and brother - never had, and his victory was redemption for himself, his community and for civil rights.
I also became involved with issues affecting the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, leading me to electoral politics with a vision for an empowered Technicolor America whose wealth would support decent healthcare, education, civil rights, and employment, and that could repair a neglected environment in a world that America would lead with integrity, generosity and honor.
Clearly, we have made some progress. But today, we are at another crossroads and the path we choose will determine the future of America. So, I cannot vote for someone who has chosen the path of the Bush Administration for the last eight years, and who cannot offer a fresh vision for my future or that of my community and Americans overall. I will not vote for someone who was closely involved with the savings and loan corruption scandal that nearly wrecked our country 10 years ago - a crisis that repeats itself today.
And I cannot vote for a man who denied the civil rights of Japanese Americans by voting against Redress, then voted against monetary payments once the Redress Bill was overwhelmingly passed.
Therefore, I am supporting Obama, and not just because he is a Democrat, or because he is part African American, or because he projects the charisma that opponents dismiss as merely “rock star” quality. I am voting for him because I believe he is a man of great integrity, intelligence, compassion and perception, a person who shares the vision I have of equality and social justice. And that vision includes all Americans: poor, rich and middle class, every color and from every part of the world. His candidacy has not only opened up our imagination of what America can become, but has also given us our best chance to stop America’s descent.
At 61 years of age, I know this is the most important election of my lifetime. It is even more important for those younger than I am, for not only is their future at stake, but their children and grandchildren’s futures, as well.
I cast my vote for my future and the future of the next generations.
I vote Obama.
Attorney and civil rights leader Dale Minami serves on the steering committee of the AAPIs for Obama Leadership Council. Minami, a partner at San Francisco-based law firm Minami Tamaki LLP, is best known for his work as lead counsel in overturning the convictions of Fred Korematsu who refused to be interned during World War II. Minami also co-founded the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area and the Asian Law Caucus.
Comments
21 Responses to “Two Sides of the Asian American Vote”
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The smart Asians are writing in Dr.Ron Paul.
Thank you Dale, for your piece. Your explanation for voting Obama is so much more eloquent than Ms. Gong’s predictable (…yawn…) piece. Let’s hope for the sake of our country that Obama is our next president.
Ms. Gong, your rationale is so… ten years ago:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1080784/MAX-HASTINGS-Bushs-stupid-brutish-ways-U-S-hated–cost-McCain-election.html
Good article. Represents the questions/dilema posed by the plans laid out by both candidates. I think the most fundamental question of all - Will taking care of self lead to a better community or Will a collective better community lead to better life for self? Guess we will have to wait and see.
Thanks.
Niral
I disagree strongly with Ms. Gong. First of all, government investment - which is funded with taxes - can be highly complementary to personal savings. Investment in infrastructure and research can open up new private business opportunities and raise the return on savings. This is clearly evident in Asian countries, actually.
Second, it is unclear why Ms. Gong would want the U.S. government to be less frugal than its Asian citizens. Running huge deficits has been the hallmark of recent Republican administrations, while Democrats have been fiscally responsible.
Each writer’s point of view is pretty funny. The one who support’s McCain kinda reflects to me why I don’t see an Asian president as a possibility. This “every man for himself” doesn’t work. It’s lasted this long, but it’s not working out all that well.
I grew up in America, and I grew up poor but I never used welfare and I never thought I ‘deserved’ anything from the government. I don’t believe in the distrubution of wealth, but if anyone believes that the ‘poor’ big companies are in need of a ‘break’ then they need a reality check.
I’ve traveled to Europe and Asia and the places with the better standard of living are always the places where the greater good is more important. It’s this selfish ‘you’re on your own. what’s yours is yours and what’s mine is mine’ mindset that lead to the crisis we have now, because the greed was all about getting ‘more and more’ with no consideration for what it would do to our country on a whole.
we shouldn’t see ourselves as ‘asian americans’ or ‘african americans’ etc. etc. etc. just ‘americans’ and we’re all in this together. Why would you support someone who is divisive. You are saying that you would all our schools to remain poor just to ensure that your pocketbook stays full? How will that help our country?
Mr. Minami, you need to clean your brain. The abysm of a national catastrophe will become much clearer if your candidate wins the election.
One of the reasons I am voting for Obama this year is precisely that he personally embodies those “Asian” ideals — education and hard work.
Here is another Asian proverb to ponder: “To plan ahead for a decade, plant a tree; to plan ahead for a century, educate your children.”
For a fraction of the money we are spending every month waging a war in Iraq, we should be able to make college and healthcare affordable for every child in the country.
This is an interesting contrast of two opposing perspectives. It is amusing to note that the voter that favors McCain prioritizes money above all else while the voter that favors Obama prioritizes equality and quality of life above all else.
Mrs. Gong fails to mention that, under Obama’s plan, only 2% of small businesses in the U.S. will be affected by his tax policy so most small business owners will NOT see a tax increase because 98% of small business owners do not make over $250,000 a year.
As far as whether to tax or not to tax large businesses and corporations, the consumer will pay the price either way unless further regulation (not DEregulation) is introduced. Mrs. Gong is correct; if taxes are raised then those costs are passed on to the consumer. However, if taxes are not raised or dropped even further, I can guarantee you that the consumer will not see a reduction in the price of the goods they buy and that employees will not see an increase in their paychecks. That extra money will just be pocketed by business owners.
As someone who worked in the payroll department of two small businesses over a period of 5 years, I have seen over and over again the stark, inexcusable contrast between the salary of a business owner and the salary of his or her employees. I have no problems with the owner having the absolute highest salary in the company. It is his or her business after all. What perplexes me is that they take much more money than what their job actually warrants while making sure they pay everyone else as little as possible as long as their employees don’t leave.
At the peak of my second employment, I was earning $70,000 a year. Meanwhile, my employer was paying himself $200,000 a month. Instead of paying himself $2,400,000 a year, why didn’t he pocket $1,000,000 and use the other $1,400,000 to create more jobs and/or increase the salary of existing employees. We surely needed the extra help in the office, with everyone working late nights and weekends just to meet deadlines. And many employees were strapped for cash.
It was disheartening how many times, when a new employee was added to the payroll and I had to ask my employer how much to pay him, his answer was “minimum wage.” He didn’t know or care how much minimum wage was, which was verified when he told me he thought it was $5.50/hour when it was already $6.15/hour in the state. He only cared that the employee was willing to work long, hard hours for the bare minimum.
I finally made the shift from regular office work to my true passion: software development. I left the company and joined a financial services company that made web-based software for investment firms. I took a pay hit, down to $55,000 a year, because I was unsure of my programming skills and I prized getting my foot through the door over pushing for a few extra dollars. A year and a half later, our competitor decides to buy me for better benefits and $75,000 a year. I accepted the offer and gave my letter of resignation. Later that same day, my soon-to-be previous employer offers me $75,000 a year; a $20,000 a year jump in the blink of an eye. I left anyways because I was disgusted. If my work was worth that much, why did he stay quiet and had me work for over a year for much, much less than I deserved?
Of course, we all know the answer to that. It’s business 101. Maximize profits while reducing expenses. Cheat your employees out of what you can and give the difference to yourself. With this mentality, it is no surprise that the middle class doesn’t care if businesses get taxed to the very last penny. Shouldn’t we be allowed to rob you of as much as we can also? It’s only fair. It’s what you do. Maybe if you treated your employees fairly and didn’t attempt to cheat them out of their well deserved pay and recognition, you would find that they will be happy to fight with you instead of against you.
I applaud your stance, Mr. Minami, for not just thinking of yourself, as Mrs. Gong is so bent on doing.
I agree with Ash. Ms. Gong’s argument is essentially this: “It’s a dog-eat-dog world. I’m going to do what’s best for me and so should you. McCain would be better for Asian-Americans, so that’s whom we should vote for.”
From what Ms. Gong wrote, it appears that she is a fourth-generation Asian-American. However, her piece makes her sound more like a first-generation Asian immigrant from twenty or thirty years ago: “Just work hard and save. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t be a fool; always do what’s good for you.”
Ms. Gong’s position is divisive, elitist and, dare I say, ignorant.
Shame on you Ms. Gong. Shame, shame, shame.
Wake up people…we have a CFR puppet vs another CFR puppet.
CFR:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPlvdSQ6cAM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbnpN07J_zg
I applaud Ms. Gong for voicing her support for Senator McCain. Her piece beautifully illustrates the reasons why Senator McCain is the only candidate who is qualified to lead America in this time of crisis. Our country is great because we have faith in the ability of individual citizens to succeed. McCain completely epitomizes that, and Ms. Gong capatures this point quite aptly.
Meanwhile, it’s pretty obvious that Obama will open the gates to “redistributive wealth” while further disincentivizing economic growth through his ridiculous tax increases. Please. Don’t give me this “social justice” nonsense. Just because we were given equality of opportunity in this country does not mean we were promised an equal outcome of success. I also still can’t figure out why Mr. Minami supports Obama other than the fact that he thinks he’s a very swell guy. What about the issues that Obama stands for? He doesn’t even elaborate upon that, because it would simply affirm the obvious: that Obama stands for the extreme left and is certainly not any kind of unifying leader ruling on moderate principles.
PS. Dave, you just proved that you are the ignorant one by calling someone ignorant simply because you disagreed with her.
there’s a civil war in my family
so essentially the liberals are going to cancel out
the conservatives. i on the other hand will
vote obama until i get into the booth have a meltdown
pull the lever for mc cain and leave the poll muttering
insanely to myself ,”guns vs. butter, guns vs. butter…”
When governments put in place policies to hold down the poor so that they can be exploited by the rich and powerful, it only goes so far before a people’s revolution will take place. This country is teetering towards a chaotic uprising of biblical proportion. When a few elites, most asians included, being mobbed by the poor hungry mass, not being able to put food on the table.
Don’t think that this can’t happen in America. With the wealth gap diverging towards unmanageable levels, many hopeless people are pinning their hopes on Obama. If Obama looses and all hopes are gone, I will not take comfort being Asian living in a country of despair. We are already targets for robberies and other hate crimes. This will only escalate as the economy worsens.
Asians favor peace and harmony. What’s so great about all that wealth if you cannot live in harmony with your environment.
“The frogs can croak all night while everybody sleeps, the rooster crows once and everybody wakes up. McCain has been croaking for 30 years. In less than 3 years, Obama has captivated the world. Let’s empower someone who is ready to do something right for our country.
Ps. I have not met a single ignorant person. We disagree because we are focus on different priorities.
Jessica Vu–
If you will notice, not once did I disagree with Ms. Gong’s choice of candidate. Nor did I state for whom I would vote.
My problem is with Ms. Gong’s argument, her reasoning for supporting McCain. Her mindset is the embodiment of what Joseph Campbell called a “restriction of consciousness,” an ignorance that is the root of all conflict.
Ms. Gong can vote for whomever she chooses and for whatever reasons she may have for doing so, but if she’s going to make an argument in a public forum, she needs to make a better one than: “It’s good for me (or Asian-Americans, or African-Americans, etc.).”
As for taxes, any promise to not raise taxes in these times is as empty as George H. W. Bush’s promise twenty years ago: “Read my lips: no new taxes.” The country did not get into this mess overnight, and it will not get out of it overnight. We’re in for some tough times, regardless of who enters the White House come January.
Sasha Gong appears to reference the same “racial” and “social” “virtues” of “education;” and material “wealth” and/or “power” as our awarthur.
And she is every bit as persuasive and compelling in this dialog.
But, cut through all the verbiage, you too, Jessica Vu, and you will find just one more non”compassionate” Republican, whose empathy score is nonexistent. Indeed, I, for one, find her self-serving stance and beliefs almost as disgusting as those of genuine psychopaths, those who physically harm others rather than merely hoard for themselves.
I also resent her selectively exploiting cultural sources to rationalize and justify what are, simply, greed and lack of charity.
If I am not in error here, two basic “Confucian” theses are “In the beginning, man was virtuous . . .” and the even more applicable positing of the five? “relations,”wherein even the Emperor had to honor his responsibilities to the ruled in order to maintain his “mandate from Heaven.”?
As for APAs herein, weren’t the numbers roughly two-to-one AGAINST this poor-woman’s-Ayn-Rand?
What’s race got to do with it?
Oh, and furthermore, Sasha Gong, are you familiar with the “Chinese” ethos that embraces the concept of “jit,” in Cantonese, or “measure,” the underlying bulwark of both fairness and justice?
Or, even, more to the point, the concept of “lai,” again in Cantonese, but “li” in Mandarin?, which in one inflection invokes :law” as in governance or social intercourse, and in another bespeaks “courtesy” as in peer interface.
Such rules and manners of course are universal, in ANY civilized and polite society, aznd even the “filthy rich” know well enough to diss the nouveau riche and upstart bluebloods.
Enough already.
“Obama’s Mansion, Saddam’s Money” by Daniel Pipes
from The Philadelphia Bulletin
October 29, 2008
“In Summary: Barack Obama’s house purchase depended on favors from Antoin S. “Tony” Rezko, flush with a “loan” from Nadhmi Auchi, whose fortune derived in part from Saddam Hussein’s favor.”
http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=20180978&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8
Obama may not be the most qualified candidate in my book, but I have to admit, he’s a good used car salesman. I have not seen anyone selling absolute bogus so well. Let’s start with his famous “I’ll cut taxes for 95% of the people”, that means giving tax cuts for people making less than $250,000. Oh wait, he’s lowered it to $200,000, and Biden said $150,000 but they never retracted that “gaff”. Oh well, we’ll never know for sure. The point is, what he conveniently forgets to mention is that the “tax cut” comes in a form of a check and 40% of the population don’t pay taxes, yet, they’re still getting these checks. Also, Obama promises on cutting spending, but his spending proposal from all his programs would put us in 1 trillion deficits next year alone. Aside from facing a record-breaking deficit, where will he get the money for his “tax cut”? Well, he plans to increase taxes on people/businesses making more than $200K and also increasing corporate taxes to 39% or 40%. For an individual, a $200K salary may be a lot, but anyone running a small business or a startup company knows that a $200,000 gross profit (or Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA)) is nothing. This will add more burden to small businesses that are trying to stay afloat as is. The US already has the second highest corporate taxes in the world, which drives businesses to outsourcing. If you think that all this tax hikes won’t affect you, think again before your boss can’t afford to keep you and you find your job being offered to an Indian overseas. Why not just let businesses flourish so they would keep jobs here instead of proposing a tax credit for businesses with newly hired US employees, which would add to the 1 trillion deficits burden?
As for healthcare, he generally stated that he would lower health care costs for a family by $2500 a year. This is far from the truth. He doesn’t plan on lowering premiums by $2500 or any amount. He plans to spend $50 billions in hope of improving access to disease management programs, so that in the end consumers would end up saving money. This has not been tested or proven, it’s only an optimistic analysis, which many economists are still skeptical. When he says that he “believe every American has a right to affordable health care”, he doesn’t mean that it’s a guarantee health coverage for all. He has no plans to carry this out, except for offering government-subsidized coverage similar to the programs we already have instated now.
4) If it looks like a duck, talks like a duck, it’s a politician. Obama started off his campaign by promising a new type of race. A race that will not include the usual dirty politics, then as the heat got worse, he resorted to the same old politics of mudslinging. That’s not to say McCain doesn’t do it too. But what happened to “The One” with higher standards and morale? Obama also promised to accept public funding for his campaign like McCain, but when he sees the potential for more money, his eyes got bigger and he forgot the promise he made. Well, I think that was probably a smart move on his part albeit that it was not a noble thing, especially if you’re running on a noble stance. But, at least his broken promise got him $150 millions to run 4 times as many ads as McCain, prime time TV spot on all 7 channels, and a $2 million presumptuous victory party. What did you expect? Obama is not the “Messiah” the media makes him out to be. Keanu Reeves is still “The One”.
Why Asian Americans Should Vote for Barack Obama.
By RAJEN ANAND
After 8 years of Republican rule, during which we saw a preemptive invasion of Iraq justified on wrong pretexts claiming the life of over four thousand young Americans and thousands of innocent Iraqi people, crumbling economy and plummeting stocks in the country with a frightful rate of foreclosures, rising prices of gas and groceries, increasing cost of healthcare with 47 million Americans without any health insurance, and the highest budget deficit in the history, Americans are yearning for a change in the Country.
On November 4, 2008, we will have the opportunity to help bring that change in the country. By casting our ballot for the right candidate, we can become part of the change. I strongly urge my fellow Asian Americans to vote for the Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, for the reasons described here.
Most of us are first generation immigrants who landed on these shores for higher education and economic prosperity. We can all identify with the life of Barack Obama, whose father also came from Kenya to this country as a student for higher studies. Just as many of us were subjected to face many hardships, his father too struggled as a student. Our kids born here, just as Obama was, can be inspired from his life story. Only in this great country a son of a White woman and African American immigrant father can aspire to reach such heights as Obama has done. This election will be an historic moment when we will elect for the first time a man of color as President of the United States and we can be part of that history.
Being an off spring of a biracial couple, Obama has got the best of both parents and best of the two cultures. He is intelligent, charismatic, visionary, great communicator and full of ideas. He will make an impressive and effective president.
We should vote for Barack Obama, for he will bring the much needed change in this country and will take her to path of peace and prosperity. He was against the war in Iraq from the very beginning, the war that was waged on wrong pretexts. There were no weapons of mass destruction found, as the reason given for the invasion, and there was no direct threat from that country. This was a unilateral preemptive war against a sovereign country. Although ruled by a ruthless dictator, the people were getting all amenities of life. By invading Iraq, we have disrupted their peace. Barack Obama has said that he would immediately start the withdrawal of troops from Iraq in a responsible fashion, so as not to put the American troops at risk.
The Republican nominee is going around the country singing the song of success of the surge in Iraq and accusing Barack Obama for not supporting it. One should ask him that if the person who forcefully throws a group of people into a deep river and leaves them to die should get credit if now he starts to look for the rope or should he be punished for sending the crowd in harm way in the first place. Fighting the war in Iraq was not worth losing a single life of our brave soldiers. The surge has slowed down the loss of life. It has not ended it. We have no reason to occupy that land.
Obama has said in a speech, “I am running for President of the United States to lead this country in a new direction. Instead of pushing the entire burden of our foreign policy on the brave men and women of our military, I want to use all elements of American power to keep us safe, and prosperous, and free. Instead of alienating ourselves from the world, I want America, once again, to lead.” Obama will restore the badly tarnished image of America.
Asian Americans have the highest level of education than any other group. Our kids have achieved great academic landmarks. Obama will bring great reform in education. He is committed to strengthening our public schools to maximize our country’s greatest natural resource - the American people. Obama believes that we must equip poor and struggling districts, both rural and urban, with the support and resources they need to provide disadvantaged students with an opportunity to reach their full potential. He would provide in-state-college tuition to students who grew up in the United States, irrespective of their immigration status.
Most of us are first generation immigrants and are greatly concerned with immigration policies of the country. We believe that no one has a choice to pick his/her parents or the country in which he/she is born. No one should be faulted for attributes on which one no control. We believe America is a country of immigrants who have enriched its social, economic and cultural heritage. We want the immigration policies of the United States to be fair, legal and welcoming people from all over the globe. Obama has been a leading voice to comprehensively reform our immigration system by providing a path to citizenship for undocumented residents, securing our borders, and fixing the broken immigration bureaucracy, keeping the family reunification provisions, and improving the H1-B visa program.
We are also interested in the healthcare system of the country. Currently there are 47 million Americans, including 2.4 million Asian Americans, without any health insurance. They burdened our healthcare system putting all of us at risk. Obama is committed to signing legislation by the end of his first term in office to ensure that all Americans have affordable quality and portable healthcare coverage. Obama’s plan will save a typical American family up to $2,500 every year on medical expenditures by modernizing the U.S. healthcare system and promoting disease prevention and strengthening public health. Smoking and obesity are the two major preventable causes of disease in the United States and Obama will fight to reduce both of them.
Our people have been subjected to racial profiling and have faced racial discrimination. Many of our Sikh brothers, mistaken as Middle Eastern, have been beaten up by bigots. Obama has been fighting to end all forms of discrimination. He will ban racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies and provide federal incentives to state and local police departments to prohibit the practice.
With the gas prices going out of roof, we are deeply concerned about the energy situation. Senator Obama has been a leader in the Senate in pushing for a comprehensive national energy policy and has introduced a number of bills to get us closer to the goal of energy independence. Obama will invest in many alternative forms of energy that will be environmentally friendly and create new jobs.
We will be voting for Barack Obama because we believe he is the right candidate for president at this time. He is right on his plan to end the war in Iraq by safely bringing troops home. He is right on the immigration policies of the country to keep immigration open, legal and fair for all.
Above all, we are voting for Obama, for he is breath of fresh air in this poisonous political environment and he will bring the much needed change in the country. Please join us on November 4 to vote for Obama-Biden ticket.
Rajen Anand, the former Executive Director, USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (1995-2001) currently serves as Chair of the National Federation of Indian American Associations (NFIA).
Great job Sasha of explaining what’s really at stake here, and that’s not even getting into the character or national security issues. It’s silly for people in the 1960s to conclude that we’re not white people, therefore we must be “black” people. We’re the swing group, so we need to be wary of policies that are detrimental to ANY Americans. Raising taxes on corporations and the top 5% is NOT a tax cut. Going to school registered as a muslim child of a muslim father who took young Barack to mosque with him does not mean “he was never a muslim who never worshipped in a mosque”. You can’t say you oppose same sex marriage while insisting it should be legally indistinguishable. You can’t say there isn’t a partisan America when your campaign is bent on painting the GOP as The Enemy and you vote with the democrats more than McCain sticks with his party. Well, actually you can say anything you want, and people may even elect you for that reason, but I’ll vote for character over magic words.
Anybody notice why his campaign podium sign says “Change” not “Obama”? That bugs me.