The Banner

On Nov. 4, 2008, Senator Barack Obama made history by becoming the first African American President in American history. Eyes around the world focused their attention on him, hopefully anticipating the change they desired ushered in. But they only saw promises broken and a mediocre approval rating.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, key Democrats like Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton promised that they would do away with the failed Bush policies. With 2010 well under way, we have seen more than enough evidence to draw a connection between unnecessarily speaking out on camera and its result of less confidence from the American people.

Obama made an executive order on Jan. 22, 2009, to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facilities and dispose all detainees who were imprisoned there, which was in some way supposed to signal the end of the Bush era. Still, over a year later, Guantanamo Bay is functioning.

Obama made no mention of the facility in his State of the Union speech on Jan. 27.

Republican Scott Brown and if people have extra money released a political advertisement on Jan. 3 for the race to replace the Senate seat left by the late Ted Kennedy. The ad showed him driving on the open road and home in his truck, which he explained aided him in growing closer to the people of Massachusetts. Two weeks later, Obama was in Boston campaigning for Brown's opponent, Martha Coakley. The president, having seen the ad, said several times that "anyone can buy a truck." Not only was it a ridiculous slam toward the truck owners in this country, it was also immature to put down a person simply for the vehicle they drive. Presumably, it must have been comical for him to hear of Brown's Senate victory two days later.

Another controversy that Obama has stirred in the past year is his negativity in regards to Las Vegas. In a speech on Feb. 2, he said that "Responsible American's don't budget like the government and they don't spend loads of money in Las Vegas."

There are two things wrong with that sentence. One, he openly admitted that the government's budget is irresponsible. Two, what makes spending money in Las Vegas irresponsible? The city has to make revenue somehow, to spend, why not stimulate the economy? Obama claims he was only making the point that families spend vacation money in Vegas, not college tuition money. Is this an "uh-oh" moment for Obama?

An additional "foot-in-mouth" moment for Obama occurred on Feb. 3 when he said that Americans couldn't depend on cable news for their information. "If everybody here turned off your CNN, your Fox, just turn off the TV, MSNBC, blogs and just go talk to folks out there, instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics," Obama said. "Things would be a lot better in Washington."

For some reason, I do not think that cable networks such as Fox or CNN cause the problems in Washington. To go as far to say that Americans should stop following blogs seems a little absurd. Not only does that mess with our First Amendment right to free speech, but also takes away from our right to believe what we want. How are we to "go talk to folks out there" if nobody knows anything about current events?

Also, like Obama and other congressional Democrats have said constantly, "don't come to the table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped to create this crisis. Come on, we are not going to get relief by turning back to the very same policies that, for the last eight years, doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tail spin."

Mr. President: former President George W. Bush was not a total failure during his two terms. Not all of his policies were harmful to the economy. He is no longer in office, so why keep bringing up "the past eight years?" Plus, has the economy not seen national debt rise to $12 trillion in first year of Obama's term?

On Feb. 11 the president, in hopes of getting congressional Republicans to join a bipartisan commission to reduce debt, said he would break his promise to cut taxes on those making less than $250,000.

I followed the presidential race in 2008 very closely and heard what both candidates were promising. What really confused me was how Obama seemed to change what he said about taxes. While he had said several times he would cut taxes on those making less than $250,000, I remember him changing the amount to $200,000. Now you want everyone to pay taxes? Does that include college students like us too?

Regardless of political persuasion, the last thing we want is the president to fail. 1 Timothy 2:1-4 (MSG) says, "The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule wells so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live. He wants not only us but everyone saved, you know, everyone to get to know the truth we're learned."

Please listen to us, Mr. President. We do not want to hear about what we ought to do. We want you to listen to us and understand what you need to do to get our country back on track.