On April 30, 1789, the United States of America elected our first president to lead our country. Then every four years thereafter, another president is elected. When election time comes around most Americans do not know anything about the issues involved and/or do not even know who is running. The two current candidates this year are Al Gore, the Democrat, and George Bush, the Republican. Three main issues that both parties deal with are Social Security, Tax Reform, and Education. Depending on each candidate's political platform, they can be placed approximately on the political spectrum. Knowing where a candidate stands on the political spectrum, you can assume how he would feel on certain issues.

Social Security is a huge issue this year because many citizens are concerned that they are paying the social security tax, but with the current plan, the money will run out by the time they get old enough to use it. Al Gore plans on taking social security and putting it aside and adding the interest gained to it which in his words, "I will keep it in a lockbox. The interest savings, I would put right back into it. That extends the life for 55 years" (Issues2000.com). Gore's

George Bush agrees somewhat, but he believes that if a school is failing, they have three years to fix the problems. If they don't, they will be shut down and are demanded to give some money towards sending the students to other schools. He also says he would require testing be done every year. The schools that improve would get a bonus while the schools that are failing would lose some federal funds (English handout). "Conservatives are also inclined to believe that those who fail in life are in some way the architects of their own misfortune and thus must bear the main responsibility for solving their own problems" (Burns 247). He is conservative by saying that the responsibility of failing schools is to fix the problems themselves. Some parts of this issue, education, Gore and Bush agree on but for the most part, they are like on two different sides of the political spectrum.

This leads into why George Bush is a conservative. He plans on taking social security and putting it into the hands of our citizens and allowing them to invest their money in stocks. Bush wants to take the money out of the government's hands and put it in the individual's hands. "...I'm going to trust [young workers] at their option to be able to manage, under certain guidelines, some of their money to get a better rate of return so that they'll have a retirement plan in the future..." (issues2000.com). Basically he is trying allow the "young workers" to control their social security rather than the government. This issue shows how two different sides of th

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Approximate Word count = 1046
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)