James Coleman
Amanda Gundel
President Speech:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SRbrJ-dnOIS0A1N5mF8fR3HWhsNtZsF0UVGyaTqjkHo/edit
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SRbrJ-dnOIS0A1N5mF8fR3HWhsNtZsF0UVGyaTqjkHo/edit
Second President Debate:
Q: In 2001, our National Defense Budget was $280 billion dollars. After the attacks on September 11th, we have seen our defense budget continue to grow. Our National Defense budget is currently over $700 billion dollars. Do you plan to increase, decrease or maintain this budget? Make sure to explain your reasoning.
We believe that the only way to decrease our national debt of over $21 trillion, one of the only ways is reducing the National Defense Budget. There has not been any major attack on our soil since the attacks on September 11th. We believe that we can decrease this budget because we spend about 32% more money on the military than the second leading country, China. This shows that we can still have a very powerful military, even if we reduce our military budget to $403 billion. We spend more money than the next top 7 nations combined. All of those nations that are spending less than us are doing just fine, which should consequently lead us to lowering our military budget.
Our National Defense Budget was $280 billion before the September 11th attacks. We believe that we could have done more on that day to prevent the attacks. This is why we will keep the National Defense Budget at about $400 billion. We believe that this is just the right amount of money to protect our country while also decreasing our national debt annually by cutting about $300 billion. If our military is a lot better than all of the other countries, it seems absurd to put in all of this money to our military when it can go to decreasing our national debt, which is a huge problem that our generations and, if we don’t act now, that our future generations will have to deal with as well.
Q: What programs (you must identify SPECIFIC programs) do you intend to cut from our National Budget to decrease our deficit? Explain.
Although we realize that many people depend on these programs, we believe that if we cut NASA and some agricultural programs, it would benefit our country greatly. If we cut some money from these programs, we can hopefully relieve some of America’s National debt quicker without cutting from programs that are very relied on. We also feel as though we should decrease the amount we spend on transportation. We plan to focus all of our energy into finding a way to prevent all of the prevalent environmental disasters from occurring. All of the wildfires in California, the vast amounts of hurricanes and typhoons during the summer, and climate change in general. According to the Guardian, we only have 12 more years to limit climate change catastrophe. There is no going back. We need to focus on our environment now more than ever. If that means lowering how much money we spend on transportation, NASA, agricultural programs, or the military, then so be it.
Although transportation is an important program, when making decisions about money most people don't think about transportation they think of the bigger picture like helping people and bettering our environment. If we cut from this program, we will have more money to spend on other more beneficial programs while helping with our debt and benefiting the world and our country through other programs like the environment. We will also have more money that can go towards us fixing the national debt.
Foreign Policy
Q. Many of the campaign teams have addressed that they would intervene in foreign affairs if the United States was threatened. What is your definition of a threat and how would you respond accordingly?
We believe that if our freedom and/or safety is legitimately threatened by any country, we would take action. However, we would not start a war over simple threats. We would simply be diplomatic about it and try to figure out the root of the problem with the country or organization that is trying to threaten us. We want to limit the number of wars we get involved in so we have more of a reason to decrease military spending.
However, this changes if we are attacked on our own soil, like what happened with 9/11. If our negotiations have not worked, then there is no other way to deal with our threat than to eliminate it. If it comes to that, it comes to that. I put my country before all else. If we had never negotiated, we would attempt to negotiate with the attacker to avoid war or any conflict, but if they don’t back down, then we would plan to take military action against them.
Q. On December 23, 2018, President Trump tweeted that “ISIS has been largely defeated” and that he would be removing troops from Syria and Afghanistan. What are your thoughts about President Trump’s decision? Would you support or oppose this decision? Explain why.
We do believe that removing troops from Afghanistan is a good idea. We have been at a stalemate for almost 18 years in Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda has not proven themselves as a large threat since 2001. We don’t believe that we should be spending $2.4 trillion for a war that we are either bound to tie in or lose in. It would be foolish to stay there and watch more troops get killed and to watch more money get flushed down the drain and into our national debt.
However, we do not agree with Trump removing troops from Syria. We do not believe that ISIS has fully been defeated yet. They still have territory in Syria and can easily regain control in the Middle East. If we pull out now and they grow bigger and bigger after we’ve only fought for about 5 years, then it would truly be for nothing. We are very close to defeating ISIS, but we are not there just yet. We would airdrop goods to those people near areas occupied by ISIS so they know that we are the good guys and that there is not a new generation of terrorists among us. We plan to also create alliances with countries closer to Syria because we believe that they could do more damage control, while we are an ocean and a continent away.
Q. For many Americans, foreign affairs are not a topic they are knowledgeable. Do you believe that awareness of foreign policy issues is important for Americans? Why or why not? How do you plan to increase American engagement in foreign policy issues? Explain.
Awareness of foreign policy issues is very important for Americans to learn about, especially for younger people because this is their future. It is important to not leave Americans in the dark, as it is their country too, and important to be at least somewhat involved in what their country is doing. Every American should know what is occurring with foreign policy so they can vote for a candidate who most supports their beliefs.
We plan to be very public about as much of our plans as we can without revealing too much. We want everyone to be engaged and we want people to know what is going on because personally, I would be angry if I didn’t know when something was going on. Through social media exploding in the past 15 years, more and more people are connecting and it is easier for politicians to communicate with their supporters, or sometimes opposers. We want everyone to be involved in what we are doing because the President represents all Americans, not just one.
Q: President Trump is frequently accused of not acting “Presidential.” Define what it means to be President of the United States? How do you believe the President should conduct himself? Explain with specific examples.
Being the President of the United States, as I said in the earlier question, is being the emblem of all of the United States and its people. We believe that Presidents should be mature, stable, level-headed, and act like leaders. Presidents have the power to vastly change relationships with other countries and, if not many other people in the country want that to occur, it can be very dangerous when the President keeps running their mouth. Being diplomatic and mature is key when one is the President. We cannot have future Presidents pay for what past Presidents say in the heat of the moment because when it comes to the President, nothing should be said in the heat of the moment.
We believe that President Trump is not very mature, at all. This can be seen through the multiple comments during the 2016 election by him calling Hillary Clinton a nasty woman and crooked. While we also believe that Clinton was immature about some of the insults she said about Trump as well, Trump is the one who is currently in power. His many comments about Mexicans being rapists and about foreigners, in general, have painted a bad picture of us as a country to many other nations.
Education:
Q. New York state recently passed the Excelsior Scholarship. Under this program 940,000 families in New York making under $125,000 a year will have the opportunity for free college tuition at a state university. Does your campaign team support the Excelsior Scholarship? Explain why or why not.
Our campaign team will continue to support the Excelsior Scholarship. Every year, thousands of capable, well-educated students cannot afford college because of the financial status they were born into. America has been known as the land of opportunity and is the reason why so many people immigrated here. They want a better future for their children that they know they could not have had by coming here. In other countries, college is very cheap in comparison to the United States. For example, college students in Italy only have to pay about 1,000 euro to attend public university. In the United States, public universities can still cost about $20,000, which is what some families in this country make annually.
We believe that if we take away the Excelsior Scholarship, it will worsen our economy by taking away some of the best students and best workers away from the one opportunity for a higher education that they may have. We believe that it is fair to give everyone a chance to succeed and with the large gap between the rich and the poor, it does not seem possible.
Q. American public schools are in many ways more economically and racially divided than ever before with radically different performance outcomes. How do we ensure that all of America’s students have access to quality education? Be specific.
Everyone, no matter what race or economic status, should be granted the same opportunities to better their lives. Where and how you are born should not determine what you grow up to become in life. It should only be yourself and your decisions that determine what you grow up to become. We do not think that it is fair that some schools and some students are given better opportunities to succeed than others just because of the color of their skin or the money that they were born into. No one can choose any of the circumstances under which they are born.
We want to try to fund more money towards getting better supplies, programs, and teachers to the public schools in our country that seem to be struggling the most. We want to build the bridge between the rich and the poor because no one deserves to be poor because they were born into that situation. Your successes should be defined by who you are, not who your parents or any other relatives are.
Q: How does your campaign team plan to make America’s schools safer and more secure? Be specific with your plan.
Our campaign team wants to add more security measures around the school. We want to add more security guards around the school. We feel with the 23 school shootings only 21 weeks into 2018 were far too many. If there were more security guards walking around, there is a more likely chance that a shooter could have been stopped. We also feel there should be designated safe rooms in the school. If we have these, students and staff would be safer. Safe rooms in the classroom are much more reliable than corners that 30 students have to miraculously fit into.
If we also put metal detectors outside schools, we can help to stop the attacks before they even occur. Changing gun policies is still seen as a radical idea to many Americans, so we want to take baby steps by implementing metal detectors because we feel like those are more reasonable to other Americans than implementing stricter gun policies.
Conclusion Questions:
Q. Throughout this project you have participated in a variety of activities from research to presentations. You have improved your knowledge of content and have improved a variety of skills that you will need for your future. What is the thing that you have learned the most from this project?
The thing that I learned the most from this project is the amount of debt that America is in. It may seem easy just to cut from all programs, but many families count on programs such as Social Security and Medicare. If we cut from the programs, we could potentially be doing more harm than good. It is important to keep in mind the fact that many families depend on these programs, which makes it harder to bring our country out of debt.
I have also learned how truly divided the rich and the poor are in this country. It saddens me to see how little opportunities some people are given just because of the status they were born into. No one should be limited to the amount of money that they have, that is simply not right. We should all be able to exceed to our full potential without having to worry as much about money as many kids (including me) do.
Q: In 2001, our National Defense Budget was $280 billion dollars. After the attacks on September 11th, we have seen our defense budget continue to grow. Our National Defense budget is currently over $700 billion dollars. Do you plan to increase, decrease or maintain this budget? Make sure to explain your reasoning.
We believe that the only way to decrease our national debt of over $21 trillion, one of the only ways is reducing the National Defense Budget. There has not been any major attack on our soil since the attacks on September 11th. We believe that we can decrease this budget because we spend about 32% more money on the military than the second leading country, China. This shows that we can still have a very powerful military, even if we reduce our military budget to $403 billion. We spend more money than the next top 7 nations combined. All of those nations that are spending less than us are doing just fine, which should consequently lead us to lowering our military budget.
Our National Defense Budget was $280 billion before the September 11th attacks. We believe that we could have done more on that day to prevent the attacks. This is why we will keep the National Defense Budget at about $400 billion. We believe that this is just the right amount of money to protect our country while also decreasing our national debt annually by cutting about $300 billion. If our military is a lot better than all of the other countries, it seems absurd to put in all of this money to our military when it can go to decreasing our national debt, which is a huge problem that our generations and, if we don’t act now, that our future generations will have to deal with as well.
Q: What programs (you must identify SPECIFIC programs) do you intend to cut from our National Budget to decrease our deficit? Explain.
Although we realize that many people depend on these programs, we believe that if we cut NASA and some agricultural programs, it would benefit our country greatly. If we cut some money from these programs, we can hopefully relieve some of America’s National debt quicker without cutting from programs that are very relied on. We also feel as though we should decrease the amount we spend on transportation. We plan to focus all of our energy into finding a way to prevent all of the prevalent environmental disasters from occurring. All of the wildfires in California, the vast amounts of hurricanes and typhoons during the summer, and climate change in general. According to the Guardian, we only have 12 more years to limit climate change catastrophe. There is no going back. We need to focus on our environment now more than ever. If that means lowering how much money we spend on transportation, NASA, agricultural programs, or the military, then so be it.
Although transportation is an important program, when making decisions about money most people don't think about transportation they think of the bigger picture like helping people and bettering our environment. If we cut from this program, we will have more money to spend on other more beneficial programs while helping with our debt and benefiting the world and our country through other programs like the environment. We will also have more money that can go towards us fixing the national debt.
Foreign Policy
Q. Many of the campaign teams have addressed that they would intervene in foreign affairs if the United States was threatened. What is your definition of a threat and how would you respond accordingly?
We believe that if our freedom and/or safety is legitimately threatened by any country, we would take action. However, we would not start a war over simple threats. We would simply be diplomatic about it and try to figure out the root of the problem with the country or organization that is trying to threaten us. We want to limit the number of wars we get involved in so we have more of a reason to decrease military spending.
However, this changes if we are attacked on our own soil, like what happened with 9/11. If our negotiations have not worked, then there is no other way to deal with our threat than to eliminate it. If it comes to that, it comes to that. I put my country before all else. If we had never negotiated, we would attempt to negotiate with the attacker to avoid war or any conflict, but if they don’t back down, then we would plan to take military action against them.
Q. On December 23, 2018, President Trump tweeted that “ISIS has been largely defeated” and that he would be removing troops from Syria and Afghanistan. What are your thoughts about President Trump’s decision? Would you support or oppose this decision? Explain why.
We do believe that removing troops from Afghanistan is a good idea. We have been at a stalemate for almost 18 years in Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda has not proven themselves as a large threat since 2001. We don’t believe that we should be spending $2.4 trillion for a war that we are either bound to tie in or lose in. It would be foolish to stay there and watch more troops get killed and to watch more money get flushed down the drain and into our national debt.
However, we do not agree with Trump removing troops from Syria. We do not believe that ISIS has fully been defeated yet. They still have territory in Syria and can easily regain control in the Middle East. If we pull out now and they grow bigger and bigger after we’ve only fought for about 5 years, then it would truly be for nothing. We are very close to defeating ISIS, but we are not there just yet. We would airdrop goods to those people near areas occupied by ISIS so they know that we are the good guys and that there is not a new generation of terrorists among us. We plan to also create alliances with countries closer to Syria because we believe that they could do more damage control, while we are an ocean and a continent away.
Q. For many Americans, foreign affairs are not a topic they are knowledgeable. Do you believe that awareness of foreign policy issues is important for Americans? Why or why not? How do you plan to increase American engagement in foreign policy issues? Explain.
Awareness of foreign policy issues is very important for Americans to learn about, especially for younger people because this is their future. It is important to not leave Americans in the dark, as it is their country too, and important to be at least somewhat involved in what their country is doing. Every American should know what is occurring with foreign policy so they can vote for a candidate who most supports their beliefs.
We plan to be very public about as much of our plans as we can without revealing too much. We want everyone to be engaged and we want people to know what is going on because personally, I would be angry if I didn’t know when something was going on. Through social media exploding in the past 15 years, more and more people are connecting and it is easier for politicians to communicate with their supporters, or sometimes opposers. We want everyone to be involved in what we are doing because the President represents all Americans, not just one.
Q: President Trump is frequently accused of not acting “Presidential.” Define what it means to be President of the United States? How do you believe the President should conduct himself? Explain with specific examples.
Being the President of the United States, as I said in the earlier question, is being the emblem of all of the United States and its people. We believe that Presidents should be mature, stable, level-headed, and act like leaders. Presidents have the power to vastly change relationships with other countries and, if not many other people in the country want that to occur, it can be very dangerous when the President keeps running their mouth. Being diplomatic and mature is key when one is the President. We cannot have future Presidents pay for what past Presidents say in the heat of the moment because when it comes to the President, nothing should be said in the heat of the moment.
We believe that President Trump is not very mature, at all. This can be seen through the multiple comments during the 2016 election by him calling Hillary Clinton a nasty woman and crooked. While we also believe that Clinton was immature about some of the insults she said about Trump as well, Trump is the one who is currently in power. His many comments about Mexicans being rapists and about foreigners, in general, have painted a bad picture of us as a country to many other nations.
Education:
Q. New York state recently passed the Excelsior Scholarship. Under this program 940,000 families in New York making under $125,000 a year will have the opportunity for free college tuition at a state university. Does your campaign team support the Excelsior Scholarship? Explain why or why not.
Our campaign team will continue to support the Excelsior Scholarship. Every year, thousands of capable, well-educated students cannot afford college because of the financial status they were born into. America has been known as the land of opportunity and is the reason why so many people immigrated here. They want a better future for their children that they know they could not have had by coming here. In other countries, college is very cheap in comparison to the United States. For example, college students in Italy only have to pay about 1,000 euro to attend public university. In the United States, public universities can still cost about $20,000, which is what some families in this country make annually.
We believe that if we take away the Excelsior Scholarship, it will worsen our economy by taking away some of the best students and best workers away from the one opportunity for a higher education that they may have. We believe that it is fair to give everyone a chance to succeed and with the large gap between the rich and the poor, it does not seem possible.
Q. American public schools are in many ways more economically and racially divided than ever before with radically different performance outcomes. How do we ensure that all of America’s students have access to quality education? Be specific.
Everyone, no matter what race or economic status, should be granted the same opportunities to better their lives. Where and how you are born should not determine what you grow up to become in life. It should only be yourself and your decisions that determine what you grow up to become. We do not think that it is fair that some schools and some students are given better opportunities to succeed than others just because of the color of their skin or the money that they were born into. No one can choose any of the circumstances under which they are born.
We want to try to fund more money towards getting better supplies, programs, and teachers to the public schools in our country that seem to be struggling the most. We want to build the bridge between the rich and the poor because no one deserves to be poor because they were born into that situation. Your successes should be defined by who you are, not who your parents or any other relatives are.
Q: How does your campaign team plan to make America’s schools safer and more secure? Be specific with your plan.
Our campaign team wants to add more security measures around the school. We want to add more security guards around the school. We feel with the 23 school shootings only 21 weeks into 2018 were far too many. If there were more security guards walking around, there is a more likely chance that a shooter could have been stopped. We also feel there should be designated safe rooms in the school. If we have these, students and staff would be safer. Safe rooms in the classroom are much more reliable than corners that 30 students have to miraculously fit into.
If we also put metal detectors outside schools, we can help to stop the attacks before they even occur. Changing gun policies is still seen as a radical idea to many Americans, so we want to take baby steps by implementing metal detectors because we feel like those are more reasonable to other Americans than implementing stricter gun policies.
Conclusion Questions:
Q. Throughout this project you have participated in a variety of activities from research to presentations. You have improved your knowledge of content and have improved a variety of skills that you will need for your future. What is the thing that you have learned the most from this project?
The thing that I learned the most from this project is the amount of debt that America is in. It may seem easy just to cut from all programs, but many families count on programs such as Social Security and Medicare. If we cut from the programs, we could potentially be doing more harm than good. It is important to keep in mind the fact that many families depend on these programs, which makes it harder to bring our country out of debt.
I have also learned how truly divided the rich and the poor are in this country. It saddens me to see how little opportunities some people are given just because of the status they were born into. No one should be limited to the amount of money that they have, that is simply not right. We should all be able to exceed to our full potential without having to worry as much about money as many kids (including me) do.