Jill Stein is the fourth and final candidate for the governor’s race, and represents the Green-Rainbow Party. While I usually will side with Conservatives, I can still see benefits of the Democrats, such as gay marriage, stem-cell research, and abortion rights. However, as much as I try to find the good with Stein, I simply can’t. I find her to be ignorant of the world around her, as well as very unknowledgeable about everything she stands for. She seems to me to only partake in first-stage thinking, only considering what sounds good and fair and peaceful without going to further levels of thinking, considering many of her ‘benefits’ have dire consequences. I’ll try to point out issue-by-issue why exactly I have a problem with Stein.
First of all, it only makes my blood boil hearing her say that higher-income taxpayers don’t understand the burden of taxes and aren’t paying their fair share. First of all, looking at data from 2007, the top 1% paid 40.42% of all federal income taxes according to the IRS. And if a person who went through years of specialized training and now works 10 demanding hours everyday plus overnight on-call and pays about half of their overall income to the government isn’t paying a “fair share,” than I don’t know what is. Stein is under the impression that higher income earners have no problems with money or debt and live life the easy way by taking advantage of others. She is very mistaken, and by raising taxes to be more “fair,” she will only hurt the upper-middle class since larger corporations and multimillionaires have the resources to move their money else ware in order to evade taxes. Personal rants aside; raising taxes also is a horrible move during a recession. With the economy so tight right now with not a lot of circulation of currency, you want to encourage consumers to go out and buy new products. Taking away more of their money will only make them hold on to what they have, one reason being because they now need to be more cautious with their money, and another being how they wouldn’t have predictability in the market anymore, only further encouraging them to hold on to their money.
Second is her issue on green jobs. Green jobs simply are not efficient, and in times like these the economy and welfare of the economic situation of the U.S. is more important than the environment. If green jobs were as incredibly efficient on saving money and putting people to work as Stein claims, then why aren’t they already here? Businesses have one main goal, which is to turn a profit. If green jobs would help them save money while putting people to work and while keeping a profit, the businesses would have had green jobs be a priority for years now. The government has no right to step into the free market and use taxpayer money to create jobs that wouldn’t prove to be worth it any time soon. Once the government beings to promote jobs in their interests, they’re going to have to keep pouring money into the program, because the businesses will refuse to pay more money for a worker simply because it’s a green job. She seems to only want to use other people’s money to clean up the planet rather than help the economy and social stability of the state.
Third is her stance on healthcare. She states on her website how she is supportive of a single payer system, and would promote a similar model would she be elected. Once again, she only thinks at the first-stage level saying that all this plan will do is lower costs and make everything better. What she doesn’t understand are the consequences. First of all, I don’t think it should be my family’s responsibility to pick up the tab for other people. While I think that our current system is extremely inefficient, I think a single-payer tax system would only be moving backwards. Already, as my father has seen in the emergency room, people come in for the most ridiculous things, such as a splinter or an ache somewhere in their body, since patients can’t be denied emergency medical care. This is a complete waste of time and resources for the hospitals and doctors, who sometimes, will only be paid 20$ for a few patients who come in on government-funded Medicaid. Not only will people feel like they can go to the doctor for any reason, but there will be long lines. One of the most critical aspects of the healthcare systems in countries such as Canada is the long lines, as well as the equipment not being as good as it is in America. Many more people will be going to the hospital, and people who are in need of emergency medical care might not be able to see a doctor with the long lines. I feel like I should point out how the Premier of Newfoundland & Labrador traveled all the way to the United States for his heart surgery; this only suggests that the technology wasn’t as good in Canada, or that the lines would take too long. In one incident, 150 ill patients with cerebral hemorrhages (bleeding in the brain), were rushed to the U.S. because there weren’t enough beds in Canada. Stating that the cost of healthcare would decrease because of a single-payer system also doesn’t make sense to me, since Canada has spent billions of dollars just to decrease the wait times.
I think it’s be pretty obvious about my stance on Jill Stein as a candidate, thus if I had to vote for her, she’s be my last choice out of the 4. I realize that I haven’t gone into the education aspect of her candidacy, but from what I’ve skimmed she basically has the same as the other candidates: overall improve the system, help with funding, and give students a better environment to learn in. To be honest, I don’t feel like going too much into depth with the issue since I think I overdid it a little considering the assignment was a 250-word blog…
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/article661794.ece
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/top-1-paid-more-in-federal-income-taxes-than-bottom-95-in-07/
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