What happened?
President Donald Trump supporters say, “We suffered eight years under President Obama/Vice President Biden.”
What happened?
The day Obama/Biden took office, the Dow was 7,949 points. Eight years later, the Dow had almost tripled.
The “Big Three” automakers were on the brink of bankruptcy; this would have meant the loss of millions of jobs. Obama/Biden got them an $80 billion bailout. The U.S. car industry survived, and the entire $80 billion was paid back, with interest. Now they are stronger than ever.
Obama ordered the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden less than two years into office, something Republicans failed to do for seven long years.
They decreased troops from 180,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan to just 15,000, and increased funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
They launched a program called Opening Doors which, since 2010, has led to a 47% decline in the number of homeless veterans.
They reduced the federal deficit from 9.8% of GDP in 2009 to 3.2% in 2016.
They enacted Obamacare, so you can get treatment and not lose your home over it.
Obama and Biden were the first president/vice president since Eisenhower to serve two terms without personal or political scandals for either one.
They set a record 73 consecutive months of private-sector job growth.
Now, let’s talk about exactly how President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence improved America and made America better off. Uh … um … uh … .
Dennis L. Chaquette
Keaau
Governor ‘doesn’t care’
Have you felt that the state’s governor is not doing his job well? Well, he isn’t. He doesn’t care about the state and its locals.
From not supporting locals protecting Maunakea, he was careless about COVID-19, and he allowed people to come to the state even though we have cases rising. What the governor has been doing has changed how we live. We can’t go outside anymore without worrying about the virus that he was supposed to protect us from.
As a person who lives in Hawaii, I feel like the governor doesn’t care for the local people and community. For instance, the governor could have closed the airports or at least closed intrastate travel so the virus cannot spread to the whole state and get the virus from the outside world.
By doing that, there wouldn’t be COVID-19 cases in Hawaii, and we wouldn’t need to shut down and have restrictions on our island. If the governor would have done this, I wouldn’t have that feeling of being scared to catch the virus when I go outside.
The governor decided to go against the community during the incident at Maunakea. The locals supported it to protect the land, but he does what he is told, not what is best for the community.
This topic matters because it shows what we need from the next governor is caring for the locals and doing what’s best for the islands, no matter the cost. Don’t you want a governor like that?
This is why I felt that the governor never did his job well, because he had time to protect the people and support the local people, but he didn’t.
This matters because as a governor, you’re supposed to do what’s best for the state. Hopefully next time we will choose someone who can help the community.
Richard Granadosin
Hilo High School student