Opinion Piece
By Ernestine Saleh
Bishop Keough High School

Second place essay, High School

There are many candidates in the upcoming race for presidency. In order to cast our votes in the 2008 election, we should have the right to hear some of their responses to issues concerning our life.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is running in the Democratic Party to become President of the United Sates. I think it is a good idea to hear her on some issues that she believes are important to her.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton believes that we must bring an end to the war in Iraq. As the first New York Senator to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee, she remains focused on the many challenges we face there. She has urged the Bush administration to end the failed policy in Iraq that forces our troops to police a civil war, and she is working hard in the Senate to advance a strategy to redeploy our troops out of Iraq as quickly and as safely as possible.

Unfortunately, the administration continues to pursue the same broken policy in Iraq. She believes it is time to start bringing them home. Throughout 2007, she voted in favor of numerous legislative efforts requiring the administration to begin to withdraw our troops and complete the redeployment of combat troops in 2008. She will continue to be a strong advocate for such efforts to end the war.

Hillary traveled to Iraq in January 2007 to assess the situation there firsthand. When she came back from the trip, she was determined to stop the President’s escalation, and to start the long overdue redeployment of troops out of Iraq. In February 2007, she introduced the Iraq Troop Protection and Reduction Act to halt the President’s escalation policy and to provide an alternative strategy to stabilize the country – a strategy that would enable the President to end the war before he leaves office.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton created the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) during the Clinton administration, which today provides health insurance for six million children. The Senate recently passed a bill that – if it becomes law – would offer coverage to 3.8 million uninsured children. President Bush decided to veto this bipartisan bill. With the stroke of a pen, President Bush has robbed nearly four million uninsured children of the chance for a healthy start in life and the health coverage they need but can’t afford. Senator Clinton will continue to fight to provide health insurance to all children and to pursue quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

Throughout her career, she has fought to raise education standards in our nation’s schools. She believed that a qualified teacher should teach every child and that schools should be accountable to the parents of the children they serve. That is why Senator Clinton supported the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. She viewed it as an historic promise between the federal government and educators.

But today, that promise has been broken. President Bush’s budget for 2007 provides $12 billion less than was promised by the No Child Left Behind Act. If enacted, that would mean 374,141 eligible children will be denied services, at a time when parents are working harder and needing the assurance that their children are in safe places between the hours of three and five. President Bush’s budget calls for funding of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program at over $1.5 billion below the promised amount. The President’s budget leaves behind two million students who would receive after-school services if they were funded at the level promised in the No Child Left Behind Act.

One of the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act is to ensure that all students receive the education and services needed in order to compete in the 21st century marketplace.

Senator Clinton has sponsored letters to the Appropriations Committee to reinstate funding for these critical programs. She will continue to work hard to ensure that all children receive the support they need to reach their full potential.

We are exposed to literally thousands of chemicals in our daily lives. Many of the links between chemical exposure and disease remain unexplored and poorly understood. In order to improve our understanding so we can prevent diseases caused by environmental factors, Senator Clinton introduced the Coordinated Environmental Public Health Network Act. This bill would expand on bio-monitoring work already under way to determine which chemicals are accumulating in our bodies. It would also create a network that would link disease registries, which contain information about the incidence of chronic diseases, to databases containing information about pollution.

Senator Hillary Clinton strongly believes that it is our duty to be better stewards of our environment – for the sake of our own health and the natural legacy that we will pass along to future generations.

Thank you for considering to vote for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.