Political Roundtable

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PANEL OF POLITICAL PUNDITS PICKS PRESIDENT:
Members of the Apache-sponsored presidential roundtable are (from left) Samuel Rogal, Sue Caley Opsal, Harriet Custer, Joe Mikyska and Mike Phillips.

With the national election quickly approaching, the voting public expresses a need to understand the issues. On Oct. 11, Illinois Valley residents and IVCC students had a chance to learn more about the issues that will be important in this year’s election.

The Apache-sponsored “Roundtable discussion on the Presidential Election,” provided a way to shed light on those issues. Five panelists were asked questions by moderator Nate Bloomquist on the various issues in the election.

The panelists included Mike Phillips, an IVCC geology instructor, Joe Mikyska, a part-time political science teacher at IVCC, Dr. Harriet Custer, who is on the administrative staff at IVCC, Sue Caley Opsal, a science instructor at the college, and Sam Rogal, a retired IVCC philosophy instructor.Panelists were asked about issues inlcuding education, social security, health care, the expected budget surplus, foreign policy, supreme court appointments, the environment, and college students’ indifference in elections.

Those who participated agreed on certain issues, specifically education, and also had a diverse set of ideas on other issues, such as the issue of character throughout the hour-long discussion.

Phillips said he thought the environment was the most important issue of the election, specifically the current situation regarding the consumption of gasoline.

“We have to decide whether or not we want to deal with the demand supply of the issue or the supply side,” he said. “And I think this is where some of the third party candidates can weigh in.”

For Mikyska and Custer, the most important issue is the budget surplus. Both were concerned with how the money would be spent. They said they’d rather see the national debt paid down then to have tax cuts as both major candidates are proposing.

“We may not even have surplus for as many years as (the candidates) are predicting,” said Custer. “We have to be able to sustain the kind of domestic and foreign issues and not face a recession. We could easily fall back into a recession. (Al) Gore says we can pay off the debt by 2012 and I think that’s what we should do with the surplus.”

Opsal said the most important issue to her was a woman’s right to chose. She said the supreme court appointments which the next president is expected to receive will be important to the issue of abortion.

For Rogal, the issue most important to him was the moral character of a president.

“(For Bill Clinton) The road from Little Rock, Ark. To the White House has been paved by women’s undergarments,” said Rogal. “We need a restoration of the noble image of the presidency.”Phillips disagreed.“I have a problem with one side saying they’re more moral than the other side. We don’t know the moral character of a person until after they’re elected. Since Watergate, the opposing party has spent an incredible amount of time and money investigating whoever is in office.”

The panelists agreed on Education, in respect to keeping it a local issue. Mikyska and Rogal referred to the fact that only five percent of the funding for elementary and high schools comes from the federal government. The majority of the funding comes from the states. Each thought the government should only act in an advisory capacity.Phillips disagreed slightly.

“The government should have some role in setting a national policy where they ought to be when a student comes out of high school. I don’t think they do that very well.”Opsal argued that doing that would be ‘re-inventing the wheel’ and the states already set such standards.

All of the panelists agreed that standardized testing isn’t necessarily a good idea because teachers can ‘teach for tests.’

Panelists discussed the future of the social security program and what the government should do to solve the problem. Rogal referred to the issue as a ‘political football,’ meaning that it is an issue used to scare or attract voters.

“If I had to rely on just social security alone God help me,” said Rogal. “People need to be educated that they can’t rely on it when they retire.”

Opsal said it wouldn’t make sense to privatize social security and allow those who receive it to invest in various companies.

“If people knew how to invest they probably wouldn’t need social security in the first place,” she said.

Mikyska said there is more than just money needed to bail out social security, which according to him, the program would go bankrupt somewhere between 2032 and 2035.

“We need to find out with the life expectency continually going up if we’re going to keep paying someone social security if they live to be 100 or if we’re going to cap benefits.”Health CareRogal referred to health care as another ‘political football.’

He said the issue needed to be dealt with on a humanistic level, not a political one.

“If you want votes you simply go around and tell people that someone’s going to take away your health care,” said Rogal.

Custer said the real issue that hasn’t been addressed by either major candidates is the question of what to do to help people that don’t have insurance.

On the issue of the budget surplus, the panelists agreed that a good portion of it should be used to pay down the national debt. Mikyska said that over the next decade the budget surplus will be approximately $25 trillion. He said 14 percent of the budget is already used to pay interest on the national debt. He said he thought the surplus should be used to pay off more of the debt.

“The phrase that bothers me which is thrown around a lot in this election is ‘it’s your money.’ Even when the government has it, it’s still your money. It think people expect certain things from the government in programs. So to pretend that the money is gone and that you’ll never see a benefit from it is false.”

All of the panelists agreed that there isn’t any consistency in the country’s foreign policy.

“It becomes a problem when there are no enemies involved,” said Rogal “It’s not as clearly defined as it used to be. Foreign policy is a philosophy not a reaction. You need a clear-cut policy.”

Mikyska said the United States’ role overseas won’t be diminished.“We’re absolutely involved in the world and we are never going to be uninvolved,” he said. “we have the strongest economy, the strongest military, and we’re the home of the United Nations.”

The next president may appoint as many as four supreme court justices, depending on how many retire. Panelists disagreed on the relevance of the issue.

“It seems to me that justice nominees depend to behave differently then when the become justices,” said Rogal. “The classic example is earl Warren, the extreme right-wing governor of California. I don’t really see it as an issue.”

Phillips disagreed.“Some justices don’t change, for example Justice Scalia hasn’t changed that much and he always has always seen himself as a strict constructionist. Bush says he wants justices like him. I think there are a lot of important issues out there that could change based on the justices that are appointed. One such issue is the search and seizure issue.”

Rogel countered that when Gore was in the U.S. Senate he voted for the approval of Scalia.

Phillips said one of the most important issues in this year’s election is the environment, specifically what to do about the nation’s oil supply.

“The biggest problem I have with the Bush/Cheney ticket is that they aren’t addressing reducing the demand for oil,” said Phillips. “We can’t continue using it at the rate that we are.”

“The problem is that they’ve both fallen short and there hasn’t been a lot of talk about the long term issues in favor of the short-term every day things,” she said. “One of the parts of being a leader is being a teacher and they need to teach more about long-term solutions.”

Rogel said the problems can be solved by things the nation has done in the past.

“When I was growing up in Pittsburgh you had to take a flashlight to find your way with all the dust from the steel mill,” he said. “Now I need a guide to find them. In the 30s 40s and 50s we didn’t know what we’d do without steel; now we do. We need to do the same thing with other elements.”

All of the panelists discussed their concern with the lack of voter turnout from young people.

“Politicians will pay more attention to those who vote,” said Phillips. “A high turnout of voters could get a person like Ralph Nader elected. One of the reasons third party candidates don’t get elected is the people they are trying to interest aren’t voting.

“If more young people would’ve voted, and 18-year olds were allowed to vote, maybe Vietnam wouldn’t have happened,” said Mikyska.

“It’s very easy in this day and age to be cynical about politics,” said Custer. “It’s one really important way each individual has to make a difference. If we don’t take advantage of it we can’t make a difference.”

“I think it’s tough when people are trying to decide between the lesser of the two evils,” said Opsal.

“If education is local then politics are local,” said Rogal. “you can’t come out every four years and have the two candidates say that you need to vote. You do that by having local politicians go to the schools, have mock local elections, and have the schools print ballots. Do it! Don’t howl at them from a microphone or tell them you’re going to take away this and give them that.”