Isaiah Virginia

Priorities in America

This letter is about where America needs to place it's priorities.

28th October 2016

Dear Mister President,

Congratulations on winning arguably the most monumental election in history. This is an enormous election for America. Now it is your turn to address the issues of the nation. One of those issues is where the US has it’s priorities. To the rest of the world, America is seen as an arrogant powerhouse who struggles to stay within its own affairs. The rest of the world is right. We constantly involves ourselves in foreign issues that are not our business. Just look to the US’ most infamous involvement was the Vietnam War. The US involved itself in a brutal affair in which America had few reasons to involve itself, and America bares the scars to show for it. Now, in more modern days, so many government officials are pushing to allow mass immigration for refugees. But the US has enough issues of it’s own it should be dealing with. Americans need to focus on fixing their own country before they should be allowed to aid others. Should we continue down this path, America will cease to be the Land of The Free and become the Land of The Freeloaders.

There are 7.8 million unemployed American citizens, 564,700 homeless people, and America is $19,000,000,000,000+ in debt according to the US debt clock. (usdebtclock.org) There is no reason for the US to be involving itself with problems that do not affect, nor improve its current status.

There has been a recent push for allowing illegal immigrants to be given free healthcare and citizenship. We should be focusing on our own people who are without healthcare, such as the 564,000 homeless people (The State of Homelessness in 2016). Not only are US officials pushing to provide healthcare for illegal immigrants, but refugees as well. America is more concerned about other countries’ people than it’s own people. Yes, the US should allow a certain amount of contained refugees in under moderation, but that is all they should do. They should not give them free housing, free healthcare, and free jobs. Immigrants and refugees should bear the burden of finding those things on their own. All those luxuries should be distributed to the American unemployed and homeless before the refugees. As Linda Lingle said; “we have come dangerously close to accepting the homeless situation as a problem we cannot fix”. But it is fixable, if the right amount of attention is given to homelessness. The United States should not prioritize other struggling countries, when we have our own struggling people. In order for refugees and immigrants to become a part of America, they should first start paying taxes. This would help raise revenue in the US.

Not only is the US riddled with unemployment and homelessness, but is tragically in debt. The US goes $4 billion deeper in debt daily. The majority of that money is owed to China. In 2001-1014, 3.2 million jobs went to China. Money and jobs are going overseas and there is little being done to stop it. (Peralta Katherine) According to CNN journalist Heather Long, over 5 million jobs have gone to China alone since 2000. Those 5 million jobs are in the manufacturing field alone. America’s own standard military vehicle, the Hummer, is made in China. America continues to pour money and jobs into countries like China while doing very little for the general public. The US needs to focus on local production in order to raise the employment rate and start getting money flowing in it’s own country. One way of persuasion to keep jobs in America could be tax breaks on American factories and companies. Or small tax breaks for factory workers or manufacturing jobs in the US. It would persuade many people to get jobs in manufacturing and even persuade them not to leave. The US needs to promote and reward entrepreneurship and local production.

Although America has changed the lives of millions of immigrants and refugees for the better, it has also done very little for its own country. There needs to be a cutoff point where the US says “enough is enough” and begins reconstruction of its own country. The US needs to stop involving itself in foreign affairs, at least until it gets back on its horse. As Kevin Spacey said, “America has been trying to install democracies in other countries for a century, and it hasn’t worked one time.”, in other words, we devote billions of dollars and millions of people to “fixing” other countries, only to fail. By pooling the US’ resources back into itself, America can become the world’s greatest country again.

Love,

Isaiah

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https://www.rt.com/usa/331216-americans-food-stamps-restrictions/

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Eastern View High School

AP Language & Composition

AP Language & Composition students (11th grade) from Eastern View High School in Culpeper, VA are tasked with researching platforms, crafting political cartoons or pieces of satire, and writing letters and op-eds

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