By Alex Salisbury

By Alex Salisbury

Are you better off today than you were four years ago? This is the big question of this election. The thought has been brought up multiple times in the course of this election and became widespread at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. The truth is that your socioeconomic status depends on your job – if you work. However, if you are the average American, who makes $41,673 a year, according to the Social Security Administration, you really are better off than you were four years ago.

Under President Obama, the unemployment rate has dropped 2 percent from the beginning of 2010 to the beginning of 2012 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is just one of the many things that Obama has done in the last four years to steer our nation in the right direction.

One huge decision that the president has come under a lot of criticism for is the auto industry bailout. Today I can tell you that there are over 1.45 million people working as a direct result of that action, according to the Center for Automotive Research.

Switching topics to national security, the president made a very important decision that has brought justice to many Americans. Osama Bin Laden is dead. Most believe that it would have been an easy decision, but it wasn’t. For example, raid commander Admiral William McRaven said, “At the end of the day, make no mistake about it, it was the President of the United States that shouldered the burden for this operation, that made the hard decisions, that was instrumental in the planning process, because I pitched every plan to him.”

The president also made a very important and influential decision concerning involvement in Libya. While the president came under a lot of scrutiny for this decision, NATO involvement changed the tide of the Libyan Civil War and helped overthrow one of the worst dictators in the world. Pundits argued that the operation would be too dangerous, but not a single American died in the NATO operation.

One of the most controversial issues of the past four years is the Affordable Care Act. While opponents of this bill claim that it will create death panels, the Affordable Care Act is helpful to all Americans, both young and old. I often hear people of my age and others who can’t vote say that this election doesn’t matter to them. Well it does. The Affordable Care Act allows a person to be on his parents’ health insurance until he is 26 years old. This can cover you in college and beyond, so you can have health care and not worry about getting sick or hurt. The Affordable Care Act also helps cut down on Medicare fraud, according to AARP (the American Association of Retired People). Also, now insurance companies can’t deny you coverage because you have a pre-existing condition.

These reasons prove that President Obama has the better policy for all Americans, not just the 53 percent that he believes will vote for him.

Alex Salisbury is a sophomore at Iowa City Regina High School.