Commentary or Editorial?

Question

Ugh, I have been surfing yahoo for ages, so i need some help. Can anyone find me an editorial or commentary on a world or national issue. I need it for my literature class. Yea, it sounds easy, so best answer get 10 points =)

Thanks, all help appreciated!

Answer 1

There were several posted in the NY Times today. You have to log in to read them, but it's free. Here's the text of one of them:

What the Voters Know

It came as no surprise when the latest New York Times/CBS News poll showed voters focused overwhelmingly on economic issues. Jobs are disappearing. Incomes are falling. Home equity is evaporating. Prices are rising. Debt loads are crushing.

What is most striking is voters’ belief that neither candidate is paying enough attention to their distress. Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama have spoken at length about the economy. But voters have yet to hear what they believe are compelling answers.

In one key area — the causes and cures for declining wages — the voters are right: neither candidate has adequately addressed the issue. Both have to give fuller explanations of how they plan to run government without running the country ever deeper into the red.

For all that, the two men have revealed fundamentally different economic philosophies and policies.

Taxes are at the core of each candidate’s economic agenda. Mr. McCain’s proposed tax cuts are directed mostly at the wealthy; Mr. Obama’s are aimed at lower- and middle-income Americans and paired with tax increases for the wealthy. This page has long decried the high-end tax cuts of the Bush years. And Mr. McCain’s plan to continue them, while piling on more, will neither grow the economy nor raise revenue. The mega-deficits they would create would be a drag on any growth.

Mr. Obama’s plan is a corrective to years of unjustifiable tax giveaways. It would also lead to deficits, but not nearly as large. Because the tax increases at the top of the income ladder would pay for cuts lower down, his plan would begin to address widening inequality.

But — a big, big but — tax cuts, no matter where they are aimed, do nothing to address Americans’ most fundamental problem: the fact that they are working harder and falling further behind.

For that, workers need greater bargaining power, greater job growth to bid wages up, and a higher minimum wage to ensure that full-time work is a path out of poverty. Mr. McCain has not connected his tax cut plan to a labor agenda in any meaningful way. Mr. Obama has made a start: supporting a bill to make it easier for employees to unionize and a bolstered minimum wage.

No matter who wins, the economy’s dire circumstances will not abate soon. Many Americans, especially those who lose their homes or home equity, will never recover their economic security. That, coupled with globalization’s stresses and an aging population, make a strong social safety net more important than ever.

Despite his pledges to cut waste, fraud and earmarks, we cannot see how Mr. McCain can cut spending enough to pay for his proposed tax cuts without taking an ax to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Mr. Obama has only begun to explain how he will fulfill his pledge to preserve Social Security without privatizing it.

The candidates also have a credibility problem. Both seem to believe that any real gloominess, or strong critique of the market system, would be seen as un-American. So you get Mr. McCain’s absurd claim that the economy is basically sound. And you get Mr. Obama’s paeans to unfettered markets — before he dares to venture a critique that, while generally accurate, is far too genteel.

We suspect each man would do a better job connecting if they started by acknowledging what the voters’ all too painfully know: This country is in deep economic trouble, and it will take not only creativity but real sacrifice to fix these problems.