Ted Cruz officially launched his presidential campaign on March 23 at Liberty University, which reveres itself as “the largest Christian University in the world.” I watched the speech, and Cruz always looks sad or like a man trying to smile through the pain.
A Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz became the first Republican to declare himself a presidential candidate. His announcement drew a large crowd of nearly 11,000 college students and faculty. And while the address received a sonorous applause, concerns arose about the seriousness of Ted Cruz as a candidate.
Cruz delivered his speech in a stadium packed with seemingly enthused students waving miniature American flags. However, news came out that students were mandated to attend and failing to do so would result in a $10 fine. I won’t delve into this brow-raising move because other sources have already placed their commentary. But I will say that Cruz’s team chose a strategic environment for his announcement: required attendance by college students, appearing to attract young adults and a Christian University, drawing the Christian vote.
The Republican Party may have let him loose so that other viable Republican candidates seem more moderate. It’s hard finding a reason to vote for Ted Cruz, and there exists only one reason why I would vote for him right now: he’s the only official presidential candidate. But even so, Cruz’s team would have to drag me to the polls or impose a $10 fine to get me to vote for him.
Ted Cruz said, “Imagine young people coming out of school with four, five, six job offers.” Preaching about jobs to college students and the nation will always draw applause. Every presidential candidate talks about making more jobs available. Cruz asks young adults to imagine several jobs, but like any other candidate before, he doesn’t talk about how he will turn that imagination into reality.
He continues to ask the audience to imagine his potential presidency creating millions and millions of high paying jobs. Really? Millions and millions sounds redundant and perhaps he should consider hiring more speechwriters. Again, he preaches about creating more jobs but f how. I don’t believe Ted Cruz himself knows how he intends to fulfill this lofty promise. Now imagine millions and millions of voters flocking to the polls to vote for Ted Cruz. Imagine Ted Cruz as our next president. Ha-ha.
Ted Cruz is the son of a Cuban immigrant who came to America with a measly $100 in his pocket. As a Hispanic candidate, Cruz appears to have secured the Hispanic vote. However, the Hispanic vote lies far beyond his reach. His harsh criticisms on President Obama’s policies on granting temporary work visas to illegal immigrants present a problem for a possible Hispanic voting base.
When asked about his solution to solve illegal immigration, Cruz supported tripling the amount of troops and erecting a wall in parts of the border. First of all, the Berlin Wall stretched for 96 miles and still failed to prevent thousands of crossings. Similarly, constructing walls in parts of the 1,954 mile U.S./ Mexico border will not solve the core problem of illegal immigration.
Second, the U.S. has more than tripled the number of troops patrolling the southwest border already, yet millions of illegal immigrants still successfully cross over. In 1992, one border patrol agent apprehended 306 illegal immigrants. Since then agents have increased, yet apprehensions per agent have dramatically decreased to 19 in 2012. Still 1.65 million illegal immigrants reside in Texas alone.
Securing our border won’t solve the illegal immigration issue. But setting up free and fair trade agreements with Central America will create more jobs in Mexico and lead to fewer people attempting to cross the border.
Tripling border patrol and constructing a wall comes with enormous costs, and I fail to see how Cruz intends to finance these reforms while also replacing the current progressive tax rate with a flat tax rate. This change will not only decrease the government’s income, but upset people in lower income brackets. Imagine Cruz establishes a flat tax rate of 20 percent; those who used to pay 10 and 15 percent now pay more while those who pay 25, 25, 33, 35, and 39.6 percent pay less. A great move for taxpayers in higher brackets, but a move that will surely enrage taxpayers in lower ones.
Now while I don’t pay taxes, everybody always complains that they pay too much. Cruz’s solution to easing taxpayers’ troubles lies in abolishing the Internal Revenue Services completely. In his speech, he said he wanted to create more jobs, but by eliminating the IRS, he will put roughly 90,000 employees out of jobs. The IRS collects $2.4 trillion every year. $2.4 trillion that fund the military, scholarships, border patrol, transportation, technology programs, NASA, and other services that we use everyday. It’s not easy to take down the government, but removing the tax collection services is certainly a step closer. Perhaps the roughly 90,000 displaced employees can find new work patrolling the border.
Cruz emphasized the huge role his faith plays in his politics and desires Evangelical vote. However, Evangelicals and Christians in general may not be interested in Ted Cruz serving as president. I believe he lost the Christian vote when he gave a speech at a gala event hosted by In Defense of Christians, where he didn’t express his ideologies with Christian leaders, but rather berated them for not supporting Israel. The crowd booed him off stage.
On the issue of climate change, Cruz said, “The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming. Contrary to all the theories that they are expounding, there should have been warming over the last 15 years. It hasn’t happened.”
Yet, NASA, Greenpeace and other credible organizations and scientists have generally agreed that climate change represent a real problem. Society perpetuates a stigma that one can’t trust a politician; in the case of climate change I’m placing my bets on the scientists who devoted their lives to research and analyses of the environment.
NASA symbolizes an organization that supports humankind’s destiny to explore space and the planets beyond. Ted Cruz holds a history of attempting to cut the budget, and unfortunately he is now in charge of agency budgets.
It’s ironic that Ted Cruz presented his presidential announcement to college students, yet he stands against everything that the younger generation stands for.
Ted Cruz said, “Instead of a federal government that works to undermine our values, imagine a government to defend the sanctity of human life.” He opposes abortions even in the case of rape and incest, yet wants to defend the sanctity of human life. Is Cruz forgetting the sanctity of children who are already born yet remain homeless? What about the sanctity of women who can’t financially support a baby, women who can’t bear the mental disruption of carrying her rapist’s child, a woman who’s too young to have a child? Defending the sanctity of human life means defending the sanctity of women, women’s right to choose and the exclusion of another man’s opinion on how she should treat her own body.
He continued, “To uphold the sacrament of marriage,” of which he means exclusively between a man and woman. Increasingly more people support the rights of two people to marry despite their sexual orientation. The sacrament of marriage shouldn’t be about the matrimony between a man and woman, but the love between two people, whether they’re gay or straight, who care for and endear one another.
In the Senate, Ted Cruz spent most of his time and resources blocking policies of which he personally disagreed with. In his tenure, he has only supported 1 out of 112 bills that became law. Cruz doesn’t represent a man who will reignite the promise of America, but a man who will stunt it. He isn’t a man who will support broader rights for all Americans, but one who will impose restrictions on various groups. He is not a candidate who desires to advance the nation, but rather someone who wishes to advance his own beliefs and broadcast his own ignorant self-righteousness into the heart of the nation.
In his announcement speech, Cruz said, “Imagine embracing school choice as the civil rights issue of the next generation, that every single child, regardless of race, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of wealth or ZIP Code, every child in America has the right to a quality education.” He failed to mention regardless of sexual orientation – an issue that the younger generation ardently supports.
Last time I checked, every child already has the right to a quality education. There’s no law restricting certain groups from attending certain schools. If Cruz means improving the quality of education throughout the nation, he has yet to state how or where he will find the funds to accomplish such a task.
The civil rights issue of the next generation can wait for the next generation. This is our generation, and our generation’s civil rights issues stands for fully legalizing gay marriage, securing women’s rights to choose, net neutrality, and slowing climate change.
Achieving fame by vehemently opposing President Obama on every issue while alienating his own Republican Party, Ted Cruz is not a candidate that speaks for the younger generation or one that speaks for the United States of America, but a candidate that speaks for himself. A candidate with his own agenda, one that doesn’t speak for the people, he is interested only in his own self-promotion.
Vote for a candidate who wants to bring America into a better and brighter future rather than bring our great nation five decades back. Vote for a candidate who speaks for your values and beliefs, one that will look out for your wellbeing and advance society’s moral issues based on the people’s beliefs rather than his own. Vote for a candidate who will ensure America’s prosperity and power throughout the world. And finally, vote for any other candidate besides Ted Cruz.
