Vice Presidential Debate from Austin, Texas

[Ebowed]

My first question is to each of you, and its an obvious one.  What do you think the role of a Vice President in our system, and how do you as an individual hope to approach the position if elected to it?

Thank you for hosting this debate.

Beyond presiding over the Senate and breaking ties in the Senate, the Vice President's most important job is to advise the President and stand by him, and be prepared to accept the higher office should anything happen to the President.  I believe that when a President is undecided about vetoing or signing a certain bill, his Vice President should be there to offer guidance and suggestions.  I believe I am prepared for this position.  If elected Vice President, I will not just break ties in the Senate; I will be there to be the right hand man of the President.  It is important for a Vice President to work in a bipartisan manner with the Senate, and I believe that I can do that well.

[Ebowed]

As you all know, we face a budget deficit in Atlasia that must, under our Constitution, be cut.  How should we go about doing this?

There are several ways that we can achieve this goal, while still having room for other expensive projects.  Persuing the decriminalization of possession of hard drugs is one way; targetting the dealers or ending the 'war on drugs' period would empty jails (meaning that the government no longer has to pay for prisoners' clothes, food, and other living expenses).  Cleaning up the education spending by gutting unncessesary and expensive high stakes standardized tests, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars per question on each test, and eliminating extra and inefficient posts in the school system would allow for teacher salary raises, and provide more money for other projects.  If money is managed responsibly, you can achieve great things without worrying about a deficit.

[Ebowed]

I have ton interject,

No problem.

but Federal prisons and the costs of the NCLB program (which is the only Federal standardized test system I'm aware of) accounts for only a fraction of the needed budget cuts.  Where would the rest of the money come from?

The War on Drugs and standardized testing are only two problems that are adding to the deficit.  There are other ways we can get and/or save money:
- Increased taxes on cigarettes;
- Stop and prohibit any socialization of any unncessary health care and medicine, such as Viagra; allow prescription drugs to be bought from neighboring countries so that we don't have to pay (at a higher price) for other people's medicine;
- Allow churches to provide welfare services, which ensures that the government can spend less on welfare, as well as other welfare reform;
- End/don't start any missile defense programs

[Ebowed]

I think that most of the candidates running in this exciting race, both for president and vice president, are qualified and well-meaning.  However I hope the voters will give a first preference to Harry/Ebowed, or at least a preference somewhere on the ballot, because I think Harry has demonstrated in this campaign that he is able to unite voters from all political spectrums.  However, no matter who wins this election, I'm sure that the result will be satisfying.

Thank you, and Dave bless you all.