The Presidential Opportunity Cost

When a choice is made, something must be left out. The Opportunity cost is what you give up so you can gain another. This does not necessarily mean that money must be involved. A very recent dilemma that comes under the topic of opportunity cost is the Presidential Democratic Party elections last year between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. When Barack Obama was elected Hilary Clinton was the opportunity cost, along with most of her plans for their country. Although in my opinion Obama was definitely the right choice, one must understand what one has lost as well as gained at the same time.

Taxes are colossolly important when it comes to the world of politics and economics. Senator Obama's plan of the 'trillion dollar tax increase' shocked the entire nation but once he explained it, it made sense. His plan was to collect $1 trillion over the next 10 years and later use this money to improve the country by backing his other popular plans like doing all he can to minimize the impact on global warming. Obama wants to tax 6% of America's population, the upper-class, who make more than $97,000 a year. This is far from the middle class and because the middle class is the bigger percentage of people, Obama got the vote. Hilary Clinton said that his plan was ridiculous and many were lead to believe that Obama's plan would affect "firefighters.. and school supervisers" as Senator Clinton said she supported them. However, this is untrue as even the most elite firefighters would earn at the most $86,518 a year thus missing obama's mark by $10,000. On the other hand, Hiliary Clinton's economic tax plan was quite good on its own. Obama's tax plan might not cure the econimic crisis we are currently in. Hilary Clinton's would have been a better choice in this sense as it had a higer percentage of curing the crisis. Thus the opportunity cost.

Health care was a major issue during Senators Clinton and Obama's election. Hilary Clinton claimed that her new plan for America's health care system would be able to insure "everyone" local to America. She attacked Obama's health care plan by stating that his plan would leave 15 million Americans un-insured. This is about 6% of the population. Obama called his system the "universal" health care. He wants to tax the upper-classmen who can afford to pay a little more in order to improve the country's hospitals, similar to the tax plan. However according to some specialists, Obama's plan of 'generous subsidies' would soon lead to 82% of the currently un-insured to be insured for health. Also, if individual mandates were included in Obama's plan 100% of all the uninsured would be insured a few years after Obama wins the Presidential Election of 2009 (which he did). Hilary Clinton's plan would only leave out 1 million ++ people uninsured. This, compared to Obama's plan, would be a better choice. But, because of the possibility of individual mandates being included into Obama's plan the majority of the people rooted for Obama's health care system. In this case, the opportunity cost was Hilary Clinton's health care system plan.

Although plans for America's future is a top priority, the reason that this particular election attracted so much attention was because Hilary Clinton is a woman and Barack Obama is an African American. Either way, it would be the first time in American history that a woman or an african american would run for President. For woman's rights activists it would be a giant leap forward to have a female president as that would be hard core evidence of how much the female gender has risen to positions of power all over the world, not just America. As one of the biggest super power in the world, America's giant leaps affect the rest. When Obama became President, this also showed that the rascism in America definitely turned down although it by no means means that rascism will ever disappear. Groups like the Ku Klux Klan were definitely shocked but it does not mean that they will magically dissolve into the air. Still, the elections vaguely divided people into two different groups; those who wanted a woman president and those who wanted a black president. The Politics was just an add on as both candidates were equally powerful.

Opportunity costs can shape the entire world, especially a choice that is of a big a scale as the democratic party elections. In the end Hilary Clinton was the opportunity cost thus including her tax policies and her health care system. Barack Obama is now President and will soon show the world whether the cost of Hilary Clinton was worth it.
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