Finally, a leader who acts on his promises

March 12, 2009 by Yamini Piplani 

Good leadership is paramount to deal with challenges

It seems like the state of the local economy is getting worse every day. Despite the promises of more federal money to Nevada, more businesses are cutting down and it seems like everyone is being laid off. 

As we can predict, the unemployment rate in Nevada is soaring and more people are getting desperate. Though government jobs were once perceived as stable, even those institutions are completely out of money. 

Of course, student workers are one of the first to be laid off since they are generally part-time and hired after the full-time degree-holding employees. To make the plight of a student worse, the education system seems to be falling apart. The Clark County School District and the Nevada System of Higher Education are so strapped that they’re cutting essential employees and implementing hiring freezes. How are layoffs a solution to curtail the soaring unemployment rate in the state? 

Amongst the mess, we have Gov. Jim Gibbons, seemingly unaffected by the chaos instilling around him.

Through years of broken promises about everything from supporting education and teachers to funding the state’s prison systems, the governor has only given us vague speeches which promise close to nothing and better no one. The only promise that seems to make it into every speech is the “no more tax” promise. If he has broken so many other promises made to Nevadans during his time in office, then what stops him from breaking this one too? 

His failure as a governor comes not from his personal life, but from his obvious inability to deviate from the party line politics that have long plagued the state and the country. His desperation to stick to party line politics has come so far that he now refuses to sign the bill passed by the Nevada legislature that would increase room taxes by 3 percent. 

He claims that he will neither sign, nor veto the bill as it is the wish of the people, which would automatically put the bill into effect after five days. So, his not signing the bill does absolutely nothing but show his stubbornness and his cowardice to admit that he could not come up with a better solution. 

The irony is that through his constant cries opposing tax increases, which include the room tax, he included the projected revenue from the tax increase in his proposed budget. Ah, the hypocrisy. No wonder many blogs throughout the country have called him the worst governor.

But fortunately, we have a better, more promising leader to look to at the national level.  President Barack Obama has shown that he is both willing and capable of keeping his word. He promised Americans the world, and for him to get elected into the presidency and then do nothing would be disappointing to say the least. Thankfully that is not the case. 

In less than two months in office, he has proven that his promises were not just a means to win the election. 

Since he took office, he has taken bold measures to distance himself from former president George W. Bush’s legacy. Soon after Obama took office, he ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, outlawed the harsh interrogation methods used by the CIA, overturned the Mexico City policy which outlawed federal funding to international family planning organizations who provided abortions and allowed states like California to set higher carbon emission standards for cars signaling at a more energy-efficient future. 

On Tuesday, Obama reversed the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research emphasizing that the current administration will make decisions based on scientific knowledge and not on moral, religious or ethical concerns of a few. 

In his first 50 days in office, the president has acted boldly and swiftly to face the current economic crisis while paying attention to other important goals on the sideline. Obama’s task is not easy and in the face of dire challenges and an uncertain future, his leadership skills are an unquestioned asset. Even though many question his policy agenda as unrealistic or too liberal, his willingness to reach across party lines and include his opposition is undeniable. It would not be surprising to see a healthcare and immigration overhaul in the near future. 

Good leaders can make the system and bad ones can break it. This claim should be unchallenged after experiencing the effects of what the last eight years of bad decisions have done for the country. If we hope to fix our state’s problems, we must decide our local leaders prudently.