Five Reasons to Vote

I was notified about this site that, when you become a member and register people to vote, you earn free music downloads. They have a list of some good tunes, too.

Here are their top 5 reasons to vote:
05. Education

The current administration severely underfunds its own education plan. This administration's budget contains $9.4 billion less than the $34 billion needed by the states to comply with NCLB. A recent report prepared by the House Appropriations Committee predicts further underfunding in future budgets – $1.9 billion in 2006 increasing to $4.6 billion by FY2009. These cuts will result in drastic cuts in services, including support services for teachers.

04. Environment

The "Clear Skies" initiative is designed to amend the Clean Air Act, but will actually undermine efforts to produce cleaner air. As NRDC reports," compared to current law, the Clear Skies plan would allow three times more toxic mercury emissions, 50 percent more sulfur emissions, and hundreds of thousands more tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides."

03. Health Care

Nearly 13 million young adults age 19-29 have no health insurance. Between 2000 and 2002, more than two million Americans age 19-29 lost their health coverage.
Two million losing coverage in two years, That's more than 2,700 every day. Adding up to more than 13 million 19-29 year olds nationwide who have no health care. The long and short of it: If you are young, you are twice as likely to have no insurance.

02. Economy

Millions of Americans remain out of work, underemployed and underpaid. With few new jobs being created, and the pay for new jobs well below the average pay of those jobs lost over the past few years, millions of middle-class workers face a real economic squeeze and a declining standard of living.

All the sunny rhetoric in the world can't hide the facts: the U.S. economy is simply not creating new jobs at the rate necessary to make up for millions of lost jobs over the last four years or even at a pace required just to keep up with population changes.

01. National Security

We are not safe. This chilling conclusion from the Commission should come as no surprise given this administration's choices since September 11. The White House's war in Iraq – which has taken too many lives and drained nearly $150 billion American tax dollars – has overshadowed our successful effort to topple the Taliban and disrupt al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Now, al Qaeda is regrouping, new terrorist threats are emerging in Iraq, and holes in homeland security – particularly ports, industrial plants, and borders – remain unplugged. We are not safe because the administration has made the wrong choices on terrorism.