1. Political Parties Who are you?

2. Political Basics The 2 main parties in the U.S. are Republicans and Democrats. EVERYTHING has a trade-off! You don’t have to agree with your party on everything. Some issues are more important to some people than others.

3. Democratic: –Liberal Republican: –GOP –Conservative

4. Brainstorm! List as many political issues/topics as you can think of in the next 3 minutes.

5. Education Pre-school should be provided, free of charge, to all people in America. Taxes should be increased to support this idea.

6. Military We should continue to fight the war in Afghanistan until we can guarantee the terrorists there have all been defeated.

7. Education Parents should be allowed to use their taxes to pay for private school instead of public school for their child if they choose.

8. The Environment Companies should be required by law to lower their pollution levels, even if it means raising prices on the things they sell.

9. Taxes Taxes should be kept very low for everyone even if that means cutting out some programs that help the poor.

10. Education Teachers whose students do poorly on standardized tests should be fired if they do not improve.

11. Energy Our focus on energy should be on protecting the environment and preventing global warming, not on providing enough for everyone or keeping prices low.

12. Homeland Security The government should have great powers, including listening in on phone calls and holding foreign citizens without trial, in order to prevent future terrorist attacks.

13. Healthcare Healthcare should be a guaranteed right for all Americans no matter how much it costs.

14. Guns People should be allowed to own guns for self- defense, collecting and hunting without much interference by the government.

15. Drug Use Illegal drug use should not be treated as a major crime. Drug users should not go to jail, instead they should be given treatment for their problem.

16. Abortion A baby in a mother’s stomach should be considered alive and therefore abortion (ending a pregnancy by choice) should be illegal.

17. Terrorism We should deal with terrorism by adding more police here in the U.S., not by going after terrorists in foreign countries.

18. Immigration We should heavily punish businesses who hire illegal immigrants so that those here illegally will choose to leave without being deported.