An open letter to the next President; Agenda for a new Administration.

As the League of Women Voters looks to January 20, 2009, we see hard work ahead for the next President of the United States.

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Over the years, America's leaders have allowed crucial problems confronting our country to fester and worsen. Climate change threatens our public health, environment and economy. Our health care system leaves 47 million Americans uninsured while wreaking havoc on the economy because of skyrocketing costs. We have not addressed the status of 12 million unauthorized immigrants living and working in the United States, and we have an immigration system that is incapable of dealing with either legal or illegal immigrants. Last but not least, growing inequality in wealth and incomes threatens the very fabric of our society, turning the United States into a land where the rich keep getting richer and everyone else struggles just to get by.

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The League of Women Voters has devoted these pages of The National Voter to a special call for action on each of these four issues. When the election season of partisanship and political wrangling is over, it will be time for real action to build a better, stronger America--a nation that is true to its ideals of fairness and opportunity for all, one that sees challenges such as those spelled out in the pages that follow less as threats to our society than as opportunities for economic and social progress.

The League of Women Voters believes significant progress is possible on each of the four issues we have identified as priorities for the new Administration. We look forward to working with the new President to make this presidency a historic one, during which the people and their elected leaders cast aside the chains of partisanship, complacency and fear, and embrace real action to build a better nation and a better world together.

Sincerely,

Mary G. Wilson

President, League of Women Voters of the United States

By William H. Woodwell, Jr.