My name is Irina Fomenkova, I am an ASSE student from Russia. At first, when I received information about this project I was thinking about my hostmother as a local leader. But suddenly something really great happened: because of my host-mother’s job, she works at Child Assault Prevention, we received invitations to the meeting with a vice-president of the United States of America! So, I decided to choose Joe Biden as my local leader.

It was Friday, 16th of October. I and my host-mother got up early in the morning and went to the University of Nevada, Reno the a place of meeting. The doors were opened at 9:00 am but in fact the meeting started at 11:00. The first person who was giving speech was the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He was talking about the situation with economy in Nevada and about Joe Biden (Joe Biden and Harry Reid are good friends, as I understood). After this Joe Biden started his speech. The main goal of his speech was analysis of the recovery act and economic situation as a whole. As for me, I am interested in politics, law and economy. I have a tendency not to trust people who are connected with government, but I was open-minded to the vice-president and his speech, it was a great experience for me to see him with my own eyes, not with mass-media interpretation.

ASSE Exchange Student Irina Fomenkova and Joe Biden

I want to analyze some facts and my feelings about this meeting. Joe Biden said that the stimulus package is the beginning to help stabilize the economy, citing more positive news from the housing and stock markets in recent weeks. “People forget we were in a free fall with the economy,” he said. “There would be a million more unemployed people without this. But listen to the critics. We know what they’re against, but what are they for?”. I, personally like the fact that Biden is doing something, not just waiting for better times. “Times are tough. We know how high unemployment is. And I want you all to focus on how much worse things would have been had we not acted”. It’s very true, in my opinion, the economic situation is very complicated now, when you are trying to improve one aspect, you immediately lose another, people should understand this and not criticize every disadvantage of this act. I also noticed some not very good aspects in this meeting, but to my mind I am a guest in this country, so I don’t have any right to criticize activities of the government.

Nevermind, the vice-president of the United States is a very friendly man, he was talking to every person freely and I liked it. So, this meeting, I think, was the most important thing that has happened to me for the 2 months that I am here. I was glad to have Joe Biden as my local leader and to spend a half of the day with him.