Bridge to Nowhere

Our national debt is 13 trillion dollars. To put this into perspective, 13 trillion dollar bills could circle the earth’s equator about 50,000 times. This is an astounding amount of money. For the government to just break even each citizen would have to pay the government 42,906 dollars. To me, this proves that there is not an end in sight for this catastrophic debt, an unwanted inheritance that will plague our children for generations. How could our government let this happen? How could they keep spending when the money doesn’t even exist?

One reason for this is our country’s constant need to be involved in conflict around the world. As a major super-power we feel a responsibility to promote democracy, sometimes with military strength. But war costs money, draining our imaginary bank account even further. If this was not our country’s nature, we would be in much better shape financially.

Another cause is the government’s wastefulness. A prime example of this is Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere.” This was a project that would use 398 million dollars of the government’s money so that Alaskan’s could travel to Gravina Island more efficiently than on a ferry. The project was stopped and left a bridge and millions of dollars to have no purpose whatsoever. There so many “bridges to nowhere” throughout our country. Even here in Austin we used tax payer money to build a multi-million dollar metro rail that no one rides. I’m all for public transportation and many other things the government funds, but only if it is useful, and efficient.

Can we stop this growing problem? This hole we keep digging deeper? Probably not. At least not in our lifetime. But maybe we can proceed more cautiously and realize that even imaginary bank accounts run out.

Rangel is Unethical

The blog post I chose to critique is from the blog site, My Direct Democracy. The title of the post was More Dems Abandon Rangel and it is about how many Democrat congressman are calling out Rangel to resign for his lack of ethics in office. The post does not give very much background information so I had to research to find what a couple of his offenses were. Rangel has been accused of paying rent on his apartments that is much lower than the rest of his neighbors because of a relationship with one of the owners, which violates city and state regulations. He also failed to report the income he made from renting out a villa he owns and many details regarding the sale of one is his homes.

I believe the audience for this blog is most likely democrats. This is partly because My Direct Democracy is a left leaning blog, but also because it seems like democrats would be interested in what is going on with their representatives. The author of the blog post is Nathan Empsall and he has written many insightful blogs for My Direct Democracy. Empsall is glad to hear that other Democrats are speaking up against Rangel, because, in his opinion he should have resigned already. He claims that if Rangel really cared about his constituents he would have stepped down and allowed someone else to go ahead and start doing his job, because he is no longer credible as a representative. He concedes that Rangel does not have any legal reason to yet, because he has not had a trial yet and there is no reason he should be forced to resign without due process. But he still believes that resigning voluntarily would have been better and less selfish of Rangel.

I agree with Empsall, because I personally would not want a person to represent me that was breaking the law while doing it. It is a representative’s responsibility to make out government and country better and Rangel should take responsibility for what he has done.

The Importance of Free Speech

In the article called, Sophomoric speech is free speech, too, I believe the intended audience is students, first of all, because the article immediately jumped out at me as something that related to me and something I am interested in. It is also intended for those who have not allowed or wanted students to express their opinions because they believed they shouldn’t be allowed to. The author of this article is Ken Paulson and he is the president of the Newseum and First Amendment Center and is a former editor of USA TODAY. The author claims that even when kids are in school they still have the right to free speech under the Bill of Rights, which includes expressing their opinion of their teacher or their school using the internet. His main evidence for this claim was a Supreme Court case where the court said that public school students were allowed to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, because it was their First Amendment right to do so. His logic is one that follows the law as it was written and as it applies to everyone. If the students make any threats or say anything illegal that is when they should be punished by the law or the school. If that is not the case then the punishment should be left to the parents. I agree with the author, because I believe that as Americans we have the right to express ourselves, even if we are still in school. If there is a teacher that is not doing their job, students should be able to complain about it. In my opinion, free speech should always be upheld because it is a very important constitutional right, unless there is some other very important, compelling governmental interest.

Could Republicans Take the House? The White House would like you to think so.

.... is the title of an interesting article I read on Slate.com. It was basically an analysis of why Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary, would admit that there was a possibility that the Republicans could take the majority of the House of Representatives in the upcoming election. John Dickerson, the author of the article, believes that he said it as a White House political strategy. Obama has said at many speaking events that the Republicans will get rid of the newly passed health care bill and bring the country into an even worse economic state that it is now. Dickerson believes that Obama really just wants to bring out the fear in fellow Democrats and in the voters who support his agenda in order to increase their motivation. Dickerson argues that the White House is bringing up losing the majority now also, so that if the Republicans do indeed win a lot of the seats in the house, but not the majority, the media and the public will not see it as a "huge defeat for the president."

I think this is a very worthwhile and interesting article to read, because it gives insight into political strategy that most people would not think about. The full article is posted on the link below.

http://www.slate.com/id/2260237/