Special Interest in the Government

     My classmate Meagen McCrory wrote an article about special interest groups and I thought I would take the time to reply to and maybe expand upon my opinion in this matter. She writes saying that special interest groups being associated with our government is wrong. I do agree that when special interest groups are putting their former execs in to political offices which could definitely affect the abilities of their company, it should not be allowed and most definitely looked in to.
     On the other hand, it's not completely bad for these men to be in this type of office. If a man who was an executive to a large company such and Monsanto and is now in office dealing with food and farming regulation, it's a bad thing that he was once associated or may still be associated with his former company, but I'd rather him working a department of government he's familiar with, rather than him working in the department of homeland security where he has no prior experience.

 Don’t get me wrong here, I am not saying at all that we should, or even that it’s possible, to get rid of special interest groups and lobbyists.  What I would really like to see happen is a more stringent regulation on how the Iron Triangle interacts and affects our nations policies.  I want more accountability and less ability for such conflict of interests to happen between our government and corporations.

     I completely agree with this statement. It is the epitome of my view on this subject. I believe there should be some very strict regulations on people who have associations with firms in their field. In this case it is my opinion that the man should not be able to accept any financial aid from his past affiliates without first going through some sort of approval process.
     Meagan writes the article very well and definitely gets her point across. The formatting on her blog is better than that of any of my peers, who's blogs I've looked at. Very nicely written work.

Honesty in the Government

In my last post about our government I discussed the efficiency of the U.S. systems, but in light of my last post about honesty in the government, I thought I would take a second to talk about dishonesty in the government as well. Honestly, regardless of which side of the political line you're on, there's a huge amount of dishonesty. Republicans, Libertarians, or Democrats alike, they're almost always dishonest about something.

During the recent election, many lies were thrown across the board by both sides, here's just a few examples of some of the lies:

The American automobile industry has come roaring back…So now I want to say what we did with the auto industry, we can do it in manufacturing across America. Let’s make sure advanced, high-tech manufacturing jobs take root here, not in China. And that means supporting investment here. Governor Romney … invested in companies that were called ‘pioneers’ of outsourcing. I don’t want to outsource. I want to insource. - Barack Obama

He just throws out this statement with no backing. Whether or not Romney invested in these companies, doesn't mean he did it knowing they were trying to ship jobs over-seas. Men like Mitt Romney are more than likely to have someone who recommends these financial decisions to him. Especially in the midst of trying to win an election, he most likely had no time for doing research in to these companies.

On the other side there's lies coming from Romney that were quickly debunked.

Romney had said that Jeep was moving its production to China in an attempt to make them look bad, in which they quickly rebutted saying he was completely wrong. This just proves hat from both sides of the fight, there are lies.

It's just despicable to me that they just lie like that. I think that as our political leaders, it is their duty to speak the truth, and if not, they should face some sort of punishment. Maybe not jail time, or something harsh like that, but maybe a fine or suspension for dishonest acts. If our president can be held responsible for his actions, why shouldn't all of our government officials be held responsible?

 

Honesty really IS the best policy.

I'm writing in response to a classmate (Ashley Bright) who's blog post can be for here: Honesty is the Best Policy. I think her article was very well written and professional, and I completely agree with her. Regardless of your political views it is 100% necessary that you are honest in matters such as these.
It's especially despicable that our nations leaders are the ones who are spreading these lies... The fact that they do it for their own personal gain more than for the gain of their constituents is especially disheartening. I'm utterly disgusted in the fact that people who we look to for decisions that affect all of us and the way we live our every day lives. It's just gross.
Partisanship should play no role in the fact that they're trying to make decisions on a daily basis which affect everyone under them. It is honestly stupid that people who are paid to speak for a group are not speaking for a group, but instead for themselves...

Over-view and review of our Government

The American government is one that has been around for hundreds of years, and despite our problems and struggles, as a country we've done a good job of staying united for the most part. I think that our systems could definitely use some revamping, upgrading, and improvement, but we have a strong system. The main problem with our system is that it's out-dated and inefficient. We've been running essentially the same system for a few hundred years, and over time some traditional methods are just no longer feasible.
Our government officials could also use some refreshment. Our officials are corrupt, over-paid, slow workers. Not that they don't work hard and get the job done, but they could definitely use some boost to improve efficiency. May of the things that go through congress take much longer than they ought to. I blame this on the partisanship that we have from the members that hold office. I believe that the Representative should do just that, represent. They should be less concerned with politics and more concerned with getting the voices of their constituency heard.
Many of the problems with the efficiency in our country is that we still use old filing systems and almost all of our records are on paper, then have to be manually entered in to a computer database. In my opinion we should be almost completely moved to computerization of our record keeping. This means when someone applies for something such as a license they do it on the computer and it's immediately and automatically put in to our record system. Any government which has to keep records of over 300 million people such as ourselves, should be much more automated and efficient than it currently is.

Revieweing "Some of the nation's leading executives drop opposition to boosting taxes on wealthiest Americans"

In the article "Some of the nation's leading executives drop opposition to boosting taxes on wealthiest Americans" the author Meteor Blades explains how after continuing amounts of pressure are put on the upper class, some of them are giving in to demands for higher taxes. Many of them are stating to see that they really don't have very many good reasons for why they aren't paying higher taxes. The author does a great job of using topic oriented language that helps explain his point very well. In my opinion the authors target audience is clearly anyone interested in taxing or not taxing the upper class more. He appeals to both democrats and republicans in this article saying that both can work together to find this compromise. Democrats and Republicans alike are giving in to the demands therefor they should be able to come to a consensus. They say that the idea of raising their taxes could lessen the burden of the government and could lead to corporate taxes being lower, therefor they're willing to pay a slightly higher tax on their part. The author explained the over-all meaning of the article well and got his point across. The author is a very credible and long time blogger for the daily kos. He is actually named Timothy Lange and has over 6000 published blog posts. His argument that many of the "top 2%" are cracking under the pressure is brought up with much evidence, such as direct quotes from some of the people who are now willing to pay higher taxes.

In Search of Answers from Mitt Romney

In the article, the author is somewhat attacking Mitt Romney for different points he made during the political debate. He breaks up very nicely the “lies”(points) that Mitt Romney made against some of the policies that the president supports. In my opinion he presented his points correctly, but is wrong in thinking that Romney is “attacking” the president. I think it seems like an attack from one side to the other, but really, it was a debate and he is supposed to bring up points about what the president has done or has said he will do. Romney presented his points during the debate in a calm manner like he was expected to and did not directly attack the president, but disputed his position. The author of the editorial seems to be more of a leftist considering the key words he used to start sentences about Mitt Romney. He says things such as “attacked” or “outright lie.” Whether or not what Mitt Romney said was a lie, there’s no need to put such negative connotations to Romney, and these things are only said to sway sympathy toward the president. I don’t directly agree or disagree with the author about who is a liar and what not, but I don’t agree with him specifically attacked one side just because he agrees with the other. He’s not debating Mitt Romney’s points, he’s making them look foolish and rude. The article’s over-all format and presentation are very good, and are presented in an orderly fashion. I’m not sure of the author’s credibility, other than the fact that he wrote an article the New York times thought good enough to publish.

Republicans are hurting themselves

Huffington post article: the GOP could be hurting itself.

With how close the election is this year, with most polls coming out to anywhere between 5% in either direction, someone like this man who can sway the voters who follow him in either direction could have a drastic change in who becomes president this year. This article shows a man who is a member of the GOP, but could possibly throw the entire election for his state in the direction of Obama if he chooses. It’s a pretty controversial thing to have an almost undecided state swayed by a few percent in a certain direction. This could directly influence who wins the election this November, and it is well worth the read to stay informed.

I just thought this was interesting.

I saw this posted online and I thought it was very interesting and relevant to this class.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

Test.

Test post, please ignore.