reply to Barack Obama already taking charge

Barack Obama does seem like the better President, though most everyone I know that has voted has voted for McCain so naturally from listening to what they have told me I was going for McCain too, although I did not vote. But after reading this article and reading what Obama's plans are for our country I agree that he is the better President and agree he should have the opportunity to start building our nation back up as soon as now instead of waiting til January and letting more problems occur because Bush is not doing anything.

Maxing Out the National Debt Clock

Times Square's National Debt Clock that has been tallying up the numbers for what the U.S. Government has owed since 1989 is finally running out of spaces. The national debt is currently 10.2 trillion dollars. The digital dollar sign was eliminated to make room for an extra digit in September 2008. Completion for the new clock that will allow room for quadrillion dollars of debt is greatly anticipated in the early year of 2009. Times Square's National Debt Clock was created in 1989 by Manhattan real estate developer Seymour Durst to inform the public about the nation's national debt which was 2.7 trillion dollars back then. Seymour died in 1995, and the clock is now owned by his son, Douglas Durst. According to the Treasury, the national debt has grown more than 500 billion dollars each year since the year 2003.
This is not the first time the clock has experienced technical difficulties. In 1991, Durst had to remove and revamp the clock so it could keep pace with the national debt's $13,000-per-second increase. Before Durst's death the amount began accumulating so fast that the last seven digits became totally illegible. At one point, the surge actually crashed the computer that calculates the billboard's numbers. A historic moment in U.S. history — the national debt was shrinking because the clock wasn't built to count backwards, Durst pulled the plug. Just two years later, following the burst of the dot-com bubble and the economic fall-out of 9/11, he turned it back on. The billboard has ticked forward ever since. Today, it hangs near the entrance of the city's IRS office.

I have posted this commentary to the post "The ideal presidential election...or so I thought" on A Smorgasbord of Politics:

I think this blog post is well written and very thoughtful and i agree one hundred percent with this post. This year was the first presidential election I was eligible to vote in also, and have not been as politically involved until this year either. And I agree that Americans are not focusing on the issues that really matter but simply voting because if race and color. Everyone I kno was going for McCain because he cared more about our country than Obama. Yes this election did not give very suitable choices but everyone could see that McCain would have been the better candidate for our nation. And I agree with an anonymous election I think it would be a good idea.

unfair tax laws

Repealing the estate tax is unfair to middle-income taxpayers. Eliminating the estate tax gives a tremendous tax break to the heirs of the very wealthy Americans. None of us should be naïve enough to think that another tax won’t be passed to replace the missing revenue nor should we doubt that the weight of that new tax will fall, as usual, on the middle class. In 2009, any estate worth less than $3.5 million will be passed on to heirs and heiresses estate-tax free. How is that fair to the other classes? Congress should pass a tax law that is the same for EVERYONE not higher for one class and lower for another. In 2001, the Bush Administration and some of the richest families in America pushed to enact a law that has lowered the tax and will eliminate it entirely in 2010. However, to get around Senate rules, the entire law sunsets in 2011 when the tax will theoretically return to 2001 levels. As a result, Congress will have to pass a new estate tax law, most likely next year. A new estate tax law will have to be passed in 2009. A solution would be to write to ensure tax fairness—not to extend unfair tax cuts for the rich. Barack Obama proposes freezing the estate tax at 2009 levels: a 45 percent tax rate on estates valued at more than $3.5 million. Not that i'm in the higher class rank, but I think taxes should be fair to everyone because you can't help how much money you make, some people get lucky, but that doesn't mean just because they have more money their taxes should be higher. I believe in fairness for all.

Obama's tax plan for Joe "the plumber"

This blog is about Obama's new tax plan. How the people, who make $250,000 or more a year, will have their taxes raised. Joe Wurzelbacher, a.k.a joe "the plumber", is questioned about how much his income is, personally I think it is rude to ask joe what his income is, however, he tells the world it is not nearly as much as $250,000. Obama's plan is to lower the taxes on lower/middle class people and raise it for the higher class who make $250,000 or more a year. Joe, who does not make high enough to have to worry about being taxed higher, wants to purchase the plumbing business for $250,000 to $280,000 which then would cause him to have to pay higher on his taxes. Joe is asked if he is in the category of Obama's tax plan and he responds not presently, then asks so he's going to do that now for people who make $250,000 a year. When's he going to decide that $100,000 is too much? I mean, you know, you're on a slippery slope here. You vote on somebody who decides that $250,000 and you're rich? And $100,000 and you're rich? I mean, where does it end? You know, that's -- people got to ask that question." The intended audience in this blog is everyone. Especially the higher class people needs to pay attention to Obama's tax plan considering it concerns them more because they would be the ones being taxed more. The argument is basically between Obama and his tax plan and Joe and his income tax. I do'nt disagree on the lowering tax for the lower class but i am not sure if it is fair to raise the tax for the higher class just because they make more money.

Are you smarter than a vice president?

In this editorial, the author writes about the debate to encourage votors to watch it,especially the undecided ones, and realize that Palin is not ready for the high national office. I, however, disagree with the author. I think instead of putting down Palin he should encourage the votors to give her a chance before telling everone she will mess up. I think it would be cool to have a woman as vice president since it would probably be a while before theres a woman president. The author is arguing the debate between Sarah Palin and Senator Joe Biden. He starts off describing Sen. Joe Biden with great credibility and describes Sarah Palin as a "stumbling, inarticulate vice presidential candidate." He does not even wait and give her the chance to mess up before he already starts saying that she will cuz he believes she is not ready. I say give her a chance to try to prove you wrong before you judge who is the better. If Palin holds her own against Biden then she could recover ground her campaign had lost. I guess that would be where the author got his view point that Palin is not ready for the national office but everyone deserves a second chance to recover from their mistakes. No country has seen her in action yet only in a few press interviews and the jokes television has turned her in. Maybe she has learned from mistakes from those media mess ups and is coming around. Even Biden has his own "flubs" telling people that Obama is not ready for presidency when he himself has not even been made vice president yet. If he gets it. The author has plenty of evidence and probably support from votors that Palin is not made for vice presidency but I still think she deserves another chance to change the votors' minds, who knows she might surprise you.

McCain has youth votes

As Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin make their first campaign visit to Green Bay, thousands are lining up outside, anxious to see their candidates in person. According to one of the young supporters, McCain and the republican Party do not get a lot of youth support. Brandon Baxter believes that the Democrats get all the youth support and wants people to see that the youth do care. Another young voter, Steven Lacy, is trying to show that McCain has youth votes too by supporting his views about what he has to say about the war and how the surge is working. I think this article would be worth reading if you are a young voter who supports McCain because apparently he does not get that many young votes and it's good to have younger voters participating. I found an article about McCain and his youth votes

Chris Bell for Texas Governor

Chris Bell is running for the Texas Senate in the Gulf Coast’s District 17 because it's an incredible opportunity to make progress on the issues he cares about the most: public school education, access to health care and ethics reform.
He has been a leader since his days on the Houston City Council and in Congress. Now his experience can work for us in the State Legislature. As your senator, Chris will make sure Texas invests in our future by giving our public schools the resources they need to provide our children with a rigorous and useful education. He will work to end the state's over-reliance on high-stakes standardized testing. I would put my vote towards Chris Bell because i agree that getting the children ready for college should be more important than getting them ready to take another standardized test. Government can't solve every problem, but it should never make a problem worse. That's what has happened with children's health care in Texas. Chris believes the extraordinarily high number of uninsured children in Texas is a moral crisis that should be met head-on. If we are going to change the way business is conducted in Austin, we are going to have to hold our elected officials to a higher standard and ensure that their actions are transparent and accountable to all Texans. That's why Chris supports campaign finance reform and stricter enforcement of ethics rules.

University of Texas, government reach deal on border fence

A planned fence along the U.S.-Mexican border will no longer cut off a large chunk of a South Texas university, according to an agreement reached by the school and the federal government. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, who had ordered the University of Texas at Brownsville and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to work on a compromise, ordered that the deal be submitted in writing by Tuesday after accepting it in principle Thursday. Under the university's agreement, the government will not condemn any university land and will not build a fence on campus. I agree that it was a good idea to take down a fence that was blocking off parts of the campus and preventing future expansion. In exchange to the agreement, the school will improve an existing fence that is in disrepair so that it will stand 10 feet tall next to the levee that runs north of the campus golf course. The university will also invest in additional cameras and allow the Border Patrol to install its cameras and sensors on the fence.

Government Lobbyists Paid with Tax Dollars

Are you aware that governmental entities use our tax dollars to hire lobbyists to promote the growth of government and oppose tax limitations? They do this despite the fact that there are laws on the books in Texas which prohibit this activity. There are no penalties for violating these laws. The Texas Associations of Counties which is funded by taxpayer dollars from county governments spent about $250,000 for 15 lobbyists during the 79th Texas Legislative Session. During the same session, 541 governmental entities spent $52.6 million tax dollars to hire lobbyists to promote government programs in Texas. These entities included city and county governments, school districts, and utility and water districts. Do you think that these lobbyists were paid to promote a decrease in the tax burden on the citizens and a limit on the growth of government? Most productive taxpaying citizens support the limitation on the growth of government by limiting the tax revenues. Do you want your tax dollars spent on lobbyists to oppose this aim? The free enterprise system has produced the business growth that has made Texas the economic force that it is today. Governments do not create wealth for society rather they extract wealth from the productive.

Texas: Government Pays to Refurbish Church

In El Paso, the government is paying for a large refurbishing project on a 113-year-old Catholic church. Nothing structural is being done just plasters and layers of new paint. Apparently the church didn't want to have the congregation pay for it, so all tax payers have to foot the bill to make a Catholic church look pretty. most residents who attend the church were grateful that the government used taxpayer money to fix it up, however the residents who do not attend the church are not as happy about the government using their taxpaying money to make a church that they don't attend look pretty. I wouldn't be too happy with my taxpaying money going towards a church i don't attend either. I think it's good to spruce up a church that old so it can stand even longer but I think the government should find other ways of coming up with the money to do that. The church committee could even come up with a fund raiser or something to fund the church instead of using people's hard earned tax money.

Oil and gas refinery worker sues company for unsafe plant conditions

Oil and gas refinery worker of twenty years, Jose Herrera, was scorched with 550-degree crude oil over 1/3 of his body when a pipe attached to equipment he was working on ruptured. The oil had sprayed over his face, neck, hands and legs while he was harnessed to a scaffolding and couldn't move out of the way. He was left disabled. Herrera and other workers were fronted with a legal and political battle at the state Capitol about wether they should be able to sue a workcite owner they believe to be negligent. Herrera also believes that the refinery owner should be held accountable for unsafe plant conditions that endanger workers. Late this week, Herrera sued Citgo, its parent corporation and another company for what he claims to be their mistakes that caused his injury. Personally, I think that Herrera and the other workers should sue the company for a dangerous work environment. Herrera had been working at the BP Plant in Texas City weeks before an explosion occured killing fifteen. Companies like these should really pay attention to the dangers in their working area because accidents like these occur often seriously injuring and killing multiple people.