Rick Perry's Definition of Improvement

Is cutting our public education budget necessary? Sigh. If Rick Perry was anti-abortion, the least he could do is provide an adequate fund for students in schools.

Rick Perry was recently reported to cut 5 billion dollars from public schools; which include pre-kindergarten, teachers’ pay, art education, universities, colleges, and much more. Apparently, because Texas “is facing a $15 billion revenue shortfall” (Castro. 9, Jan 2011), the cut will spare us for a couple more years. But why reduce the budget on something valuable as education? Students gaining education provide better opportunities for jobs which will benefit the state in the long run (helping others, improving technology, inventing new medicines, etc.). The government should not cut from education; instead, Perry should focus on other sources that have alternatives that can tolerate the budget changes or programs that are useless. For instance, the state should cut state programs that don’t provide any essential services and benefits toward us. This will spare us a great amount of money without cutting down budgets from significant programs. I mean, most of our state budget is involved in arbitrary and unnecessary events… why cut from our crucial possessions?

With the school budget cut, “100,000” children would no longer have access to pre-kindergarten, schools won’t get help building new science labs and would end a program that helps students earn promotion to the next grade” (Castro. 9, Jan 2011). Just perceiving his plan makes me utterly disappointed. I can’t understand how this will benefit children and teenagers, who will soon need careers and maintain families in the future. Education and gaining knowledge is just too important to reduce money from. Jobs equal money; education triggers jobs… without education, it will be difficult for those to earn money. Therefore, we wouldn’t be able to pay an appropriate amount of taxes which will cause a downfall for our state. Rick Perry… think! 

Deserve Death Penalty?

According to my classmate, Logan on an article “Three charged with murder in weekend Round Rock stabbing death”, three teenagers stabbed a man to abduct the drugs he was known to carry. They were arrested for murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He discussed that the choice made was unfair and the teenagers should have received death penalty. Because they purposely took someone’s life away, Logan claims that the murderers should be given the same punishment. Being said, he believes that Texas should use death penalty for various reasons: It will reduce the number of loaded people in jails, it will lower taxes for taxpayers, and those who kill an innocent person deserve it.

However, I disagree with Logan’s commentary. Did you know that paying taxes for death penalty cost MUCH more than paying for life imprisonment? Do you know how many people were executed for crimes they didn't commit?

Death penalty in Texas cost around $2.3 million on tax payers; as for life on parole, the cost is about $20,000 per inmate per year. Texas does continue using death penalty for crucial negligence, which indicates my next elucidation.

If the state system executed a “murderer”, will this provide closure? No. The purpose of death penalty, to many, is to make the victim’s family feel better and provide retribution. However, even after many years of when the execution took place, families continue experiencing devastation and depression of their love ones’ death. Death penalty wouldn’t change the fact that someone got killed… actually, nothing will restore the life of an innocent individual. So why proceed further and kill the murderer if it’s not going to change anything?

Also, immerse your perception on the actual procedure of the execution itself. Texas, with many other states, uses lethal injection to peacefully kill the inmate (if done correctly, of course). Certainly, the procedure is not nearly as painful and agonizing as life imprisonment. When you’re in prison, you’re locked in an ignoble and dark box of concrete. Conveying inmates’ lives in prison also give them a chance to comprehend their mistakes and an opportunity to improve.

And what if the inmate is innocent? It takes many years to actually confirm the guilt/ innocence of a person. Therefore, if you kill the inmate through execution and then discovered he was innocent, what can you do? People make mistakes. Life imprisonment allows the system to reverse those mistakes.

Life imprisonment can be beneficial for our state and citizens: lowering tax dollars, low risk of mistakes on the system, secured prisons, and suffering and guilt of the inmates. Therefore, death penalty is unnecessary and shouldn’t be used in Texas. 

Sonogram Required for Abortion?

Our Texas governor, Rick Perry, has established some deliberating adjustments this year. For one, he approved the sonogram bill that requires women to accomplish an ultrasound before having an abortion. What astonished me was the fact that the sonogram was a forced action. Will this affect the rights of abortion towards women? What if they choose not to involve with the interactions of perceiving the fetus’s beating heart and moving limbs?

The main purpose of the abortion process is to prevent a life to evolve, and if there’s a possibility of an unstable environment, the child will suffer. If you think about it, the child may agonize through poverty, increasing the governor’s budget and society taxes for child support (along with many other children living through poverty). I’m not sure how this will benefit the governor in any way. This bill does take control of women’s choices, I believe. It seems as a subliminal interpretation forced upon to make them think twice about their decisions.

Looking at the extent, this sonogram bill influenced the dictation and control of women’s rights. Women didn’t fight long and hard for their freedom to be involved in such a contemptible and shameful event. As long as they acknowledge the appropriate time and limited fetus growth to have an abortion, I don’t see the purpose for the ultrasound. The sonogram just manipulates individuals to feel guilty, as in those charity or donation commercials where they display an unfortunate puppy.
These concealed communications Rick Perry is providing just compel me to feel that our state cannot rely on him for honesty and hopes for improvement. It sickens me that Perry would engage into an issue that is not corrupted.

Rick Perry and The State Budget

According to the Editorial Board, Rick Perry had made some great changes to the state of Texas. He managed to cut 15 billion dollars from the state’s budget without raising taxes, cut 4 billion dollars from public education, have women sign a sonogram before having an abortion, and voters must have a valid photo identification when he or she votes. Although the improvements seem a success, some people don’t agree to it. On the “cutting education budge”, Linda Bridge, president of Texas American Federation of Teachers, believe that this cut will lead to increasing unemployment of teachers and “abandonment of vital services to ensure students succeed”. However, the author respect Rick Perry’s decision and believes that “Perry shouldn’t be underestimated”.

I appreciate that he’s not raising taxes and these changes will surely benefit the higher (and middle) class individuals, but the big question is: how will this affect the poor? Being a college student, I know that these cuts will cause many students on financial aid to be higher in debt. A friend of mine, who works hard and effortful in school, was offered a full scholarship to her university last year. As for right now, her scholarship was cut in half and she misunderstood the action. She told me (and I quote), “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I should do”. It’s sorrow to perceive a negative outcome of her educational fund. There are other students like her that deserves a higher educational budget…but because of Perry’s decision, they’ll likely be in debt in the future. I just hope these changes Rick Perry has done to Texas will benefit our state in a more general sense.

"The Blind Response"

Governor Rick Perry has invited the Texas nation to gather, pray, and fast in Houston, Texas for America’s struggle. The purpose was to honor God spiritually (according to the bible) and hope for a positive response towards our country. However, author Rachel Farris (from her blog, Mean Rachel) find Perry’s speech arbitrary and ridiculous due to the fact that starvation and praying won’t provide a higher benefit. The only way we can improve our country is to work for it; “it is opening your eyes and helping those you can.” (Rachel Farris. Mean Rachel. 07 June 2011, <http://www.meanrachel.com/2011/06/blind-response.html>) Rachel’s controversy allows Texans to decide whether the praying/fasting nonsense will actually benefit America… obviously, her argument says otherwise.

I completely agree with her thoughts. The best way to stabilize this apparatus is to actually work for it. Because I’m agnostic, I don’t believe in the bible, God’s affect on billions of individuals, and serendipity of success. In order to achieve in something (that being reducing our country’s crisis), we have to recognize our problems and discover ways to take critical steps to reach our goals. If our issues only relied on our hopes and dreams, nothing will get done. This is why individuals go to school, work late hours on jobs, teach young children to read and do math problems, etc…to accomplish something that benefit us and our surroundings. It’s the state governor’s obligation to provide what’s best for our nation and to work with us to improve significant issues. Perry needs to realize that the “prayer for our nation in crisis” is just farcical in many ways. We have to stop dreaming and continue using our knowledge and passion to create prosperity.

Stage 2

Hello fellow classmates. Think about what we all have in common. Okay… yes, we all are in the same government class but acknowledge as to why we’re in this class, why we’re in college, what do we want?

Students that desire to attend college want a better future, extend their education, and an éclat of achievement. But what’s stopping them? You guessed it, money!

The goal of Texas Legislature among students is to mollify the tension between financial needs and higher education by creating TEXAS Grants. According to the article, The Texas Tribune, it was discovered that this program “helped more than 300,000 students” (http://www.texastribune.org/texas-legislature/82nd-legislative-session/texas-students-wait-for-word-on-college-grants/). However, TEXAS Grants has yet to finance the money, which was quite peculiar.

Money shouldn’t block the path of students’ dreams of success, especially when they didn’t choose to be financially in debt. In this article, you’ll be able to perceive a couple of students (you may relate to) discussing their struggles in attending a four year college to make their dreams into a reality. I found this article fascinating and correlate to my educational decisions.