Thought the course of this class I have learned a thing or two that I did not know about our government. This blog has allowed me to chronicle the things I have learned with different articles and editorials and comments from other classmates. After writing about others peoples points of view I am going to give you mine.
For the past almost 10 years our economy has gone down hill. Gas prices and the cost of living have gone up while the job market and pay have gone down. It has been a struggle finding a balance for the two. President Obama promised change when he was running for office and we got change all right… I just don’t think it was in a good way. The Government was having such a struggle balancing out the budget this year they almost had to shut down! When the Government shuts down all non essential things cease. Things like the fire department and police will still be up and running but all other federal jobs stop functioning like national parks IRS. This threatened the jobs of about 800,000 people. They would be forced to take unpaid leave until things were back in working order. The military would still be working and earning wages but when they received checks would be a different story. The Republicans were holding up the bill that would allow the federal government to be funded and things to run as normal. Luckily at the last minuet things were passed and we avoided a shut down.
With all the things up on the list for the budget some things we could have done without and money could have been shifted around to better fund other things. It seems the talk of the town these days always has to do with money. The government controls lots of other things in our lives but people only seem to care about money and the gas prices. I can’t say I blame them. You pay an arm and a leg for gas already and the price just keeps climbing! Maybe the government should make a shift and learn to be less dependant on oil from other countries so people can actually afford to drive to work. This shift in priorities has everyone thinking backwards.
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It’s easy to blame someone else
Kaley D, another one of my upstanding classmates, wrote an article this week about her views on the economy and how much she has learned in this US Government course. Her article is titled “Government Shut Down”, located in her Blogspot “Kaley D's Take on Government”.
While I agree with a lot of what she writes, such as our country’s dependency on oil, climbing gas prices and our economy reaching near rock bottom, I must evaluate some of her views in the government’s control in many aspects of our lives.
In her article, she mentions how President Obama made a lot of promises while campaigning and his shortcomings that dragged our country to a recession and a near government shut down. It is imperative to emphasize that when a presidential candidate is campaigning, he/she has to address all important issues and communicate what his/her actions would be to revert the problem. The people, who get carried away with the promises, and are politically unsophisticated, should know that no man/woman alone can make these changes. We live in a democratic country, and not in a Dictatorship or Totalitarian regime. The people should know there is a process for the proposed changes and that a lot of politics goes on to pass a bill in our bi-partisan structure.
The government near shut down did not happen because the politicians could not agree on a budget. All of them agree the government needs to cut expenditures, and what’s superfluous spending. The near shut down happened because one of the parties decided to have a power trip with the numbers of seats they have in the House and make a political statement by holding the government hostage, and threatening the livelihood of the people (like she mentions about federal employee furlough) if they did not get their wishes of cutting fund for Planned Parenthood, and the repeal of the Obama Health Care Bill.
Regarding Kayley’s statement that the talk of the town is now money, it’s always been about money. While the government needs to cut some of its costs, it passes out a lot of money in entitlement programs, like Welfare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, School Lunches, WIC, etc… supposed to help the needy and disadvantaged. The recipients of these programs, though, a lot of times are not needy or disadvantaged and take a lot of advantage of the loopholes, or even settle their lifestyles to stay eligible to receive payments.
As citizens, it is important to be able to point out and speak up about our government deficiencies, but we cannot forget that the people have some responsibility making this country work as well.
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