A Flat Tax Rate

In my classmate’s blog, “A Simple and Flat Tax”, she goes into detail about how the United States should adopt a flat tax rate. While she makes many good points to argue her case and I agree with her that we do need a tax reform, I do not think the U.S. should use this system of taxation.

While the thought of not having to deal with a pain-in-the-butt tax return every year and despite the success other countries have had with using a flat tax rate, the distribution of wealth in the U.S. is too uneven for us to use it. I think it would be unfair for everyone to pay the same amount of money in taxes when only a select few hold most of the wealth in the country. The government also collects a lot of money from the taxes they get from the wealthy. If they didn’t get those taxes anymore, it would cut out a lot of the money the government collects and less money going out into the public for community programs and such.

 What would happen to the IRS if we used a flat tax rate also? Or the companies and individuals who make a living out of helping people complete their tax returns? Most likely they would become unneeded, forcing people out of jobs. We already have a need for more jobs here in the U.S. and this could just add to an already big problem. 

While I can see the benefits of using a flat tax rate system, I don’t think it is something that would benefit the middle and lower class here in the U.S.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/pros-cons-flat-tax-4210.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/flat-tax-pros-and-cons.html

Rising Interest Rates on Student Loans

In the article,”Obama: I’ll veto GOP student loan plan” posted April 27, 2012 by Sara Libby, it is stated that President Obama will veto the bill that proposes a stop to the increase in the loan interest rates by taking from the Prevention and Public Health fund. The loan interest rates are going to be doubled this year and Obama is trying to find a way to stop this from happening. The Prevention and Public Health fund is very important health wise, especially for women. It helps in the prevention of cervical and breast cancer by providing screenings to many American women annually among other things. Sara claims that this is “a politically-motivated proposal and not the serious response that the problem facing American college students deserves.”

As a college student, I am completely for preventing the loan interest rates from going up. The fact that they are going to double, going from 3.4% to 6.8%, just astonishes me and I find it very unfair. Students who need to borrow money are most likely low/middle income so why are they trying to increase financial demands on them? So many students already have crazy amounts of debt with the current interest rates and raising them is only going to put people farther into debt. I think it may even possibly make some choose not to attend college or some to discontinue their education. 

I do not disagree with Obama’s decision to veto this bill, though. To decrease funding to the Prevention and Public Health fund is not the way to solve this problem and I don’t think it should have even been proposed. The health of Americans needs to be a top priority and we shouldn’t be looking at taking money from an organization that helps keep Americans healthy in order to decrease loan interest rates. We need to look elsewhere for solutions to this problem.

Other sources I used:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-27/house-republicans-try-to-blunt-student-loan-flap.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress/obama-romney-seek-to-stop-doubling-of-student-loan-interest-rate/2012/04/24/gIQAlX4VfT_story.html

Problems with U.S. education

I couldn't agree more that our education system is in need of a huge makeover. In my classmate's blog, "Crisis of Education in America", the stats listed are horrible. The drop out and illiteracy rate are way too high. I was unaware so many college students would fail to obtain a degree also. I think it is right to say that this is the fault of the public education system for not adequately preparing students for college. I can see the high amount of drops myself just by looking at the parking at the campus I take classes at. When the semester starts, I can barely find parking if I am too early or run late, but by the middle to end of the semester I can easily find parking at almost any time. I disagree, though, that educators should be held accountable for all of our education issues in public schooling. I understand that some are at fault, but there are other reasons our education system isn't doing well.

For one, parents need to get more involved in their children's lives. Many problems can be resolved by the parents knowing what is going on at school and in their child's personal lives. If a child is falling behind, a little extra time working on those certain subjects at home can resolve the problem or a tutor can be hired if necessary. If the parent is involved, they can get problems taken care of right away instead of letting the child get farther and farther behind.

I think another big problem is also the fact that we have summer vacation. I know kids love it, but it is so detrimental to their education, which has a huge impact on the rest of their lives. Children in other countries, such as Japan, go to school all year round and the students are much more advanced than ours. Their school day is also much longer than our kids. If we put more time into our kids education future generations will really benefit, we could move back up in the ranks of education, and get more people getting a college degree!

I agree that we do need to put more money into public education. If we can get more kids educated now, it could costs less for us in the long run and also for future generations of taxpayers. The more educated and successful students become could possibly lead to less people needing government assistance considering the financial benefits that come from getting an education. This could cut a huge expense for the country since so many people participate in government assistance programs. Investing more time and money into educating our kids could do great things for our country's future!

http://www.cincyschoolzone.com/dpp/elementary_middle/elementary_middle_news/5-things-we-can-do-to-improve-public-education

Cutting Back On Government Spending

Our country’s debt is much higher than it should be and if we continue at the rate we are going, things are just going to get much worse. One solution to this problem would be for the government to cut spending, which I think is something we really need to do.

There are many ways the government could cut back on spending and one way to do it would be to cut back on defense spending. We don’t currently have any really serious enemies so what is the need for how much we are putting into defense? I do understand that the military is important and we really do need it, but we are going overboard by spending on top of the line equipment that isn't really a necessity and by having such a huge military when we don't really have the need for it at this point in time.

We also need to stop spending so much money outside of the U.S. We have too much going on here with things like our economy going to crap for us to be offering so much help to other countries. It makes no sense for us to be offering so much help to others when we are clearly in need of help ourselves. We need to focus more on what is going on internally before we go trying to save the world.

Cutting back on government spending does have the potential to do harm to our economy if we go about it the wrong way, such as cutting too much too fast. If we do it the right way, though, and do it slowly we could see more positive outcomes in the future of the U.S. There are also many proposals to cut spending that I disagree with, like cutting back more on education and on health programs. Something has to be done about our national debt, though, and we need to start looking for more effective ways to do it NOW.

Voting rights being threatened?

According to Marian Wright Edelma, the author of this article titled “The American Promise: The Right to Vote”, voting rights of Americans are being threatened. She claims that some of the newly suggested restrictions, including the need to show government issued identification to vote and added steps that must be taken to register to vote, are aimed at excluding many groups of people from the voting process. Some of the proposed new rules make it harder for younger or low income Americans to be able to vote because it is being made harder for them to prove they are U.S. citizens. She says that this is a right that is trying to be taken away from many of us and that this will affect all of us Americans, not just the ones who would be unable to vote due to the restrictions. Since legislation and the courts are now taking a look at these proposals, she says now is a time we need to do something about it. I agree with Edelma that we do need to take action against these restrictions. It is hard enough to get Americans to vote nowadays and by making it harder to vote, it will throw out a lot of people that are actually voting, which is ridiculous. If anything, we should be coming up with ways to make it easier to vote so we can get more people to do so! Americans not voting is already a big problem in our country and these new rules will just add to it if they end up being put into effect.

Birth Control Ban?

In the editorial "How the Catholic Church almost came to accept birth control" posted on February 21, 2012, Elaine Tyler May is addressing the American public with a question as to the reason we are still debating birth control use in the U.S. She is geared towards the audience that is pro birth control. She brings a strong arguement to her case bringing up the fact that at one point in time, the Catholic church almost lifted its ban on birth control use because the use of contraceptives was so widely accepted. She also says there are many well respected Catholics who disagree with the ban. She says they cannot really even enforce their own ban because many Catholics use contraceptives regularly. She does not understand why this is still being fought over when this battle was won a long time ago. I definitely agree with May on this subject. I don't understand why this is even worth being debated when contraception is very important here in the U.S. and its not going to stop being used. We should be focusing on more important matters.

The Increasing Need for Jobs

With many of our soldiers returning home, the need for jobs in the U.S. is increasing more than ever. Sadly, these men and women who have served our country are coming back and not being able to find work. Some are returning and resuming old jobs, meaning the people who were temporarily holding their jobs are becoming unemployed. This is a big problem that we really need to start looking for a solution to. In this article by Alex Mooney posted on CNN on February 3, 2012, President Obama revealed a proposal aimed at creating new jobs for soldiers who are coming home. The 5 billion dollar proposal will focus on creating jobs for returning soldiers in law enforcement, firefighting, in public parks, etc. I think this article is worth reading because the need for jobs is already a problem here and now it is going to get even worse. It is important that we know what is going on in the job market because it has such a big impact on our lives. We need to know that, at the least, some attempts are being made to solve this problem.