The Democrats' "New Strategy"

The Democratic Plan That is Not Very Democratic

     Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if any party is "desperate", it's the Democrats. Trump's arrival and the new session of congress really have Democrats in a bind; being the minority party in both the executive and legislative branch of government is quite difficult. However, they seem to have a plan, and its not something anyone would have expected. Republicans in congress and Trump tend to disagree on bills and policies that don't lean too far into the right-wing conservative territory. When the Republican party in senate is forced to choose party alignment over Trumps wishes, that's when the Democrats swoop in for the votes. That's right, the Democrats' strategy is to vote in approval for Republican bills that the Republican party does not like, usually because the bill is actually rather moderate.

     The Republican party disagrees with Trump's positive views on topics such as spending more on roads, bridges, and rails, punishing American jobs that move overseas, and making paid maternity leave mandatory. You know what party supports these causes? Democrats. This alignment gives the Democratic party more immediate power in congress. This is a desperate attempt to win back white, working class voters who switched to the Republican party because of Trump. I see potential for a realignment of parties, spearheaded by the Democratic party themselves.

should college be free?

no one really wants to pay for anything. especially college because it is so expensive. well if everyone were to have free college it may have a negative effect on the economy. in new York they want to make public state colleges free for anyone who comes from a family who makes 125000$ or less. but for all the people who come from families who make more money will end up paying more than they would have paid if this does not go through. the budget they made did not take many things into account. if all these students start going to school there will be a lot more people and they will need to pay for more professors and other school supplies. new York is already more generous than most states in the first place. they are just taking the next step. if they could figure out how to set everything up so that everything will work out perfectly it could be the next step to making all college in America free. this is a very hard challenge to get the money to fund this though and is going to take a while to figure and we should not rush it. the government should figure out the best way to help everyone.

trumps joint session

 during his first ever joint session trump tried to appeal to all of the working American's. one of trumps main thing are creating jobs and "making America great again". trump claimed that the government polices have not been severing the American people well. he had many important things he had to say. such as immigration witch is also something trump feels strong for. he wants to change everything to become more strict. he wants to have more skilled worker to be in charge of the process. he also touched on Obama care, unlike most republicans he just does not want to repeal it he want to change it to make it better for all Americans. trump wants to do a lot of tax reform. trump believes that everything is over regulated and he wants to change it. he also brought up many free trading partners, and he says they are taking advantage of us Americans.

Intro

The Truth of the College Price Tag

If You Want A Degree, It's Going To Cost You

     Oh, the college education. When I think of the means of getting a degree and the best four years of any educated man's life, college comes to mind. When I think of one of the biggest cash grabs to plague the United States of America, college also comes to mind. Higher education is not cheap by any means. One may be better off selling their soul to some higher being just to pay tuition — not including housing costs of course.

     But why is the price of spending four or more years learning semi-relevant stuff so incredibly high? Well, before we get to that, lets discuss just how high these costs are. Compared to about 35 years ago, college tuition has nearly doubled in price to an average of $9,139, and it is still increasing. "Well Hugh Mungus, isn't that huge price tag due to inflation"? Ha, no, it's not. In fact, tuition has risen at a much higher rate than inflation. To add, in 1980, state funding for college had already increased by 390 percent from 11.1 billion to 48.2 billion within the previous 20 years. So what's the deal with the weighty price tag? Despite the important positions professors have in educating young college minds, the money is not really going into their pockets. Instead, it is going into the pockets of the enormous amount of University administrators that colleges seem to have "picked up" in the past 30-40 years. With the information Campos gives in the article, it's a 221 percent increase from 3,800 dollars to 12,183 in the California Polytechnic University alone. That's not all, many more high-ranking university administrators are making seven digit salaries from the tuition of students, and for no significant reason. As Campos states, there is no truly valid argument to defend this trend, and certainly no "alternative facts" to justify it. As for how to fix it, we need policies to establish limits on the amount and salary of administrative staff, but it seems like that time is not coming any time soon. So students, and most likely the children of said students, will continue to pay large amounts of cold, hard cash to earn a degree and hopefully get a moderately satisfying job.

The Political Will to Change

Why America Can't Quit the Drug War

After 45 years, it has been estimated that over $1 trillion was thrown into a pit, covered in gasoline and then lit on fire by the government in the name of War on Drugs, but no matter how much money is put into it nothing will change as long as America lacks the political will to change its failure of a drug policy. In March, even the commander in chief of the War on Drugs admitted he messed up and was walking in circles for the past years. Admitting your mistakes is the first step into actually solving them. According to the National Prescription Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit in Atlanta, the overdose epidemic kills 30,000 Americans per year. That a lot more than how many people die to a shark per year, the most deaths reported by sharks per year is like 10 or something low like that. Our former president Obama has already started making reforms for our failed drug policy. He created the following three policies to help with this change, First, health insurers must now cover drug treatment as a requirement of Obamacare. Second, draconian drug sentences have been scaled back, helping to reduce the number of federal drug prisoners by more than 15 percent. Third, over the screams of prohibitionists in its ranks, the White House is allowing marijuana's march out of the black market, also known as legalization of weed for "medicinal use", it's a start at least and we must start somewhere so Obama's three policies are much better than nothing being done at all and resulting in more money being burned away for this imaginary war.

Changing Incarceration Rates

The Incarceration Tables are Turning!

When I think of America's prison system, I need think of only one word: incarceration. For decades, the United States practically made sport of the mass incarceration of minorities, especially the black minority. However, it seems like the tables are turning! Keith Humphreys states that according to his study, the United States incarceration rates have been steadily dropping for six years. What is even more astonishing is that African Americans are enjoying less incarceration, and whites are not-so-much-enjoying more incarceration. There are many reasons why this could be. Professor John Pfaff believes that law enforcement is softening up in urban areas and cracking down in rural areas. Professor Joan Petersilia believes that sex offenders are the new hot topic of law enforcement, supported by the fact that there is a larger proportion of white inmates who have been committed of sex crimes compared to black inmates. Whatever the reason, this trend is an unexpected one that may alter America's prison system entirely, and may affect other issues in society like racism and prejudice.

Save the Kittens and Puppers

Clear the Shelters

Welcome to the second blog of my weekly posts. This week I will be focusing on a different topic that needs your attention.You may think of cats and dogs as just pets but they are much more than that, a cat or dog can be your best friend and companion for their entire life. There are over thousands of animals in our area who are in great need of a home. This is an issue we can fix easily just as NBC10 has attempted with much success with their "Clear the Shelter" Day on August 15, 2015. During that day NBC10 partnered with 30 area animal shelters and waived all adoption fees so others can be attracted and encouraged to adopt through a shelter. However, there is still a problem with the adoption of animals as only 20 percent of people who adopt do it from a shelter. The other 80 percent chose a pet store which does not benefit abandoned and homeless animals in the streets. Due to the success of "Clear the Shelter" Day I believe we could solve this problem of only 20 percent of pets being adopted from shelters to a much higher percentage if people who are interested in adopting a pet in the near future, and if they aren't thinking of adopting a pet we could use some "convincing" to make them want to adopt a pet, such as a big pit bull.