Spending Cuts, Raise Revenue, Economic Growth

About 40% of the US federal budget is currently borrowed. That’s crazy, right? We actually had a surplus under Bill Clinton. We didn’t borrow anything for the last four years of Bill Clinton’s administration. We need to get back to that. Well, there’s 3 ways to close that deficit.

1.       Spending Cuts

2.       Raise Revenue

3.       Economic Growth

SPENDING CUTS

Let’s first look at cutting spending. A lot of people feel like President Obama has exponentially increased federal spending when in fact under President Obama spending has risen at the lowest rate since the 1950s.

So far under Obama spending has risen by 1.4%. This is significantly lowers then any president since Dwight Eisenhower and in comparison to Bush’s 2^nd term of 8.1% is much lower. But this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The Federal budget is not like a family budget. Some targeted spending leads to more economic growth and some just becomes wasteful and adds to our deficit.  In contrast to a family budget sometimes you have to spend money to make money. So, the spending cuts should not all be considered a zero sum game. In some cases when we make cuts to the federal budget we end up losing more economic growth then the cuts are worth. In turn we can actually make the budget deficit bigger by cutting spending to things that will create economic growth and tax revenues.

Of course Democrats as well as Republicans want a balanced budget but cuts alone will not do it. And if we cut investments in our society that actually have an economic benefit to our country then we actually make the deficit larger. We do need to make targeted cuts but we also need targeted deficit spending so we can continue to invest in our society help our economy grow.

RAISING REVENUES

This means raising taxes. Of course no one wants to pay higher taxes but paying taxes does give us many benefits. In a time of recession we don’t want to raise taxes on the poor and middle classes who are struggling just to pay their bills. These people spend a majority of their paychecks every time the get one and that money directly stimulates the economy very quickly where the richer you are the more likely that your money will move much slower though the economy in effect not creating jobs fast enough. In a recession richer people are more hesitant to invest or spend so just as a practical issue it does not help to give them tax breaks.

As I’ve said before WE BORROW 40% OF OUR FEDERAL BUDGET. It should seem obvious that along with spending cuts we need to raise some taxes. All we are talking about is raising taxes back to 39% from 35% on the top wage earners. This will help put us on a path to close the gap and balance our budget. The top wage earners in our country have done much better than the rest of us over the past decade or two do in part to a tax code that has given them too many breaks. It is not unreasonable to raise their rate to 39% when historically the rate has been well over 50% for the past 100 years and hit a high of 92% under Republican president Dwight Eisenhower. Those numbers seem unfair and the Democrats are not proposing anything near that.  Raising the top tax bracket to 39% seems fair as well as something that we need to do to start to address our budget deficit.

The other thing we need to address are the loop holes and capital gains tax rates that many of the richest Americans and biggest corporations can use to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Last year the largest corporations in America averaged paying 9% taxes to the government when the tax rates for corporations vary from 15% to 35%. I assume they pay the 9% tax rate in a legal way though using corporate loop holes but this is not fair and not beneficial to our country. Then when you look at a capital gains tax that is set of a flat rate of 15% no matter how much money you are making I think that number needs to be changed for the top earners.  I do believe that 15% is a good number to encourage investments but when someone is making millions of dollars on capital gains and with loop holes is able to pay less than the average hard working American, I believe that to be unfair. We should have a progressive tax rate on capital gains so that once you are making a large amount of money from investments then you should pay taxes equivalent to what you would pay if you had earned that money working hard for a living.

ECONOMIC GROWTH

The last 9 or 10 months of the Bush administration and the first 9 or 10 months of the Obama administration we were hemorrhaging jobs. We were losing between 300,000 and 800,000 every month. At that time it was almost universally agreed upon by both the Democrats and the Republicans that in order to stop the job losses and to encourage economic growth we needed a big stimulus and also needed to bail out some of our major industries. This is something no one wanted to do but we saw that it was needed and came together to prevent a depression. Now that the stimulus and bail outs have worked to save us from a depression we have cut spending so much that growth has flatland. Of course unemployment has been going down slowly and since the beginning of 2010 we have added private sector jobs to the economy every month but it’s been a slow recovery. But we were in a deep hole and we are coming out.

Obama seems to be a very compromising president and has not raised taxes or increased spending when these things seem to be needed if we what to grow our way out of this economic turndown. We can all see schools with less teachers, cities with less policemen, and a general cut back on all of the services that our government provides us. When we cut those jobs then it creates a multiplier effect where more people are no longer working in the public sector and are now competing for jobs in the private sector. This creates higher unemployment and is a downward spiral of less and less economic activity.

Now there is also a multiplier effect going the other way when we invest in our society. Obama did use some of the stimulus money to try and save public sector jobs which allows for more people to be put to work and those people spend money which in turn creates economic activity creating jobs in the public sector. Although some of this has been done I believe that we have not seen fast enough growth because stimulus spending has been slowed down to a trickle.

We need to spend more money on bridges and roads, research, education, and all kinds of government projects in order to get the economy moving in the short term and in the long term. Some of these projects are more productive than others but when something like a “bridge to nowhere” seems to be an obvious mistake, that doesn’t mean we should cut back on building and repairing all bridges. We just need to decide which projects will give us the most bang for our buck and invest as wisely as we can. Public works programs can create economic activity that actually creates revenue for our country that ends up being larger than the amount the projects cost. We need to have a debate on what programs are investments that create growth and what projects cost more money than what they are worth. But we need to invest in our society if we want to come out of this economic downturn quicker.

So, in closing. Yea, let’s make some targeted cuts. Let’s raise some revenues on people who can afford it so we can start to close our budget deficit. And let’s invest in our own country to promote growth which also raises revenues so we can be a more prosperous country.

WWRD

Everything the president does is political. He can’t have dinner, go to church, go for a run, or anything else without thinking of how it affects his political career or his ability of passing and enforcing legislation that he believes to be the right direction for the country. Bush didn’t just go to his ranch in Texas and chainsaw some wood without having a meeting about how the media will cover that event and President Obama also understands that everything he does will be spun in the media for political gain or for political loss. 

Anyway, I don’t mind that. It’s ok for politicians put on a show for the public. I like a guy that can chainsaw some wood or picks brackets for March Madness and those things are fine for a president to do but they don’t matter that much and I wish the media didn’t over emphasize these things.  I wish the media could focus more on the policies and accomplishments that a president has made. When a president does do some political theatrics to highlight a policy or accomplishment I wish the media would see that as a legit way to highlight what they have done and the direction they want the country to go. Those things are important because based on what we see these guys do we will decide to vote for them or not.  

A few days ago President Obama went to Afghanistan to sign an agreement with the Afghan government and give a speech to the troops still serving there. This just happened to be on the same day as the anniversary of the death of Osama Bin Laden. Well, we all know that’s not true. Of course, President Obama went to Afghanistan on that exact day to remind us of his administrations accomplishments of one year ago. But is that a wrong thing to do? Should he have gone on a different day or not have gone at all? I would say that reminding the American people that it was on his watch and it was his decision that ended up killing Osama Bin Laden is not a deceptive political tactic. It just reminds us of President Obama’s record. And I feel it is important for us to be reminded of his foreign policy record because I feel the democrats have been painted unjustly as week on foreign policy. 

Over the past year President Obama and the Democrats have shown a lot of restraint in shamelessly promoting their own foreign policy accomplishments but there does come a time when the American people should be reminded about what the record is.  

Lately there has been a lot of criticisms for the following ad about Obama’s decision on killing Osama Bin Laden and the contrast to what Romney might have does if he was in office. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYykD6_OHO0

This ad seems to be fair in that it takes Romney’s actual words and uses them in context to ask the question “What would Romney have done.”  Romney seems to have made clear that the war on terrorism should not include spending excessive resources going after one man. And it seems clear to me that if the operation would have failed Romney would now be attacking Obama for wasting resources and lives going after one man. 

Romney’s response to the ad is that he would have made the same order that President Obama did and that “even Jimmy Carter would have given that order” (meaning killing Osama)

This does not seems to be in line with Romney’s previous statements and it seems to be fair to contrast what President Obama said he would do and then actually did do with what Romney said he would actually have done and then what he now says he would have done. Of course, in any situation there are nuances and room for explanations but my point is that the actions of President Obama with the handling of the killing of Osama Bin Laden and his actions one year later in reminding us what was done and what might have be done under a Romney administration were totally fair. 

It could be argued that President Obama has not handled all aspects of his administration and/or campaign fairly but in this circumstance I think it should be recognized that he has.  

A fair possible criticism of President Obama is that the killing of Osama Bin Laden was excessive and unnecessary and that the risks taken were not worth the potential disaster that could have happened. I’m not inclined to agree with this argument but at least it would be a respectable and consistent argument coming from the right. The argument could be that the potential loss of American lives going after one man who at that point was not functionally the leader of Al-Queda as well as the international law that was broken going into sovereign country that we are not at war with has a much bigger down side then an upside.  Weather this mission was a success or a failure the risks taken were not worth the potential disaster. 

I don’t agree with those statements but it would be a compelling argument to me. I would respect someone making that argument even though I would disagree with them. Possibly Ron Paul is making that argument but other than him I have only heard from conservative media that President Obama is using the death of Bin Laden for political gain and that inferring that Romney would not have made the same call is somehow unfair.   

President Obama, when asked to respond to excessive celebration in regard to the anniversary of the death of Bin Laden and also the inference that Romney might not have made the same decision that he did, gave an appropriate response that you can hear for yourself below. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRF6--PpRRk

The Federal Budget

One thing I continually hear on the news is that Obama and the Democrats have no plan for a budget because they haven’t passed a budget though the Democratically controlled Senate for almost three years when the Republicans have passed Paul Ryan’s plan in the Republican controlled House and try to demand that the Senate should also pass this budget. This argument on the surface seems to make sense but in this political climate there’s no upside to the Dems passing a Budget in the Senate when they know it will be crushed in the House. The Dems don’t want to pass a radically left leaning budget just to have it crushed in the House and they don’t want to pass a compromised moderate budget without the help of the Republicans creating it because the Republicans seem to have a strategy of forcing the Democrats to start from a compromised moderate position and then still calling that compromised position “radically left.” Then the national debate on any issue becomes the far right verses the a moderate centrist position and the Republicans still seem to hold a hardline without compromising from that position and many of the conservative commentators as well as politicians themselves use harsh rhetoric against these moderate positions calling them “Communists” or “Socialists” no matter how moderate the positions are. It seems to just be a tact used against anything that Obama and the Dems say no matter if the positions are actually moderate or if they were even Republican positions five, ten, or fifteen years ago.

Paul Ryan and the Republicans have purposed a plan that dramatically cuts spending while at the same time cuts taxes. Getting into the specifics of how it cuts spending in places that we can’t afford to cut, and cuts taxes disproportionally to individuals and companies who don’t need the cuts is not even needed at this point. We can look at how the basic concept of this plan is nowhere near a compromise while most American want the congress to find a compromise to our budget problems.

Most people agree that some difficult cuts will need to be made because 40% of our federal spending is currently borrowed but it seems obvious we can’t just close that gap with all cuts to out spending. And it seems more obvious that tax cuts actually add to the deficit unless you subscribe to the idea that tax cuts will always create jobs fast enough to bring workers back into the workforce now paying income tax and stimulating economic activity that would actually bring in more tax revenue then the initial tax cuts take away. Then as we look over what difficult cuts may need to be made to our budget because of wasteful spending and because of programs that do not give society as much benefit as initially expected we also need to look at how some new investments in our economy will help our economy grow and we can actually get a return on our investments. The idea is that when we invest in infrastructure like roads and bridges, as well as teachers, police, firefighters, and so on and so on, there will be more people with jobs and therefore more money in the economy. These people will then spend more money creating even more jobs. This is called a multiplier effect and works best from the bottom up because people in the lower and middle classes spend a much larger percentage of their income therefore stimulating the economy much faster while many tax cuts for wealthier people do not flow though the economy very fast because that money will be more likely to sit in a bank or investment that does not stimulate the economy as fast as increasing the disposable incomes of lower and middle class people. The Government helps stimulate the economy by investing in jobs and more jobs will be created as a consequence of people having more money, then the government will actually get a return on their investment because more people will be paying taxes and less people will be using entitlement programs. This coupled with a low tax rate for the middle and lower classes help the economy grow at a rate where we can add new tax revenues just from people going back to work and paying their income taxes. The idea that the wealthiest people should pay a high income tax rate helps even the wealthy. Since they can afford to help make an investment in our society they will benefit from a better economy. All sectors of society can grow when we make the right investments in society like we saw in the 1990s.

(And on a side note while the wealthiest people in America do pay a higher percent on their income taxes they actually pay less on their payroll taxes and most of the other ways that taxes are collected are either a flat tax or a flat fee that are more beneficial to you the wealthier you are)

Now back to the point, Obama and the Democrats can’t pass a budget.

Well, there’s no upside to the Democrats passing a budget in the Senate when they know the House will just reject it. If they pass a budget that is very progressive and invests in our country while taxes the wealthiest people a little more Republicans will just call it “Communism” and say that Obama and the Democrats were never willing to work with the Republicans to reach a compromise on what’s best for our country. But if they purpose a very moderate plan that does very little to invest in our country and actually makes the difficult cuts to programs that Obama seems to be willing to do they will get torn apart from both side. The Liberals will be mad that the Democrat aren’t willing to fight for them and the Republicans will either call the moderate plan a “far left communist style budget” or they will say it’s a good start but we need to compromise from that point and they will move the new moderate budget much closer to the Ryan Budget before they would think about passing it therefore not truly compromising at all.

In this scenario there is no upside in passing a budget that can’t pass the House and won’t even start the legitimate process of compromise. Obama has seemed to want to sit down with the Republicans and find that compromised budget that everyone wants but they have taken the hardline route of no tax increases, deep spending cuts, and little to no investment in our country. I understand that some of those difficult decisions need to be made but the Republicans have walked out of budget meetings on multiple occasions over the issue of no tax increases when it seems obvious that we need at least some modest targeted tax increases as well as some spending cuts to close the large gap between what we take in and what we spend.

Santorum drops out but Romney hasn't won it yet

Today is April 11, 2012 and yesterday Rick Santorum dropped out of the Race for the Nomination of the Republican Party. Partially because this is the second time during this campaign that his daughter had been hospitalized but I believed that mostly he didn’t see a viable path to the nomination and wanted to avoid the possible embarrassment of losing his home state of Pennsylvania. Losing Pennsylvania would severely cripple his chances at pursuing political office in the future.

So, now the headlines read respectively:

CNN.com: It’s game on between Obama and Romney

FoxNews.com: Presidential race now down to 2 clear choices (Referring to Romney and Obama)

MSNBC.com: What we learned from the GOP race (This assumes that the race is over now)

The problem I have with all of these headlines is that they’re wrong. I’m not saying that at this point that it’s not fairly likely that Romney will win the Republican nomination but I’m just saying that the race is far from over. It’s really bothersome to hear how almost everyone in the media is talking like this things is over.

According to NBC’s numbers Romney has 573 delegates out of the 1144 needed to secure the nomination. Up to this point Romney has only won Republican primaries in States that lean Democratic in the General elections states that have large Mormon populations. The exceptions to this are that he won the swing states of Ohio and Florida as well as Virginia, although he won Virginia with both Santorum and Gingrich not being on the ballot. And most of the states that he won he was not able to break 50%. The exceptions were Massachusetts(one of his home states), Virginia (where only Ron Paul was running against him), Nevada, and Idaho. It seems as though it is obvious that most of the Republican Party does not want Romney to be their nominee especially people from traditionally Republican states.

The next primary day is April 24^th where five traditionally democratic states will decide who they want to be their nominee. Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island will all be holding primaries and if things go to plan Romney will have a good day. I’m sure Romney will be able to win all of these states with his only two competitors being Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul but what if he still can’t break 50% in these states. What if he can only get around 45% of the votes and Gingrich and Paul split the other 55% of the vote. That would not send a message of confidence to the Republican Party that Romney has this thing locked up. Then in May there will be a slew of more conservative states that will vote and I believe that it’s possible within todays Republican party that all of these states could vote for Gingrich over Romney as a protest to what many Republicans see as a unprincipled candidate that is not conservative like them.

So, in May we will have Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Nebraska, Oregon, Arkansas, and Kentucky. If Romney loses all or most of these races the more favorable month of June may not save him. In June we will have the primaries of California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Utah. At that point every vote may be a clear vote either for Romney or against just in protest even if the person voting doesn’t really like Gingrich or Paul. They may vote for one of the two of them just to prove the point that they don’t want Romney.

If Romney is able to win every traditionally Democratic state and lose every traditionally Republican state excluding Utah, which he will win, my calculations have him at 1099 delegates going into the convention. Now these numbers are not solid numbers. Each state has different ways to award these delegates and different laws on whether these delegates of truly bound to vote for their candidate and there will be a possible legal battle over the 50 delegates that were awarded to Romney from Florida since Republican rules do not allow Florida use a winner take all system in this year’s primary. So that number could get bigger or smaller. And if Romney pulls off some big wins in some more conservative states he’ll be able to secure the nomination before we get to the convention but the truth is we don’t know yet.

I do need to mention that there are people know as super delegates who could help Romney get over that hump. They can go to the convention and vote for whoever they want. In a scenario where Romney has won a few conservative states I’m sure they will all jump on his band wagon but if he starts to really show that he is a weak candidate they might vote for someone else just to stop him from being the nominee.

So now the question is if not Romney then who. Well, in my opinion at this point I do think it will be Romney but I’m just putting the idea out there that he doesn’t have it wrapped up yet. If at the convention no candidate gets the 1144 delegates that they need to get the nomination then they all just vote a second time and a third time and as many times as it takes until someone gets the 1144 delegates that are needed to win the nomination. If no compromise can be made on one of the three candidates left in the race then maybe some other Republican will come out of the blue to win the nomination. I really don’t know what will happen but I just want to people to understand that Romney is not the only choice left and anything can happen at the convention if he does not have the 1144 delegates that he needs going into the convention.

Response to "I'm 76 and I'm Tired"

Well, for some reason I felt like writing a response to a post that I saw floating around on Facebook. I felt it was particularly offensive for many reasons although I think the people who repost it have some trouble seeing it the same way that I do. Anyway, go ahead and read it and then if you’re not too bored read my response to it.

Bill Cosby "I'm 76 and I'm Tired"

"I'm 76 and I'm Tired" Well worth reading.....


This should be required reading for every man, woman and child.

I'm 76. Except for brief period in the 50's when I was doing my National
Service, I've worked hard since I was 17. Except for some some serious
health challenges, I put in 50-hour weeks, and didn't call in sick in nearly
40 years. I made a reasonable salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my
income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, it looks as
though retirement was a bad idea, and I'm tired. Very tired.

I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who
don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take
the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy
to earn it.

I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I
can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and
daughters for their family "honor"; of Muslims rioting over some slight
offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't
"believers"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning
teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the
genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and
Shari'a law tells them to.

I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let
Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries use our oil money to fund mosques
and madrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in Australia , New Zealand ,
UK, America and Canada , while no one from these countries are allowed to
fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia or any other
Arab country to teach love and tolerance..

I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global
warming, which no one is allowed to debate.

I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help
support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ
rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses
or stick a needle in their arm while they tried to fight it off?

I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of all
parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful
mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting
caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

I'm really tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and
actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination
or big-whatever for their problems.

I'm also tired and fed up with seeing young men and women in their teens and
early 20's be-deck them selves in tattoos and face studs, thereby making
themselves un-employable and claiming money from the Government.

Yes, I'm damn tired. But I'm also glad to be 76.. Because, mostly, I'm not
going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for
my granddaughter and her children. Thank God I'm on the way out and not
on the way in.


There is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us
sends it on!

This is your chance to make a difference.

Ok, just void of all content it’s offensive off the bat because it’s attributed to Bill Cosby. A quick Google search will inform you that it’s attributed to a guy named Robert Hall who is a state senator. I don’t know who originally changed the authorship to Bill Cosby but no matter who it was it’s just offensive to change it to a respected black conservative just to give the article more validity. And it seems obvious that it’s not Bill Cosby writing the article when you hear the author talking about 50 hour work weeks and it being a bad time to retire now.

Anyway, in the first paragraph the author talks about working hard and not having anything given to him to get where he is now. This assumes that there are many people who don’t work hard and just have stuff given to them. I know that in my own experience that I have worked hard and I have had things given to me. I know that I got my first real job at a summer camp because my dad was a pastor and I got a job working for the city because I have a good friend who could recommend me and my current job where I have been a supervisor for years I got because my friends brother knew the owner of the company. And then when it goes to my education I have a Bachelor’s Degree because I had parents who cared to help me fill out financial aid forms and a large support system of people who cared about me and also knew the steps needed to help me succeed. I find it offensive to assume that people who have fallen behind in life just don’t work hard enough. Of course that can be part or even most of the problem some of the time but let’s not just blame the poor for being poor when many of us who are doing well have had many more opportunities to better ourselves then the some people who remain struggling in our society.

Then in the second paragraph the author seems to not understand what taxes are. Of course we can debate the line of what percent we should pay for taxes and how we as a society should spend that tax money but of course we as a society collect taxes and if you don’t pay your share then yes there are consequences. But also it is offensive to hear the author say that his money is being taken and spread to people who are too lazy to earn it. There are so many programs that so many people benefit from that I would guess you as the reader have also benefited from but would not call yourself someone who is too lazy to earn the money. If there is fraud or waste in the system let continue to try and clean it up but let’s not use that harmful rhetoric to call people lazy when the vast majority of us actually use and benefit from many of these programs. Anyway, taxes are a complicated issue and should be debated in an honest way but if you just use examples of poor people cheating the system or rich people cheating the system just to advance your ideology it really is just counterproductive.

I find the third paragraph to be exceptional offensive and I find it hard to see how someone could think it is ok to repost this but of course it is right to say some Muslims do violent and bad things. But that’s cherry picking. The Nazi’s were part of a Christian country, The Spanish Inquisition killed many people in the name of Christianity, and the most obvious thing would be if you lost a family member in one of the wars that we have been fighting in the last decade by what you would call a “Christian nation.” There is no need here to argue the morality of weather we should have went to any of these wars but just try to see the perspective of how some Muslims could at least on some level call Christianity a violent religion because a “Christian Nation” has dropped bombs to kill people they know.

I consider myself a Christian but we also need to look at how Christianity has been used to condone slavery and oppress women and just remember the KKK still burns crosses in the name of Christianity. Those things do not represent me and my idea of what Christianity is and we as a members of the world community should try to realize that most people are good people and don’t want violence. We need to tone down our rhetoric and try to have some kind of understanding of what other peoples of other countries and religions points of view are.

At this point I’m tired too………

But now in the fourth paragraph the author is talking about how the US buys oil. I don’t really understand this paragraph and I would guess the author and anyone reposting it also don’t understand it very well. He says something about oil money funding mosques but I don’t know if this is private money or state money or what, and I don’t know what mosques he is talking about or what hate that is preached that he is talking about. Then when it talks about there are no churches in Saudi Arabia what is the solution to that. Should we stop buying oil from them or if we continue should we force them to build Christian churches as a condition to buying oil. This paragraph is really confusing but just seems to be trying to convey that Christianity is better than Islam without having any real facts or data or a solution to the problem that is suggested.

OK, I’ve got to make this thing shorter. It really is making me tired

5^th Paragraph – He talks about his living standard going down because of global warming and that there is no debate about global warming going on. I personally have not seen our living standard go down because of global warming and I listen to a lot of debate about global warming all of the time.

6^th Paragraph – He talks about not helping people on drugs. I’m not sure who he thinks is telling him he needs to help people on drugs and even if someone is telling him that, is it better to not help someone that needs help.

7^th Paragraph – This seems to suggest that there was a golden age when athletes or politicians or anyone for that matter didn’t do bad things. What is the point of this paragraph? Is it that things were better 50 years ago or that people should not make mistakes or is it just to trying to portray a sense of self-righteous.

8^th and 9^th Paragraphs – He just seems to be ranting about lazy people and people with tattoos. I don’t understand if he thinks these people are such a problem in his life that he needs to point them out and complain. And he seems to be complaining about these people complaining.

Now at the end he is talking about how he’s glad he will die soon because the world is getting so bad. First of all he doesn’t see any of the great progress that we have made over the years. He doesn’t see how good our Nation and world has become and is just pessimistic about all life after himself. Then, even as I would admit that some things have gotten worse or that some things we still need to work on to make this nation and world a better place, I would like to steak my claim for better or worse on how this world has changed and how it will continue to change. The author seems to take no responsibility for anything bad that is happening. I would hope that everyone even in the last years of their life can make a difference and not just sit back and complain and lament that his granddaughter will have to live in a terrible world.

Anyway, if you’ve gotten this far you must be tired too. As you’ve figured out I am fairly liberal but I love my conservative friends and I would hope that when we both see a problem in the world we can have an honest debate on solutions. I hope we don’t just use rhetoric to tear down the other side. And I would guess that if you read this whole thing I might have said a few things that sounded a little too rude to my conservative friends. Sometimes I am also guilty of using negative rhetoric that does not help that conversation progress to a point where people can try to move the debate to real solutions that can help our society as a whole improve and move in the direction that we all what to go. I hope we all can take in to consideration what other people are thinking and try to move this nation and world into and better place.