Oh Higher Education!

      When finishing my Texas government research paper, I stumbled across an article from the Austin American Statesman that highlighted some growing concerns pertaining to higher education. Although it is from 2010, the information is still rather up to date because it discusses the worries of the universities about the appropriations they are receiving. Also, it has a good summary of the issues at hand: public colleges, without partial government funding, cannot keep up with the financial need they are dispersing to satisfy Affirmative Action.
      College today, lets be honest, is very pricey. In some institutions, the price to attend is unfathomable; the majority cost over $30,000 and many cost even more. Take SMU, for instance: it's one of the colleges I'm looking at and it would cost me about $56,000 a year to attend if I didn't receive any scholarships. Or Oklahoma State University, which would practically cost the same because it is out of state. The colleges get so much money from each individual student, so it seems hard to understand why they need more funding.
      Well, every college gives out scholarships in the form of financial need or merit-based. Many pay for full-ride scholarships, so that alone is as much as the student would pay out of their pocket. The amount of merit-based scholarships is generally lower in universities, so the primary loss of money is from financial need scholarships. Since the U.S. government declares what financial aid a student needs, the funding is supposed to come from the colleges, and, in turn, the state governments.
      This wouldn't be a problem if there was more money available to disperse, but, as everyone has probably seen, the state programs are already being cut by a large margin. Schools are having to lay off hundreds of teachers in order to keep in line with their budgets, so it is hard to imagine how the higher education institutions will receive the necessary increase in appropriations in order to keep up with the financial need. Also, the institutions themselves are not culpable because this issue came from attempting to help more people get a higher education. That is a good reason! In response to these, the article shows that the schools are ready to develop a plan in order to facilitate any necessary cuts.
      As the freshman class for colleges rise and as more and more individuals choose to attend them, the problem will only grow larger until a fool-proof plan is devised. For my sake, and for the sake of any future college students, I hope that plan doesn't include raising tuition, lowering scholarships, or even converting into private schools because that would only make things worse.

The Two-Sided Road

I'd like to start my response to Candace Fitzgerald's "Republican Freakout" post by describing myself briefly: I am a 17-29 year old Hispanic male who is planning on studying engineering in college. Also, another big belief: I'm a Republican, yet I am not freaking out. Although not all Republicans are "Rich, White, Racist, Liars, Hateful, Arrogant, Childish...  Religious Zealots, Self-Centered, Narrow-minded, Stubborn, and Silly," it seems as if she classifies them to be.

The media is, as a rule, more liberal than conservative. I'm not implying that they have a "socialist agenda," I'm just stating the facts. Republican Joe Wilson was out of line when he had his outburst, but he apologized formally shortly thereafter. Even though a Republican had that outburst, how is there a complete resistance? Sure, they don't see eye-to-eye on many topics, but how is that different from when Bush was President and there were Democratic representatives that didn't agree with him?

The Executive branch has been split between the two parties for a long time now, but, if you recall, Obama had the Democratic majority in BOTH houses. He could have passed the healthcare reform much easier then, but he didn't until later in his term. Once the houses of Congress were split, it became much harder to pass laws, as she said. It is important in any situation to see both sides, but both parties are sticking to their own beliefs rather than trying to work together. Overall, the blame for gridlock goes both ways due to rigidity of beliefs, and, therefore, both parties need to work towards moderation and cooperation.

The Tea Party faction is some of the worst of the worst, in my opinion, of the Republican party. However, I wouldn't liken them to the KKK because that is a little drastic. Have they killed anyone? No. Yes they are racist, but it is not to the extent of the KKK's hatred. All of their general characteristics aside, they do hold core views about the government that could aid us. Like every other party, they plan to reduce spending and the deficit, but they also value smaller central government. The framers of the Constitution did find that a small central government could not get much accomplished, but what would they say about the size of our government today? It's massive. The Tea Party is the farthest right in the party, much like the Socialist party is the farthest left of the Democratic party.

Mitt Romney, or "Mitt-Freaking-Romney" as she names him, is a confident and well-off individual, yes, but what else is bad enough to warrant the "Freaking?" He actually is quite liberal in some of his views, so what is wrong with that? Also, Romney was chosen due to his oratory skills as well as his resources. Money, believe it or not, plays a big role in election and nomination. He was able to get his name out there to win the nomination, but most people simply disliked him because he was rich; he couldn't "relate" to the people. Believe it or not, Obama isn't doing so bad either.

Another question, when is it the case that the party that does not hold the presidency isn't freaking out? The only time I can recall was on 9/11/2001; no one doubted President Bush's actions against terrorism. After that, however, Democrats were "freaking out" as well because of his persistence in Afghanistan and Iraq.

From her editorial sounds as if she is Democrat rather than an Independent, as she identifies herself. This isn't bad, but it might shed some light on the very strong opposition she holds against Republicans. If they are, as she claims, "alienating everyone who isn't rich, white, and christian," how am I a Republican? Shouldn't I be alienated? She states that Republicans have irrational emotional strategies to govern, but what are they? Although companies are not people, they are made up of people who work hard to make a living. Both parties receive donations from companies; how else would they pay for campaigning? The main point I want to bring to light is that the blame, the fault, the silliness, the bias, and the need for improvement goes both ways.

The Electoral College Today

      The voting system in the United States is an interesting one. Even though we are in a democracy, the people don't completely choose who lead us. We have an Electoral College that is constitutionally charged with electing the president, which was indirectly put into place by the framers of the constitution. According to the constitution, electors are to select our president, but it is not specifically an Electoral College.

      The problem I have with the electoral system is that it is outdated. Plain and simple: it was put into place in order to protect us from voting the wrong president due to incompetence. In today's technologically advanced society, there are multiple mediums through which to learn about each candidate. This is entirely different from when the constitution was written because the only ways to learn about the candidates was through people's word and the newspaper, which was brand new at the time. At the time, it was hard to know what was truth and what was fibs, so people could just attain the political viewpoints that someone tells them they should have. Also, the population was much smaller so one vote made a significantly larger impact (even though still not massive). Although this wasn't always the case, it brought concern to the framers of the constitution so they decided to put a provision in place to protect it..
      Nowadays, there are so many sources to receive information from that the lack of personalized opinions should not be of concern. These options available allow everyone to formulate their own views and thoughts about what the government needs so that they can pick the candidate that fits the profile together. The plethora of information negates the need for the Electoral College due to incompetence, but others think that is not enough to prevent inaccurate results. 
      Another way that we could change the system to accompany the concern of insccuracy would be to increase the difficulty to register as a voter. Even though voter turnout is already low due to this, increased rigor to register would assure that only politically knowledgeable people could voice their opinions. Perhaps a basic test on governmental process would suffice to regulate the voters, or maybe even a recitation if the Bill of Rights. 
      In my opinion, the implementation of stricter voter registration would hinder our democracy more than it already is because it only takes in the views of the elites. Democracy is a system of government where the people rule, and we are not currently in that. The opinions of everyone need to be considered; the popular vote should be the deciding factor in our elections. Take this past week's election results: Obama won overall, but he had already won through the Electoral College before all of the votes were counted. At the same time that Obama won, Romney was up in the popular vote by 1 million votes. It is mind blowing how the Electoral College's vote can technically end the election even though the "losing" candidate may be up in the popular vote. As a country, I believe we should look towards changing the existing system to accommodate the change in society.