In place of Missed one in Blog 3... about Bush-era tax cuts control debate

I read an article today about Bush-era tax cuts.  It was a debate between the Republicans and the Democrats about whether there should be tax cuts on the rich.  The tax cut was passed by George Bush when he was President.  The question was "whether to maintain the reduced tax rates for the wealthy Americans".  The Democrats  supported the idea of entitlement to all and supported high taxes on the rich.  The Republicans supported the idea that the rich should have a tax cut.  Their view behind this is, since its the wealthy (and wealthy corporations) that have the money and help keep our economy going, we should try to stimulate the economy by giving them a break by reducing their taxes.  Republicans want the  tax cuts on the rich to be on a  permanent basis.  They also argued that "spending, not revenue, is the root of the government's deficit problem."
On this issue, I stand mostly with the Republicans.  I agree with the democrats in that having higher taxes on the rich makes a difference with helping reduce our dept.  The article said that the upper income households "account for about $700 billion of the total $4 trillion impact that the Bush tax law would have if it were extended for the next 10 years".  I agree that it is good to tax the rich, but at the same time I think they could use a little slack because we shouldn't rely only on them for getting us out of debt, we should spend less and have a balanced budget.  It's not that I'm in favor of the rich but I think a much bigger problem is the way we, as a country and individually, spend on things that aren't necessary.  In America we are given so much that we feel we need it all, and this way of living is bad.  I think living more simply would make just as much of a difference as getting money to pay off our debt from taxes on the rich.  So instead of just focusing on taxes, I believe we should couple it with creating a budget cut.

Article

I read a newspaper article yesterday in THE FRESNO BEE called “Scalia surprises in conviction overturns”.  The article talks about Scalia, a supreme court member, who is very conservative and is not afraid to voice his opinions.  He believes in going strictly along with what the constitution says.  He insists “on following the ‘original’ constitution”.  An example of how he views the constitution is this: “The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution say the ‘accused shall enjoy the right to challenge actual witnesses, but also the right to bare testimony from all those ‘witnesses’ against him.’  To Scalia, this clause not only gives defendants the right to challenge actual ‘witnesses’ who did not or cannot testify in court.  He takes this view even if the witness is dead.”

There is more to the article of other examples and viewpoints and also more detail on Scalia’s Conservative viewpoint, but I’m now just going to share what I thought about the newspaper article.  When I first read the article I didn’t agree with Scalia’s view.  For me, I focused more on the fact of how when the constitution was first written the framers wrote it loosely because they didn’t know what sort of things the future people of America, living under the constitution, would face.  The Constitution can be easily debated over and sometimes the meaning is not clear.  And then there comes around issues such as abortion, and I wonder, how does that issue fit into the constitution?  Since abortion wasn’t an issue during the time of the framers its not included in the constitution, so if we made decisions only off of the constitution then where would abortion fit in because they didn’t write about it “originally”?  The judicial branch interpreted the constitution under the idea of right to privacy, they say that abortion falls under a “person’s right”.  With issues like this I think its right for the judicial branch to decide where these issues stand because its not found in the constitution.  I find it ok that the judicial branch interprets the constitution because there are some things you cant find in the constitution.  The constitution is the highest form of law and all other laws come under it, so judicial branch needs to examine the law before the judicial branch can make a decision on cases.  Cases should be compared to what the constitution says, ideas in it, since it is the highest form of law.  If there is something that isn’t really a topic in the constitution then the legislative branch should see if its big enough of a deal and make an amendment to the constitution.

SLO upgrading

SLO city counsel last week was deciding whether or not to continue to upgrade two streets in downtown SLO.  The initial price they thought would be around $11,000 but it grew to now cost $786,000!  That is waaaay to expensive.  I personally think that is too much money to be spent on just redoing and fixing up two blocks of downtown SLO.  I don't think that so much money should be spent on fixing up any part of downtown. Really downtown SLO doesn't need much repairing, In my opinion downtown SLO looked great, especially to other towns like parts in LA.  LA could use some cleaning up but SLO, not so much, at  least not for that much money.  If it was for earthquake retrofitting then thats a different story, but if its just for looks then I don't think the money would be worth it.  The article was not very clear on what the "improvements" were for, but my argument is for if its only for looks.  If its for safety precautions, then thats different, but either way I think spending that such money should be questioned on whether or not it should be used.

Italy

Italy is in a two year old debt crisis.  Investors are loosing faith in Italy's bond agreement and are uncertain whether or not to invest in Italy.  Italy needs help and is trying to get other countries into their bond agreement so they can get back up on their feet again.  The problem is no one really believes that they will end up paying the initial amount back, even though Italy is 3rd in production in Europe.
 Recently its Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, resigned from his position.  When he resigned he wanted parliament to have austerity measures, cuts to welfare, ect.  I agree with his idea about cutting down on how much the public of Italy and also the government of Italy spends.  The place they are at right now in the economy, the way they are only heading more downhill shows that if they don't act now, if they don't stop spending so much money, then they will never get out of debt and will have to be bailed out by the other parts of Europe.  I think that is not fair to the rest of Europe because everyone should be in charge of themselves, they shouldn't have to be in charge of paying for Italy's debt, they should just be in charge of their own country.  I do agree though that in situations like this where it is so extreme that they should get help from other countries.