Fat America.

It's no shock to me that America is the one of the fattest countries, I work at a fast food restaurant Sonic America's Drive In and I watch people come and eat there every single day. Sometimes twice a day. For heavens sake these people are there more than me and I'm an employee! So when I hear topics on child obesity and what school's are doing to help this growing problem I'm excited that someone has taken initiative but I believe that the solution to this problem starts at home.

We can't keep blaming the government for our eating habits, it's ridiculous. Yes, I do believe that healthy options should be available at schools, but I think some of the minor changes such as removing soda machines, won't put a stop to this. It's time for us to look in the mirror and take some responsibility!

How can we expect our children to be healthy if we ourselves are not? My mother didn't ever buy soda... not because we weren't allowed to drink it or anything, she just never really bought it. When my friends came over they were just baffled that I only had juice and water to offer them, but their houses were stocked with Cokes and Dr. Pepper. To this day I really only drink water, apple and orange juice, and tea. Now this could just be that I'm some sort of freak who doesn't like soda but I honestly believe its because it wasn't available in my house.

In response to: Bacon anyone?

My classmate posted a blog about pork barreling, government spending for localized projects, such as, "The Bridge to Nowhere" the Gravina Island Bridge in Alaska connecting 50 residents to another island that cost $398 million.
I enjoyed reading this post because I could not agree more with the statements my classmate made. He gave great examples of how some government projects are use specifically for local communities to make congressmen more appealing to their voters, and how the money used for these projects could have been made useful for more important issues.
He provided some links and some great political cartoons that reflected his ideas, you could definitely see his personality coming out through his writing.

In response to:Taxation With Represenation

Reading one of my classmate's blogs I would say I agree with their statements completely! I don't really believe that people with an income of $250,000 or more are in need of tax cuts. It's obviously selfish of these people to even request it! I know that these people have earned their money, doing whatever they needed to obtain it, such as years of schooling and whatever else, but it doesn't make sense to give them tax breaks when they are very financially comfortable. I don't see how cutting back expenditures will work out because what will we cut back? Most of expenditures go to health and human services and education! The price of living only goes up so I don't see how we can cut back on spending. My classmate made excellent points and I enjoyed reading their blog :)

The DREAM Act

Here in the United States, there are many children that were brought illegally into this country and are considered illegal aliens but have lived most of their lives like the average American kid. Only when they are older do they realize the severity of their situations. They're at risk for deportation and cannot legally obtain a job, even though if they were to be deported they wouldn't have anything to go back to. They've been raised here and don't know any other way, not to mention the fact that their family is most likely here. I believe the DREAM Act would give these kids an opportunity to get on a path to gain citizenship through college or joining the military.

Through a business perspective, tax payers have already paid for much of their schooling, so it wouldn't be a good return on our investment to deport them. Also, because of the number of people that could take advantage of this, the number of college enrollment would increase as well as military enrollment. There's no doubt in my mind that this act would contribute to our economy.

This act would allow citizenship to the immigrants that have obtained a high school diploma, or GED that have been in the United States for at least 5 years or were under the age of 16 when they first entered the country, after they completed two years in a program for a bachelor’s degree or higher degree or served in the armed services for at least two years. I couldn't see a flaw in this act what so ever, because even if these immigrants were originally here illegally, they obviously have something to contribute to our country. After all isn't America a land of immigrants?

Retirement Age

The author of “To shore it up, raise the retirement age”, USA Today is clearly out of touch to want the federal government to raise the age for retirees to receive full socially security benefits. The author seems to be one of the fortunate Americans who has a pension and money saved for retirement. Many Americans do not have pensions and will have to rely on social security benefits when they reach retirement.  

Some may agree that this is a good idea however, they are eligible to receive retirement benefits at the age of 50 after 20 years of service or any age with 25 years of service.   Raising the retirement age to receive full benefits would also help solve the shortfall and make the fund solvent.   If the average life span is 78 years old that’s only 8 years of the government benefits.   

Raising the retirement age to 70 would help solve the shortfall but punishes hard working Americans who have made contributions throughout their lives. The author claims that the reason for the short fall is that people are living longer.  That maybe one of the reason the fund is in trouble, but benefits are put in a general fund and not in a dedicated fund. Congress has been able to spend and divert all the money and now there is not enough money for benefits. Congress should not be able to break promises because they have mismanaged and misspent. Other government programs run in the red and social security will probably be one of them. The government will just have to keep funding until either a new retirement plan is developed that does not include raising the retirement age or cutting benefits for social security.

Discrimination.

On USATODAY, there is an editorial on  opposing views on gays in the military. I found this article to be complete BS (excuse my french). The author states that allowing homosexuals to serve in the military would risk "increasing sexual tension, harassment and even assault", obviously the author is homophobic. My closest, and most trust worthy friend is a homosexual and I have never had to restrain him from sexually assaulting an attractive man on the streets. This is ridiculous, just because someone has a certain sexual preference, doesn't mean that they are going to attack or harass people. I would like to think I could be in a room with most normal males and not be attacked, so why should it be any different for a homosexual? I can understand a person who has a PROBLEM containing themselves which would most likely be someone with a disorder, but that goes for anybody gay or straight. The author shows no evidence that allowing homosexuals to serve in the military would lead to any of these things, they made complete assumptions based on their opinion. The author also tries to make the point that denying gays of these rights, would be equivalent to denying someone with asthma... wow I really can not even believe what I'm reading, are people actually saying that homosexuality is like a disorder? It's a preference. That's all. I could say that we shouldn't allow male teachers because, while he's teaching a class, he might feel an urge to rip off my shirt and rape me. I honestly believe that if a man or a woman, homosexual or lesbian, should be permitted to serve their own country. We should feel appreciative that these people are willing to risk their lives, leave their families, and be put under enormous amounts of stress, for us, especially in times like these.

Number of people in poverty reaches highest level in 51 years

I read an article in USA TODAY about the poverty levels in the United States reaching the highest number its been in the last 51 years. The article states different statistics of the average incomes in the last few years and using information from the census, they 43.6 million people lived in poverty last year. I was taken by surprise when I read this article but I suppose I shouldn't have been, seeing as how we've been going through a recession but I honestly didn't know so many people were suffering in poverty. Despite the suffrage there was some news to be celebrated, some of the stimulus laws boosted income more than expected, providing extended unemployment benefits prevented more than 3 million people from falling into poverty. I think it's important for all of us as a community to realize the hardships people are going through, which is why I recommend this article.