Proposition 2
There are many propositions that are being voted on at this time, but one of the most important ones is proposition 2. There is an article in the Austin American Statesman written by Ralph Haurwitz on October 21, 2007 called Election: Constitutional amendments Student loans depend on voters that explains Proposition 2 will authorize “the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to issue $500 million in bonds to finance low-interest loans to college students.” This is a smart and economical proposition because it will not affect the taxpayers money, in other words the funds for these lower interest rates will not come from our taxes. The bonds will be paid back by the students’ loan money; therefore it will not even affect the states deficit. The money will be taken out in bonds and allow a lot of students to reach their dream of succeeding in graduating college. Education has always been stressed as important and as a fellow college student it is more important than ever right now to be able to pay these loans back at the lowest rate possible. We are currently using a bond at this time and the only reason we must re-instate the bond is because the old one is running out. According to an analysis by the House Research Organization, a nonpartisan unit of the Texas House, The current coordinating board's bonding authority will run out in 2009 if Proposition 2 is not approved. If this bill is not approved it may mean less education for many students who will not be able to afford to re-pay the high interest loans, which would damper our community and our economy. It just does not make sense to not approve this bill, unless you are a commercial bank owner who wants to rather receive profit, than to further the better education of our children. In conclusion it is plain and simple to see that our students need this proposition to pass to better our economy and our future.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Lowering College Interest Rates
This article represents Proposition 2 which will lower the interest rates on student loans. Sen. Judith Zaffirini argues to support the bill and as chairwoman of the Senate Higher Education Subcommittee is a credited party. The bill is quite simple and she does state reasons for supporting the bill and reasons for not vetoing the bill. She gives us the date on which to vote, November 6th and has a very strong argument.
She begins her core argument by addressing the current resolution of using bonds to fund the lower interest tuition loans, and how this has positively affects a large number of students. She provides us statistical data to support this when she states “In the last 10 years alone, more than 58,000 Texans cumulatively received about $659 million in low-interest loans to help pay for college expenses.” She then explains that the funds may run out by 2009 and gives us a source, the “Coordinating Board”. She does lean a lot of her argument to educating our future and stresses that education is important which is opinionated and does not have supporting evidence, but nonetheless applies to her article. Her last statement expresses an important factor that may be weighed when considering voting on an economical issue. Will it affect our taxes? The answer is no which is seen when she states “Prop. 2 will have no impact on our local property taxes, sales taxes or other taxes collected by the state.” In conclusion, her article does seem very convincing and supportive.
Link to article described above:
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/10/04/04/1005zaffirini_edit.html
She begins her core argument by addressing the current resolution of using bonds to fund the lower interest tuition loans, and how this has positively affects a large number of students. She provides us statistical data to support this when she states “In the last 10 years alone, more than 58,000 Texans cumulatively received about $659 million in low-interest loans to help pay for college expenses.” She then explains that the funds may run out by 2009 and gives us a source, the “Coordinating Board”. She does lean a lot of her argument to educating our future and stresses that education is important which is opinionated and does not have supporting evidence, but nonetheless applies to her article. Her last statement expresses an important factor that may be weighed when considering voting on an economical issue. Will it affect our taxes? The answer is no which is seen when she states “Prop. 2 will have no impact on our local property taxes, sales taxes or other taxes collected by the state.” In conclusion, her article does seem very convincing and supportive.
Link to article described above:
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/10/04/04/1005zaffirini_edit.html
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Share the Burden or Ignore the Problem?
John D. Esparza's goal in this article is to convince the legislature not to change the taxes. It is assumed they are planning to leave a full burden on the trucks for all highway state taxes maintenance and repair. Many news articles I have read tend to claim that we should increase the cost of overweight-oversized permits to compensate for the damage done to Texas’ highways and bridges. This is clearly a response to the incident of the Minneapolis bridge mishap. He has successfully deemed a responsible party, the routing service, to allocate the responsibility of the trafficking of this potential danger. This explanation of the funds being allocated to the routing service to assure our safety was a plausible response to the accusations of wrongly funded money. It is then assumed by increasing the cost of permits we would not increase the funding for road maintenance, but expand the employment of the routing service.
Though many questions are answered, considering this information is coming from the Texas Motor Transportation Association, many ideas are half stated and not supported with additional information. One example is when he states, “Counties have the authority to obtain engineering data to make restrictions they need for their bridges as well (Esparza 1).” Many questions many come to mind. Are the counties required to extract the engineering data to review this information? Is this done on a regular and consistent basis? How is this regulated?
This article explains how trucks are committing a violation when crossing an unsafe bridge. He however does not supply us with the information on how often trucks cross unsafe bridges, how this is determined, or supply supporting information on the enforcement of this policy. Statistical data would have helped in this area.
Mr. Esparza then makes several generalized one sided assumptions without any factual data to support his argument. Some examples would be: “Should the Legislature act to impose the cost of highway maintenance on the trucking industry alone, no shipper could afford to move its goods on trucks (Esparza 1).” and “Infrastructure costs are so high that the public must participate (Esparza 1).” This may be true, but could a compromise be made where the trucking industry take more of the responsibility than they do now? How much would this raise their costs compared to what they spend now in taxes? In order to make a sound judgment, these ideas should be clearly interpreted and not approached with such a bias conclusion. In the end he bluntly states what has been done, but does not list any alternative options that might be possible.
Work cited
Esparza, John. Esparza: Share the burden to maintain highways 21 Sept. 2007 http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/09/21/0921esparza_edit.html
Though many questions are answered, considering this information is coming from the Texas Motor Transportation Association, many ideas are half stated and not supported with additional information. One example is when he states, “Counties have the authority to obtain engineering data to make restrictions they need for their bridges as well (Esparza 1).” Many questions many come to mind. Are the counties required to extract the engineering data to review this information? Is this done on a regular and consistent basis? How is this regulated?
This article explains how trucks are committing a violation when crossing an unsafe bridge. He however does not supply us with the information on how often trucks cross unsafe bridges, how this is determined, or supply supporting information on the enforcement of this policy. Statistical data would have helped in this area.
Mr. Esparza then makes several generalized one sided assumptions without any factual data to support his argument. Some examples would be: “Should the Legislature act to impose the cost of highway maintenance on the trucking industry alone, no shipper could afford to move its goods on trucks (Esparza 1).” and “Infrastructure costs are so high that the public must participate (Esparza 1).” This may be true, but could a compromise be made where the trucking industry take more of the responsibility than they do now? How much would this raise their costs compared to what they spend now in taxes? In order to make a sound judgment, these ideas should be clearly interpreted and not approached with such a bias conclusion. In the end he bluntly states what has been done, but does not list any alternative options that might be possible.
Work cited
Esparza, John. Esparza: Share the burden to maintain highways 21 Sept. 2007 http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/09/21/0921esparza_edit.html
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