This past week, for some reason, I've attracted weirdos to me who seem to want to tell me a story of some sort. I don't know why this is, but I'm gaining an idea of what my girlfriends mean when they say they attract weirdos. The first one was at a library. I went to the bathroom, and this guy started talking to me.
"Wow. You came in here like a ghost."
"Oh, sorry about that."
"Well, you are a ghost in the sense that the only thing real about you is your mind."
Then, when I walk out of the bathroom, the same guy says, "You looked confused. I didn't mean to confuse you."
To which I reply, "No worries." Then I went back into the library as quickly as possible because I really didn't care to hear any more of this guy's crazy theories.
Today, I was in a Starbucks this morning, enjoying my 3 vanilla bean scones and venti ice water like I always get. As soon as I sit down, the guy across from me says, "You wanna hear a story."
To this I reply, "Sure." Thinking in my head this ought to be good.
"Several years ago, I was in the jungle of Guatemala. I was with this beautiful woman, but that's not important to the story. Anyways, we were on this hammock, and all of a sudden this creature runs close to us and I can't see because I'm really tired and groggy. But I looked at it, and I think I know what it is now. It was a Sasquatch."
At this point I can't keep from laughing, because some guy just told me he saw a Sasquatch. Then he goes on saying, "Yeah, I think a man had sex with an ape and this thing was produced."
Why do these random people tell me the weirdest stuff? Do I just have a sign on my forehead that says, "Hey, come talk to me. I'd love to hear your random nonsense that comes out of your mouth." Oh well, I had a pretty good laugh about Sasquatch man today :)
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
this upcoming school year
For the school year of 2011-2012, I've been assigned to teach kindergarten. I have mixed emotions about this assignment, so I'll have to wait and see how it plays out.
For starters, I won't have to deal with the dreaded FCAT testing that all teachers know and hate. That lack of academic pressure is very welcomed in my book. On the other hand, they're a bunch of 5 year-olds thrown together in one room, some of which have never been away from their mothers for more than a couple hours.
Towards the end of this last school year when I made a couple trips to school to start preparing for this next year, I told some other teachers that I hoped I would become nurturing magically over the summer. This will probably not happen, and is something I will need to work on. There's a balance, of course, between being nurturing and getting kids to get their work done, I just tend to weigh heavily on the side of getting kids to get their work done. The first four full years of my career I taught 5th grade at Tuttle, and now I'm going to teach kindergarten. Who knows though, maybe I'll end up loving it. Quite a few of my friends have kids who are that age and I love that age when it's a one-on-one setting; I'm just not sure about 20 of them in one room.
My mom informs me that everyone she tells that I'm going to be a kindergarten teacher responds that they think I will excel in that position. I, on the other hand, am not so sure. Those first couple weeks will be a baptism by fire to be sure. We have specials first thing in the morning. So before I've even had time to train my students on how to line up properly (which they will most likely have no idea how to do) they are expected to walk in a straight and orderly line to P.E., music, or art. That should be interesting, particularly the first couple of days.
A thought I've had in regards to many of my students being blank slates, is that I get to be the first teacher to write on those slates. What an honor, and what a responsibility that will be. Most of my students will never have experienced structure before; I've seen several kids under 5 during these summer months out at night either at Applebee's or Walmart well past 11:00 pm. It makes me wonder how many of my students will have no consistent bedtime at home and how that will effect their performance at school. How many of my students will have TV's in their bedroom and will stay up at night to watch their favorite cartoons?
There are so many unknowns with this new role. It can be stressful to think about, but at the same time compels me to prepare as much as possible over the summer. I've already read over the notes from a classroom management class that I was too late to sign up for. I have also signed up for a 4 day Kagan Institute in August to get my head back into teaching. I'm really looking forward to that professional development, I've worked with Kagan before but don't feel like I really know enough to implement it too much. Kagan is heavily based on cooperative learning, so I look forward to finding new ways on how to teach effectively.
Apparently, there is a lot of singing in kindergarten. That will be interesting, as I sound more like a dying cat when I sing than an actual human being. The nice thing about 5 year-olds, though, according to what other teachers have told me, is that they have no idea if you're a good singer or not. So while I will probably laugh at myself in my head when I'm singing aloud they will think I'm a perfectly good and normal singer.
I am looking forward to playing more educational games and having more hands-on activities with the kids. I'd like to do that more with other grades but there is so much pressure to teach to the test I haven't been able to get around to it nearly as much as I'd like to. Maybe this will help give me a strong foundation in using a hands-on approach to teaching for future years if I ever teach another grade level again. Maybe I'll fall in love with kindergarten, a guy can always hope, right?
For starters, I won't have to deal with the dreaded FCAT testing that all teachers know and hate. That lack of academic pressure is very welcomed in my book. On the other hand, they're a bunch of 5 year-olds thrown together in one room, some of which have never been away from their mothers for more than a couple hours.
Towards the end of this last school year when I made a couple trips to school to start preparing for this next year, I told some other teachers that I hoped I would become nurturing magically over the summer. This will probably not happen, and is something I will need to work on. There's a balance, of course, between being nurturing and getting kids to get their work done, I just tend to weigh heavily on the side of getting kids to get their work done. The first four full years of my career I taught 5th grade at Tuttle, and now I'm going to teach kindergarten. Who knows though, maybe I'll end up loving it. Quite a few of my friends have kids who are that age and I love that age when it's a one-on-one setting; I'm just not sure about 20 of them in one room.
My mom informs me that everyone she tells that I'm going to be a kindergarten teacher responds that they think I will excel in that position. I, on the other hand, am not so sure. Those first couple weeks will be a baptism by fire to be sure. We have specials first thing in the morning. So before I've even had time to train my students on how to line up properly (which they will most likely have no idea how to do) they are expected to walk in a straight and orderly line to P.E., music, or art. That should be interesting, particularly the first couple of days.
A thought I've had in regards to many of my students being blank slates, is that I get to be the first teacher to write on those slates. What an honor, and what a responsibility that will be. Most of my students will never have experienced structure before; I've seen several kids under 5 during these summer months out at night either at Applebee's or Walmart well past 11:00 pm. It makes me wonder how many of my students will have no consistent bedtime at home and how that will effect their performance at school. How many of my students will have TV's in their bedroom and will stay up at night to watch their favorite cartoons?
There are so many unknowns with this new role. It can be stressful to think about, but at the same time compels me to prepare as much as possible over the summer. I've already read over the notes from a classroom management class that I was too late to sign up for. I have also signed up for a 4 day Kagan Institute in August to get my head back into teaching. I'm really looking forward to that professional development, I've worked with Kagan before but don't feel like I really know enough to implement it too much. Kagan is heavily based on cooperative learning, so I look forward to finding new ways on how to teach effectively.
Apparently, there is a lot of singing in kindergarten. That will be interesting, as I sound more like a dying cat when I sing than an actual human being. The nice thing about 5 year-olds, though, according to what other teachers have told me, is that they have no idea if you're a good singer or not. So while I will probably laugh at myself in my head when I'm singing aloud they will think I'm a perfectly good and normal singer.
I am looking forward to playing more educational games and having more hands-on activities with the kids. I'd like to do that more with other grades but there is so much pressure to teach to the test I haven't been able to get around to it nearly as much as I'd like to. Maybe this will help give me a strong foundation in using a hands-on approach to teaching for future years if I ever teach another grade level again. Maybe I'll fall in love with kindergarten, a guy can always hope, right?
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
human rights and international development
I've subscribed to yet another podcast. It's named Human Rights Watch. So far I've only listened to one of the podcasts and it focused on women's rights. What was so interesting to me was that they talked about a woman's right to abortion. My instant reaction was, "What about the rights of the unborn child?" It is, after all, 'Human Rights Watch.' These 3 women were talking about how in the early 1990's they had to convince people that women's rights were human rights and how absurd that was back then. Is it not just as absurd to talk about unborn children as non-humans? Would it bother us more if they used guns? I believe that's on a shirt/ad campaign by some pro-life group. It certainly makes you think, though, doesn't it? Human rights should include all humans, both born and unborn. I realize this is a highly controversial subject but I cannot be in the middle on this subject. A lot of human rights talk centers on your rights as a human as long as it doesn't infringe on another human's rights. Well, a woman's right to abortion infringes pretty heavily on an unborn child's right to have a life. I'm interested to keep listening to this podcast, there are only a few.
Another podcast I've subscribed to is titled 'Global Prosperity' and I listened to a podcast about oil in Ghana. This podcast is mainly concerned with international development so it obviously appeals to me on that level. The podcast I listened to talked about how Ghana is going to start bringing oil 'on-line' sometime in 2011 and what that can do to a country. They talked about the resource curse in Africa that has happened every time there has been a resource found there that can be exploited. They gave the example of Alaska, who has a deal where every resident is paid dividends on the oil and how they creates instant citizen concern and participation. The author who they interviewed said that Ghana should do something similar to get their citizens involved with how the oil is excavated and brought to market and how the profits are redistributed among the people. Critics said the government needs the money for infrastructure projects but this guy's point was that there would still be money left over for that even after giving residents some of the profits from the oil. It makes me wonder if Africa couldn't leap frog over the dependence on oil and other fossil fuels the way they've leap-frogged over some technology, like going straight to cell phones for instance. What if they went straight to renewable energy technology instead of becoming heavily dependent on oil like the rich world has become? I think it would save them a lot of potential trouble, but that's just my humble opinion.
Another podcast I've subscribed to is titled 'Global Prosperity' and I listened to a podcast about oil in Ghana. This podcast is mainly concerned with international development so it obviously appeals to me on that level. The podcast I listened to talked about how Ghana is going to start bringing oil 'on-line' sometime in 2011 and what that can do to a country. They talked about the resource curse in Africa that has happened every time there has been a resource found there that can be exploited. They gave the example of Alaska, who has a deal where every resident is paid dividends on the oil and how they creates instant citizen concern and participation. The author who they interviewed said that Ghana should do something similar to get their citizens involved with how the oil is excavated and brought to market and how the profits are redistributed among the people. Critics said the government needs the money for infrastructure projects but this guy's point was that there would still be money left over for that even after giving residents some of the profits from the oil. It makes me wonder if Africa couldn't leap frog over the dependence on oil and other fossil fuels the way they've leap-frogged over some technology, like going straight to cell phones for instance. What if they went straight to renewable energy technology instead of becoming heavily dependent on oil like the rich world has become? I think it would save them a lot of potential trouble, but that's just my humble opinion.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Creating Capabilities
Today, I listened to a podcast that the authors of the book "Freakonomics" put together. In the one I listened to today they interviewed a woman named Martha Nussbaum, a philosopher who teaches law at the University of Chicago. In the interview, they mentioned a book she had recently written titled "Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach." My first step was to see if this book was on my Kindle yet, which it wasn't, so it was quickly followed by my second step of going to Barnes and Noble to see if they had a copy. They did in fact and so I sat down a little over an hour ago to read the first chapter.
So far, it's a spectacular read and one that is of particular interest to me as I have a growing passion for international development growing within me. The only problem I have with it so far is that it was $23 and not available on my Kindle yet for half price like most other books are. Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can get it at the library in town.
The human development approach or the capabilities approach as it is sometimes referred to is a paradigm shift in the way we think about the health of a nation. In the past, and something that is still widely used today to measure the health of nations, is GDP, or gross domestic product. The theory goes that if your GDP is increasing then the overall economic well being of all people is increasing as well. What economists have learned over the last couple of decades is that this is a terribly unsatisfactory way of measuring the overall well-being of people within a society. One quote from the book is "The human development approach begins with a very simple question: What are people actually able to do and to be? What real opportunities are available to them?" Rather than just ask a generic question as to what a nation is able to produce, what are the people within that nation able to be and to do is a much better question to start from.
The human development index as used by the United Nations Development Programme does include GDP, but it also includes things like access to education and access to healthcare. What good is it to make all the money in the world if it doesn't translate into better access to education and healthcare for all members of a society? Sure, they may have access to a job now, but what good is that job if there's no room for moving up or providing an affordable education for your kids? They gave the example of a state within India offering a lunch at school as an incentive to get parents to send their kids to school. The reason for this was that parents felt they wouldn't lose that much economic output from their children if they were provided a meal at school; they would have less to pay for overall if the lunch was provided for free. She also mentioned in the book this one particular state in India that did a great job at providing education to all of its children. It almost has a 100% literacy rate, which is phenomenal in a country where just 75% of the men are literate and a paltry 53% of women are literate.
The book also talked about how development simply means making life better. While most people talk about developing economies as referring to poorer economies; all countries are in this sense developing, or making life better. Even the richest countries have room to improve the well-being of the people within their societies. To me, that approach makes way more sense than automatically separating rich from poor countries and gives us all a starting place for room to improve. No society is perfect, despite what nationalists within any country might tell you. We must consistently work for a better life for all people, not just those at the top. I recently posted a quote from a blog that stated Congress was currently considering a bill that cut a little over $800 million more from the Women, Infants, and Children program. To put that in perspective, that's about a week's worth of revenue that could have been collected if we let the tax cuts expire just on the millionaires in this country. You can't do or be much if you don't have adequate access to good nutrition.
In my opinion, our country has a long way to go in terms of the human development index. In the interview of the podcast they said we're number four, but last year we were number twelve. So many people believe the United States is the best country in the world, but I have to disagree with that. No country is perfect, but even after that I don't think our's is the best. We need to have more equal access to healthcare and a better way for the common man to access tertiary education if we want to say we're truly the best, not to mention a whole host of other things we don't do well. That being said, it starts on an individual level; what can I do to better the lives of the people around me? After reading the first chapter in this book, one thought that occurred to me was that I could start by becoming a better teacher. If I stay in teaching I will impact countless lives, either for better or worse. That is a tremendous responsibility, and one that I'm just now starting to realize the severity of. Part of me really wants to start a business someday to simply provide people with jobs, but maybe I'd be better off at developing my gifts as a teacher to better society that way. I don't think there will ever be a shortage of need for good teachers within our society. So that's it, that's what I'm going to contribute to the betterment of society; an education that enriches young people's lives and sets them on the path to success.
So far, it's a spectacular read and one that is of particular interest to me as I have a growing passion for international development growing within me. The only problem I have with it so far is that it was $23 and not available on my Kindle yet for half price like most other books are. Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can get it at the library in town.
The human development approach or the capabilities approach as it is sometimes referred to is a paradigm shift in the way we think about the health of a nation. In the past, and something that is still widely used today to measure the health of nations, is GDP, or gross domestic product. The theory goes that if your GDP is increasing then the overall economic well being of all people is increasing as well. What economists have learned over the last couple of decades is that this is a terribly unsatisfactory way of measuring the overall well-being of people within a society. One quote from the book is "The human development approach begins with a very simple question: What are people actually able to do and to be? What real opportunities are available to them?" Rather than just ask a generic question as to what a nation is able to produce, what are the people within that nation able to be and to do is a much better question to start from.
The human development index as used by the United Nations Development Programme does include GDP, but it also includes things like access to education and access to healthcare. What good is it to make all the money in the world if it doesn't translate into better access to education and healthcare for all members of a society? Sure, they may have access to a job now, but what good is that job if there's no room for moving up or providing an affordable education for your kids? They gave the example of a state within India offering a lunch at school as an incentive to get parents to send their kids to school. The reason for this was that parents felt they wouldn't lose that much economic output from their children if they were provided a meal at school; they would have less to pay for overall if the lunch was provided for free. She also mentioned in the book this one particular state in India that did a great job at providing education to all of its children. It almost has a 100% literacy rate, which is phenomenal in a country where just 75% of the men are literate and a paltry 53% of women are literate.
The book also talked about how development simply means making life better. While most people talk about developing economies as referring to poorer economies; all countries are in this sense developing, or making life better. Even the richest countries have room to improve the well-being of the people within their societies. To me, that approach makes way more sense than automatically separating rich from poor countries and gives us all a starting place for room to improve. No society is perfect, despite what nationalists within any country might tell you. We must consistently work for a better life for all people, not just those at the top. I recently posted a quote from a blog that stated Congress was currently considering a bill that cut a little over $800 million more from the Women, Infants, and Children program. To put that in perspective, that's about a week's worth of revenue that could have been collected if we let the tax cuts expire just on the millionaires in this country. You can't do or be much if you don't have adequate access to good nutrition.
In my opinion, our country has a long way to go in terms of the human development index. In the interview of the podcast they said we're number four, but last year we were number twelve. So many people believe the United States is the best country in the world, but I have to disagree with that. No country is perfect, but even after that I don't think our's is the best. We need to have more equal access to healthcare and a better way for the common man to access tertiary education if we want to say we're truly the best, not to mention a whole host of other things we don't do well. That being said, it starts on an individual level; what can I do to better the lives of the people around me? After reading the first chapter in this book, one thought that occurred to me was that I could start by becoming a better teacher. If I stay in teaching I will impact countless lives, either for better or worse. That is a tremendous responsibility, and one that I'm just now starting to realize the severity of. Part of me really wants to start a business someday to simply provide people with jobs, but maybe I'd be better off at developing my gifts as a teacher to better society that way. I don't think there will ever be a shortage of need for good teachers within our society. So that's it, that's what I'm going to contribute to the betterment of society; an education that enriches young people's lives and sets them on the path to success.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
all in the family
I've been meaning to write this blog since Sunday, so hopefully I'll remember most of what I wanted to write down. This last weekend, I was reminded of just how blessed I am to have good friends here in Sarasota and Bradenton, Florida. I spent a lot of time, particularly on Sunday, hanging out with people from my church plant. First was church in the morning, then I had house church at 5, then after that some of us guys met up to go shrimping. Honestly, I'd never been shrimping before, but can say I had a really good time at it, mainly because of the company I surrounded myself with. 2 of the guys had their 2 boys a piece with them and the other guy has a son on the way in about 6 weeks. We had a blast, there were 2 eight year-olds, 1 six year-old, and 1 five year-old. They had a big time trying to find the shrimp and scoop them into our nets that the other guys brought. Fishing has never been a forte of mine, and perhaps that bad luck carried over to shrimping because we didn't catch any shrimp that were really big enough to keep. We did, however, catch some blue crabs that my friend is going to cook sometime for his family.
My immediate family consists of my parents, who live in the middle of Illinois, and my brother Nathan, who currently lives, works, and goes to school in Germany. His first year of grad school at UPenn cost something around $50,000 after scholarships. So he learned German and goes there now for about $1,300. Anyways, I obviously don't get to see a lot of them since we're kind of spread out all over the place, though I do make an effort to go home to Illinois about twice a year. Since I don't see my immediate family a lot, I need people down here to fill in those gaps. So I have certain people down here who I consider to be my family. Most of them are from church, but not all. God has blessed me tremendously through these friendships, and I truly couldn't ask for anything more.
Maybe family isn't so much about blood relatives as it is about who you allow close enough to you to hurt you if they chose to. Deep relationships require vulnerability, which for some reason I have no problem with in regards to friendships but am terrified about when it comes to dating relationships. On my round the world trip, I remember being surrounded by people at times but feeling all alone. Family are those people who you share some history with, the ones close enough to truly get on your nerves but at the same time are the ones who you would choose over anyone else to have near you given the chance.
On my round the world trip I learned a lot about the world and about my own likes and dislikes, and now I can say that I learned to be grateful for the people in my life who I love and am close to. They're what makes life worth living. And don't misunderstand me when I say close to. I don't necessarily mean physical proximity so much as those who have a shared connection with you that make you feel at home whether you're in the same room or on the phone with them. Lately, I have reveled in the fact that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be for now. I'm in the midst of friends on a weekly basis and for that I am incredibly grateful.
May you be surrounded by your family, whether through blood or close contact. And may you learn to deal with all the quarks that we all bring to the table.
My immediate family consists of my parents, who live in the middle of Illinois, and my brother Nathan, who currently lives, works, and goes to school in Germany. His first year of grad school at UPenn cost something around $50,000 after scholarships. So he learned German and goes there now for about $1,300. Anyways, I obviously don't get to see a lot of them since we're kind of spread out all over the place, though I do make an effort to go home to Illinois about twice a year. Since I don't see my immediate family a lot, I need people down here to fill in those gaps. So I have certain people down here who I consider to be my family. Most of them are from church, but not all. God has blessed me tremendously through these friendships, and I truly couldn't ask for anything more.
Maybe family isn't so much about blood relatives as it is about who you allow close enough to you to hurt you if they chose to. Deep relationships require vulnerability, which for some reason I have no problem with in regards to friendships but am terrified about when it comes to dating relationships. On my round the world trip, I remember being surrounded by people at times but feeling all alone. Family are those people who you share some history with, the ones close enough to truly get on your nerves but at the same time are the ones who you would choose over anyone else to have near you given the chance.
On my round the world trip I learned a lot about the world and about my own likes and dislikes, and now I can say that I learned to be grateful for the people in my life who I love and am close to. They're what makes life worth living. And don't misunderstand me when I say close to. I don't necessarily mean physical proximity so much as those who have a shared connection with you that make you feel at home whether you're in the same room or on the phone with them. Lately, I have reveled in the fact that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be for now. I'm in the midst of friends on a weekly basis and for that I am incredibly grateful.
May you be surrounded by your family, whether through blood or close contact. And may you learn to deal with all the quarks that we all bring to the table.
Friday, June 3, 2011
spending cuts and taxes
Last week, I sat down to dinner with a good friend of mine who happens to also be a staunch conservative. He was convinced that the way forward was to drill for oil here at home and just increase the incentives for more fuel efficient cars or cars that didn't run on oil at all. My response was that desperation leads to innovation and if gas prices stayed high, we're more likely to get off the stuff sooner. He said we should just drill at home for 10 more years while we wait for the technology to catch up. In my opinion though, saying to give us oil now so we can get off it later is a little like telling a young kid that he can have his ice cream now but later he will have to eat his vegetables. Whereas now, as it stands, the high price of gas is forcing people to look for ways to make their cars more fuel efficient and is finally having an effect on the truck and SUV market. In addition, auto makers in the US are finally shifting towards smaller car fleets and being profitable from it.
I got an email update from my representative this last week talking about how a fellow congressman had introduced a bill to hike the gas tax to pay for infrastructure. My representative acted like this was a horrible idea. Personally, I think it's a great idea and one that I've had for a while as stated in previous blogs. The federal gas tax hasn't moved for 20+ years and if we were to increase that tax it would pay for infrastructure maintenance and also force us off oil sooner, both good things.
This is also the same congressman that says we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. How can he say that? Of course we have a spending problem, but the last time I checked we were balanced before the Bush tax cuts. Common sense tells you we're going to have to get back to that point to get balanced again. Republicans came in on the ticket in the mid-term elections that they were going to cut $100 billion from the budget. $100 billion? Is that a joke or something? Even if they got their way, that doesn't even come close to making up the deficit, which stands at $1.4 trillion and change. With their suggestions it would only be $1.3 trillion? Really? Is that something to brag about? They're willing to cut everything but the military, so in essence they're not really serious at all about cutting the deficit. They don't want to raise taxes, nor do they want to cut the military budget. Do they have their heads in the sand about this? Now, granted, Senator Ryan has a plan for entitlement reform which would save a ton of money but it would also end up costing seniors a lot more than what they're used to. And it does nothing to raise taxes, which is what's really needed. And democrats only want to raise taxes on the rich when in reality all the Bush tax cuts are going to have to be repealed for us to even have a chance at balancing the budget.
It's in Americans' blood to hate taxes, but unfortunately that's what it's going to take to get us out of the hole. You can only cut so much, and a lot of what's being cut is programs for the poor. Meanwhile, we continue to give huge tax breaks to the rich and corporations. It'll be interesting to see if any Republican nominee for the president has the brass to say we're actually going to need to raise taxes. I highly doubt it, but at least they would be being honest if they were to say that. You simply can't cut $1.4 trillion from the budget without hurting everyone but the wealthy. I'm tired of all the tax breaks we give to the wealthy and corporations and then turn around and cut programs to the poor. It's simply immoral.
I got an email update from my representative this last week talking about how a fellow congressman had introduced a bill to hike the gas tax to pay for infrastructure. My representative acted like this was a horrible idea. Personally, I think it's a great idea and one that I've had for a while as stated in previous blogs. The federal gas tax hasn't moved for 20+ years and if we were to increase that tax it would pay for infrastructure maintenance and also force us off oil sooner, both good things.
This is also the same congressman that says we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. How can he say that? Of course we have a spending problem, but the last time I checked we were balanced before the Bush tax cuts. Common sense tells you we're going to have to get back to that point to get balanced again. Republicans came in on the ticket in the mid-term elections that they were going to cut $100 billion from the budget. $100 billion? Is that a joke or something? Even if they got their way, that doesn't even come close to making up the deficit, which stands at $1.4 trillion and change. With their suggestions it would only be $1.3 trillion? Really? Is that something to brag about? They're willing to cut everything but the military, so in essence they're not really serious at all about cutting the deficit. They don't want to raise taxes, nor do they want to cut the military budget. Do they have their heads in the sand about this? Now, granted, Senator Ryan has a plan for entitlement reform which would save a ton of money but it would also end up costing seniors a lot more than what they're used to. And it does nothing to raise taxes, which is what's really needed. And democrats only want to raise taxes on the rich when in reality all the Bush tax cuts are going to have to be repealed for us to even have a chance at balancing the budget.
It's in Americans' blood to hate taxes, but unfortunately that's what it's going to take to get us out of the hole. You can only cut so much, and a lot of what's being cut is programs for the poor. Meanwhile, we continue to give huge tax breaks to the rich and corporations. It'll be interesting to see if any Republican nominee for the president has the brass to say we're actually going to need to raise taxes. I highly doubt it, but at least they would be being honest if they were to say that. You simply can't cut $1.4 trillion from the budget without hurting everyone but the wealthy. I'm tired of all the tax breaks we give to the wealthy and corporations and then turn around and cut programs to the poor. It's simply immoral.
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