Clean Air Needs a Real Plan

In “Waking Up in Texas to Clean Fresh Air,” it is suggested that Texas should adopt the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan to improve the environment.  The blog mentions how the plan will require a reduction in greenhouse gases by coal-powered electric generating plants, however it provides no evidence for supporting the plan’s approval and acceptance.  While acknowledging that the plan will be expensive, it is asserted that the “cost will be worth it” but neglects to mention the fact that this cost will be recurring and potentially harmful to the economy.  Furthermore, it is suggested in the blog that Texas needs to accept this plan because “Texas is a big state [with fracking and oil production];” however, fracking and producing oil have little relevance to greenhouse gases.  Finally, it is suggested that Texas has a choice of adopting this plan: it doesn’t.  This plan will be forced on Texas and all other states by the federal government.

Greenhouse gases are released by both natural and human processes around the world.  These include among other activities, decomposition of organic matter, ocean releases, respiration, cement production, deforestation, and the burning of fossil fuels.  While some of these processes are susceptible to reducing the emission of greenhouse gases, others are not.  Coal-fired power plants can be controlled to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases, as this blog indicates, the costs will be high, which could lead to shutting down many of these plants.

There is no discussion of the downsides of the plan or the closing of these electric plants.  Besides making electricity less available, and possibly raising the price of electricity, there are some benefits that can be achieved from coal plants.  Studies are being done to determine the reductions in greenhouse gases in cement production that are available by replacing cement with fly ash, one of the residues generated by coal combustion.  These studies have shown that, by replacing 60% of the cement used in Texas concrete production with fly ash, carbon dioxide emissions, a primary greenhouse gas, could be reduced by 6.6 million tons annually, which is a substantial reduction.  With the adoption of the Clean Power Plan, programs, such as a new way to produce concrete, will be eradicated rather than strengthen and moved along faster and better.  Additionally, the blog refers to “small community programs” that are “only decreasing pollution by a little,” but makes no mention of the hundreds of research groups around the nation that are making huge steps to solving the problem of greenhouse gases.  Further, it is unlikely that adoption of the Clean Power Plan in the U.S. will cause China, which produces vastly more greenhouse gases, to incur these types of costs to reduce its greenhouse gases.  If reduction is not made on a global scale, then Obama’s plan is just wasting money.

When deciding whether the Clean Power Plan is worth the costs, there are several aspects that must be considered.  First consider how the Clean Power Plan will affect the electric industry in America if coal-fired power were replaced with gas-fired power.  What will happen if we have another gas shortage?  Having more than one type of fuel helps to ensure that enough electricity can be generated.  Another consideration is that the cost of implementing these changes introduced in the Clean Power Plan could outweigh the benefits of changing the source of power.  Greenhouse gases are also a global issue.  Implementing the Clean Power Plan will result in only a small portion of the world’s carbon emission being decreased as other countries, such as China, will most likely not follow our lead to reduce carbon emissions.  Another consideration that needs to be taken into account is how the Clean Power Plan could affect and harm other plans to reduce carbon emission that are currently being used and working.  Much thought and thorough consideration must be put into how much the Clean Power Plan will help or harm solutions to a problem that is being addresses every day.

Tuition Needs Regulation

In 2003, the 76^th Texas Legislature passed House Bill 3015 deregulating tuition of public universities.  In addition, HB 3015 also requires universities to set aside 15 % of tuition to provide financial assistance for students and lessen the effects of tuition deregulation.  Another 5% is required to be set-aside to fund the Texas B-on-Time Student Loan Program.  In all, for fiscal years 2005-2008, $248 million was set aside for undergraduates and $48 million for graduate students.  Since deregulation, the total academic charges, including tuition and fees, for a student at a public university has increased 72 percent.  With these increases, universities have reported a growing share of their operational income is funded by tuition and fees for the following purposes: the use of funds to recruit and retain faculty and staff, increase academic course offerings, lower the student-teacher ratio, offer student services, maintain facilities, pay utility costs, service building debt, and provide additional financial aid to students.

When looking at data provided for before and after deregulation, there have been drastic increases in tuition and fees, which have only gotten worst over the years.  In 2003 at the University of Texas at Austin, there was a statutory tuition (set by the legislature) of $690 dollars and a designated tuition (set by the board of regents) of $690 totaling into a $1,380 fee per semester.  Including another $641 in fees, it cost $2,721 to attend UT in 2003 (excluding books and living costs).  By 2009, statutory tuition increased to $750 and the designated tuition increased to $2,276 with a total tuition of $3, 026.  Accounting for the fees, which increased only slightly, it cost $4,468 to attend in UT in 2009.  The change in tuition totaled $1,646, or 119% between the two years while the total cost increased$1,747, or 64%.  The total cost (tuition plus fees) has only increased slightly since then: today the total cost at UT for Texas residents is $4,915 for a 15-hour load.  For comparison, non-residents would pay $17,418 per semester.  While statutory tuition is determined by the Texas Legislature as a set amount per semester credit hour, the designated tuition is determined by a governing board at each institution of higher education at a level that the board considers necessary for the operation of the institution.  HB 3015 eliminated the previous limits on the governing boards to set designated tuition rates so that there is currently no limit on the amount of tuition the university may charge.  Universities argue that, because of inflation and less money being provided by the state (an 11% decrease per student), campuses had to raise tuition to make up for lost revenue. 

As a current student at the University of Texas at Austin, I have not seen the improvements that were supposed to result from the additional tuition revenue.  In my college, there are few people who seem to receive financial aid, there is not an improved student-teacher ratio, and there are not enough sections of degree-required courses to allow you to stay on track for a four-year graduation.  And there seems to be little improvement of existing facilities, but there are new buildings being constructed.  In addition, while the passage of house bill 3015 included financial assistance to be set-aside to help with the impact of deregulation, the financial aid would not have been required if there had been no tuition increases as a result of deregulation.  While there is some financial aid available, the increase of tuition, about 55 percent, is placing several leading universities, including UT, out of reach for middle-income families that cannot qualify for financial aid.  Many students and families must look for funding from other places and usually must take out loans.  By the time many students leave college, they are stuck with more than a hundred thousand dollars of loans that need to be paid off, with no guarantee they will have a job once they graduate, or that even with a job, they can afford to pay off the loan.  The amount student loans has now surpassed the amount of credit-card debt in this country and many financial experts worry that it will be a huge drain on our economy.  People spend so much paying off student loans that they cannot afford to buy new cars or houses, which hurts those sectors and results in fewer available jobs.  With more students attending universities and cuts to higher education funding, the current problem at hand will continue to grow and cause even bigger issues to develop.

Tuition should be regulated so that it is controlled by our elected representative who are responsive to the concerns of parents and students and the impact of the increase student-loan problem on our economy.  Leaving this decision to the unelected members of the governing boards will result in increasing growth in tuition and those boards are concerned primarily with their institution and not with the financial well-being of the people or the health of the state’s economy.  The boards will continue to increase rates to compete with other schools without providing increased educational benefits to students.

Immigration Process Needs to be Fixed

In Two Countries, One Border, and Too Many Problems, Alyssa Wilkins discuss a very controversial topic that has dominated politics for years and is being highlighted in the 2016 Presidential Race.  Immigration causes such a mix of reactions and emotions, which lead to more issues being called into question.  Illegal immigration is a problem, more so in border states such as Texas, that will affect the entire Nation.  As Wilkins states, “many politicians agree but are too reluctant to speak up” about illegal immigration because of how it will affect their ratings and chances of being elected whether it is for president, governor, and some other political position. 

Wilkins present several arguments for why illegal immigration needs to be stopped, including “hurting our economy [and] bringing danger to our society.”  She also points to two things that upset Americans, especially those citizens of border states, about illegal immigration: “illegals getting handed free or reduced items” while there is a process for receiving American citizenship.

But Wilkins fails to address the real issue, which many seem to overlook, that while there is a process for gaining citizenship that process doesn’t work and isn’t enforced.  There is little repercussions against illegal immigrants, such as deportation.  Currently in order to gain citizenship, the process can take upwards of 10 years.  Many would wonder why wait that long, even to be considered for citizenship, which isn’t guaranteed, when coming here illegally seems to have no repercussions but plenty of benefits.  This needs to be fixed because the American economy cannot be sustained without these immigrants.  The solution to illegal immigration is to fix the process and let the people who want to work and make our country a better place come in to the United States.  As legal citizens, their taxes will then contribute to supporting necessary programs. This would be easier than making a giant fence, which doesn’t actually work, or having to pour thousands of tax payers’ dollars to end up with little to no result.  By looking at other issues, such as how long and hard it is to gain citizenship, a reduction in illegal immigration might be found and hard-working and deserving people would become legal.

Business Should Contribute to Better Infrastructure

The Texas Legislature just finished its 84^th regular session on June 1^st, but before they adjourned, Texas’ elected officials passed a number of bills, not all of which will help Texas.  A week before the session ended, officials passed a tax cut for the business margin tax, which results in an estimated $2.54 billion reduction in tax revenue from businesses.  This bill, House Bill 2, seems to hold many advantages for businesses including reducing the franchise tax from1 percent to 0.75 percent.  The money that will be lost, however, would have gone a long way to help fix a much more pressing problem that is not only a problem in Texas but is a problem for all of the United States.  Transportation infrastructure, roads and bridges, is failing each and every day.  However, the funds to fix the problem don’t exist.  The Texas legislature announced that they had a solution, one that the voters would have to approve, which would dedicate a portion of sales tax on vehicles bought and give more sales-tax revenue to the highway fund.  These constitutional amendments would bring in $2.5 billion; however, there is no proof that the public would be willing to support such amendments. 

Texas’s roads currently have a grade of a D and that will continue to decrease if nothing is done to improve their quality.  Infrastructure plays a major role in everyday life and is something that businesses rely on in order to ship and receive products as well as bring in business.  Businesses can’t operate without good infrastructure; however, not enough is being done to improve the quality of Texas’s infrastructure.  Since businesses are so reliant on infrastructure to operate and make a profit, they should be required to make significant contributions to the highway funds to fix this problem.  While $2.5 billion isn’t nearly enough, whether it is coming from the public or businesses, the combined total of the two groups that depend on infrastructure would help to make some drastic improvements.  The public is more likely to support the amendments if they saw that business was also contributing to solve the problem instead of enjoying their tax cuts.

Rather than placing the responsibility of funding the highway funds on solely one group, while there are others groups who are just as reliant on the roads and bridges, the Texas Legislature needs to take another look at what the tax cuts will accomplish.  Our elected officials need to find a solution that doesn’t just help one group, but rather the state as a whole.  The problems facing the state in coming years, such as the failing infrastructure, do not rest purely on one portion of Texas society or another but rather on everyone.  The recent tax cuts for businesses may help businesses for the moment; however, putting the needed infrastructure fixes off to another day will just cause everyone to pay even more than they would today to fix this problem.

Confederates on State Grounds

R.G. Ratcliffe, a writer for Texas Monthly Burka Blog, published a post discussing the Confederate statues on the capitol grounds.  Ratcliffe has been writing posts for the Burka Blog since 2011 and has covered a range of topics such as Texas politics, the 82^nd Legislature, and political scandals.  In his most recent post, “Dead Confederates at the Capitol”, Ratcliffe discusses the history and purpose of the Confederate statues on state grounds and targets the general public, especially those who feel strongly about whether the statues should be allowed to remain.

Ratcliffe begins with a short history of how and why these Confederate statues came to reside on the state capitol grounds.  On April 16, 1903, a statue to honor the Confederate war dead was dedicated in a ceremony attended Texans from all over the state.  This monument to honor the dead was a gift to the state from the Camp John B. Hood a division of the United Confederate Veterans.  During a reception following the dedication, former Confederate Postmaster John H. Reagan spoke of how the Confederates “were neither traitors nor rebels, but had been forced to vindicate themselves when the majority in the national Government trampled over their constitutional rights.”  Several days later, Reagan spoke again reporting that “slavery was the occasion but it was not strictly true to say that it was the cause of the war” but rather was caused by sectional jealousy, greed of gain, and lust of political power.  But Ratcliffe then points out that the Texas secession law specifically mentioned the servitude of African Americans.

Ratcliffe questioned whether these Confederate monuments are meant to honor Texans who fought in the Civil War or if they are really a homage to the Confederacy.  In an effort to answer himself, Ratcliffe asks his readers to look at who headed the committee that created the monument, which included former Governor Frank R. Lubbock and Postmaster, who both supported Confederate President Jefferson Davis.  Words inscribed on the monument, which includes “Died for State Rights Guaranteed under the Constitution,” and a listing the number of causalities also provide some insight.

Ratcliffe reflects back on his own experience with the Confederate monument when he first came to work at the state capital.  Ratcliffe mentions how his first impression of the monument was that it is a guise of honoring the Texans who fought in the war and was rather a tribute the Confederacy and its ideas.  With recent events involving Confederate memorials, questions have been raised and people are demanding something be done, whether it be the removal of the statues on state grounds or the continued existence of where they reside.  Ratcliffe offers his own suggestion for a solution: installing a new historical marker that puts the monuments into context rather than tearing down the monuments.  These monuments could be turned into a learning experience rather than being destroyed and taking a piece of history with them.  I agree that we need to preserve these monuments to remember this dark period of our past, but should add new plagues that explain why the statutes were erected and by whom.

Republican Influence on Texas Government

In Daniel Hung’s Daily Texan article, Hung is targeting the general public; however, the main intended audience is individuals on the University of Texas at Austin (UT) campus.  The article asserts that the economic success in Texas is the result of the pro-business and pro-growth policies put in place as a result of the Republican Party’s control of state government.  Daniel Hung is a second-year law student at UT who has written editorials on open-carry bills, Texas education, student tax cuts, and UT’s affirmative action policy.  Hung claims that during the times that the Republican Party has held political power in Texas, the state has prospered more than when the Democrats were in power.  Hung argues that while there is room for improvement in the state of Texas, such as public education, the improvements that the Republican Party has made in Texas should allow it to stay in power.  In his article, Hung quotes Paul Burka, the former senior executive editor of Texas Monthly, saying that “Texas has prospered under the republicans” and that the “economy has been strong, tax collections have likewise been consistently good, and the Rainy Day fund is bulging with money.”  Burka, who covered Texas politics for more than 40 years, believes that everything about the economics of Texas is good.  Hung acknowledges other arguments that the Republican Party isn’t responsible for Texas’s economic success but rather that the fact that the state is blessed with abundant natural resources, such as oil, is the real cause of that success.  These natural resources mean nothing Hung asserts, however, without pro-business policies that help develop the resource.  He contrasts the success in Texas with the level of success in California, which also has abundant resources, but little pro-business policy.  Hung argues that all of these pro-business policies have been implemented while Republicans have held power, which in the legislature has been since 2003 and the governorship for the last 20-years.  Even with all these arguments for the good that Republican leadership has caused, Hung still points to improvements that the party needs to make, including tax cuts for everyone, a full time legislature, and the elimination of the affirmative action in University admission.

Government Spending on School Funding

On July 14^th, the Austin American Statesman posted an article titled “Not every district gets a boost in funding” where state school funding distribution is discussed.  In Texas, an estimated $1.5 billion will be added to school funding in the next two years.  But with this additional money, some school districts, including Eanes, will receive less state funding for education in the coming 2015-2016 school year.  There are also new state mandates that will cost school districts money, such as “installing cameras in special education classrooms, changing campus signs for new gun laws, and supplying 1.5 percent more to employee’ retirement.”  While some argue there is an acceptable amount of educational funding, they question how the funds should be disbursed as well as the cost-of-education index, something that was last updated in 1990.  While there are funds available, the solution to helping Texas children may need to come from new and innovative ways rather than simply the collection of more money.  This article is worth reading because it provides information that is important for the public to know whether they have children in schools or not.  This basic information allows the public to form ideas and opinions on how taxes are used for school funding.