Illegal immigration: fiscal issue

The issue of illegal immigration into Texas is a fiscal burden that effects Texan tax payers each year. As more illegal immigrants enter the state, less money is being generated by these immigrants then spent in tax money. An executive summary on the Texas illegal immigration burden by Jack Martin revealed that in 2013 Texas tax payed payed about 12.1 billion dollars and only received 1.27 billion in tax money back. On top of these costs are the cost of damages and crime that rises from illegal immigrant entering the state. Texas should definitely focus more on decreasing the number of immigrants entering the state since it effects every Texan in the form of taxes and would save a substantial amount of money.

In order to prevent these deficits in tax revenue and remedy the crime increase that comes from illegal immigration a decrease in immigrants coming into the state would be the best way to go. Unfortunately it seems that political solutions to this problem has been nothing but temporary. Gov Rick Perry stated that he would send 1,000 national guard troops over the next month to the border to combat illegal immigrants entering the state. This solution will only last so long and will cause a slight decrease of immigrants for a short time if anything. Perry also tried requesting federal aid through Obama's power to send troops as commander-in-chief of the army. This is just as bad as the first approach at fixing the problem and even Obama stated in the meeting that it would only be a temporary solution.

Although I agree with Rick Perry's concern for immediate relief from this wave of illegal immigrants entering the state I feel that its just as important to think of a future solution like increasing border security in the form of a wall or permanent structure. This might impose a lot of money at first but it will pay off over time as it saves money by preventing immigration.

Texas House Stepping on Border Crisis to Secure our Border

State Rep. Dan Flynn  posted a commentary titled "Texas House Stepping on Border Crisis to Secure our Border", in the Texas Insider blog talking about federal law interfering with Texas ability to limit border passage of Mexicans into the state. 

The writers argument is that Texas cannot properly protect its citizens when it can't enforce federal immigration policy, this forces Texas to hand any individuals that have been caught over to the US border patrol. The author noted that a federal policy allowing any immigrant granted with "permisos" is allowed to travel anywhere in the US and choose where they want to "promise" to show up for a court date. The author believes the only solution is for the Obama administration to properly address the border concerns in Texas.

It is completely agreeable that border concerns need to be addressed properly by the Federal Government especially since it's federal policy that is conflicting with how Texas is trying to handle the problem.  Although it might seem like the Federal Government needs to fix this problem, it would ultimately be Texas who has to maintain border control. The only way for that to happen would be to rewrite the federal border policy. This would allow tighter control by Texas of its own border with less federal interference.

The author makes a point from a quote in the commentary that other states have tried to take border control into their own hands and found them selves with lawsuits. This reinforces the idea that we need to fix this problem through the Federal Government, and how big of a problem this really is.

The author was able to make their argument credible by presenting some history about border control and quotes from a meeting on the border crisis by some of the State Representatives. Since this is an issue that affects almost every Texan, it was meant to reach every Texan.  In the end the reader understands what is being done about the continuing effort to secure our state border.

Helping Middle Class

Our nation is mostly made up of middle class working Americans striving to receive help for their problems and even achieve better life styles than they currently have. Our politicians work to help achieve this goal but it can be hard to take them seriously when they talk from a higher income level. I recently read an article about this going even more in depth on the issue of rising expenses with stagnant wages and how our upper class politicians don't exactly know how to fix a problem they don't truly understand. I can only assume that this articles audience is primarily middle class as the issues discussed would only interest someone in the middle class. These problem don't pertain strictly to money either, many of the issues that middle class Americans face every day require different laws that affect different things.

In the article the author talks about Florida Senior Marco Rubio and his solution to helping middle class with increase child tax credit and lower cost online education. These solutions seem so narrow to solving the grand scheme of middle class problems and the author equates this to a temporary solution of the main problems for the middle class. The author also argues that most Americans see middle class as different things explaining why lawmakers put the threshold of middle class a little higher. While I agree with why they would raise the threshold I don't see why that makes a difference in how people view them.

Overall the author seems logical and credible in his article, bringing in examples and real life situations showing how his points relate to what is actually going on around us.

School District Audit

Article

Tax money is supposed to be spent for the good of the people and bettering society. Education is a large part of this but not all of it is spent correctly.
In the article I have linked it explains the situation where a school audit in Fort Worth Texas found that millions of dollars in computer equipment in a North Texas school district was purchased and never used over 7 years. Money was then used on maintenance fees for the unused equipment.
This is a very interesting topic in that it shows the underlying abuse of government money. Education is very important but it surprises me that something like this could happen. More importantly even if the equipment couldn't be returned it could have been used by less fortunate schools that would benefit far more from the equipment.
I encourage anyone to take a look at this article since it's something that affects us all, down to the money we pay for these school districts to have what they need to operate.

Nick

Stage One

This is just a test post to make sure I know how things work. I have posted links and other information about me on slide out navigation bar to the right of the page. Looking forward to this class!