I would have to agree with the author on the reduction of the voting age, although for different reasons. I think that while it is true that we already give many 16 year olds some responsibilities of an adult, I still feel that at that age they are not really given the full freedom and responsibilities that turning 18 can bring. The most prominent change being at 16 most teens are still in school, while most 18 year olds are now out of the public school system. This by itself is quite a massive change that can lead to differences in responsibility at those two ages. I believe it is because of this lack of responsibility that the voting age should be lowered. This is because at the age of 18 a person may feel overwhelmed at what needs to be done as a legal adult, and without guidance voting may just seem like a nuisance. On the other hand, because 16 year olds are still in school they have less adult responsibilities while having the guidance of the school to encourage them to vote and as the original article said, people are much more likely to continue voting if they have already voted once before, making these younger voters much more likely to vote in the future.
Red White and Blue Government
Monday, July 31, 2017
Blog Stage 6
Give Youth A Voice is an article posted on Young Minded Perspective of the U.S. that argues that the voting age should be lowered to 16 or 17. The article's main argument is that teenagers around that age are already given enough adult responsibilities that they should also be responsible enough to vote. Along with the article also points out that voting turnout may increase and that it is important to engage the youth as they are the ones that will inherit our future.
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Blog Stage 5
One of the most pressing issues in today’s government is the
continuously rising healthcare costs. Recently, healthcare has risen to one of
the most hotly debated topics in politics, as is evident by the debate around Obamacare
and its repeal. With these changes in healthcare recently, the goal has always
been to make healthcare more available to those that need it without making those
that support them pay a ridiculous amount of money. They try to achieve this by
doing things like expanding Medicaid and offloading the extra expenses onto the
higher-income tax payers in the case of Obamacare. While the goal of making
healthcare more available is a noble goal, the way that politicians have been
going about it is like putting a bandage on a wound instead of healing the
wound. Instead of finding ways to help people pay off their healthcare expenses
we should work to find ways to reduce the costs of healthcare directly.
In every hospital there is something called a chargemaster,
which is just a collection of the costs of their services and any items that
may contribute to those services. This may sound completely harmless until one
actually looks inside the chargemaster and sees that something as small and
cheap as a Tylenol pill can cost as much as 40 dollars, while normally costing
around fifty cents. All the prices in those chargemasters are similarly insane,
leading to the question of how this even happened in the first place. One’s
first instinct may be to blame the hospitals for jacking up prices on purpose
for the sole reason of getting more profit. However, only around 20 percent of
hospitals are for-profit, the majority being non-profit, which means that they
do not operate to seek the greatest profit. The reason for these massively
jacked up prices are the result of insurance companies asking for discounts
when negotiating bills, meaning that insurance companies only pay a fraction of
the costs that hospitals deem as the actual price. The issue this causes for
the average person is that it forces people to go through insurance companies
and pay their premium to get fair prices, leaving anyone who cannot afford insurance
to pay exorbitant amounts of money for something as small as a Tylenol pill.
The government is currently going through more changes in
the healthcare system with the trump administration attempting to repeal
Obamacare, however they are again focusing on the wrong aspect of healthcare
that needs changing. Instead of finding ways to help people pay of their
healthcare bills they need to moderate the actual prices that are being
charged.
Monday, July 24, 2017
Blog Stage 4
On July 21, Jared Kushner, Senior advisor to the president
and Trump’s son-in-law revised his financial disclosure forms, adding on 77
additional items that were not included in the previous forms. Catherine
Rampell, in her opinion paper expresses her disdain for Kushner and his
behavior in dealing with his financial disclosure forms.
Financial disclosure forms are forms where government
officials disclose their assets in order to confirm that they would not have
any conflicts of interest when working in the government. Rampell’s concern stems
from the fact that not filling out these forms could imply either a lack of due
diligence or corruption on Kushner’s part. She is discontent with the current
system as even though it is illegal to hide information from the financial
disclosure forms, all Kushner needs to do when any inconsistencies show up is plead
ignorance and add them back in. Instead of our current system, she proposes
that we adapt a “Banana Republic Rule” where if “you forget it, you forfeit it”
in order to combat abuse of the system. Her idea stems from Arnold Harberger’s tax
proposals to various countries struggling with corruption, any assets
registered to a certain value could potentially be forced to sell at that
value, encouraging greater honesty.
Rampell’s article was definitely targeted at those that
disapprove of Kushner’s actions as well as those that disapprove of Trump’s
administration as a whole, as can be seen by her various references to Trump’s
shady practices in the past. Along with this, she is also writing this for
those that disapprove of the current system of disclosing finances as can be
seen by her suggestions for alternate policies. These target audiences both align
with her political ideology as she is a staunch Democrat that has many criticisms
towards the republican party as can be seen in her past articles.
Thursday, July 20, 2017
Blog stage 3
On July 20 David Leonhardt and Stuart A. Thompson posted an
opinion page on the New York Times titled Trump’s Lies. From the title alone it
can already be inferred what this entire article will be about, but more
specifically it goes into listing every single lie that Trump has said up to
this point in tie during his presidency. The concern here is obvious, lies will
influence most of the public who don’t really have time to fact check anything
and take everything as the truth. Going through the list of lies myself, most don’t
really seem too grievous in terms of the impact they can have, most being slight
changes to show Trump’s administration in a better light. The problem that they
also address with these small lies is that they build up and pick away at Trump’s
credibility with the public.
The reason this article was written was to convince those
that still believe Trump that his words are not to be taken at face value and
to even stir further mistrust in the president. These both align perfectly with
the two authors agendas as David Leonhardt and Stuart A. Thompson both have a
more liberal background. As such some of these lies may just be a simple slip
of the tongue or lapse of memory that just happened to be in front of the media,
however, they still make a good point that even if some were just lapses in
memory, the total amount off lies and half-truths are entirely unacceptable
from our own president.
Monday, July 17, 2017
Blog stage 2
On July 12 the Washington Post published an article about the net neutrality day of action. Net neutrality is the idea that the internet is open and equal to all users, meaning that ISPs or internet service providers such as Comcast can not discriminate between websites being visited and must load all sites at the same speed. This issue was first looked at in 2015, where the FCC declared that net neutrality was to be followed however, right now the FCC is trying to repeal their previous declaration. By repealing net neutrality ISPs would be able to throttle websites that refuse to pay them a premium, which while earning them more profits is universally bad for all consumers. The net neutrality day of action is a way to inform the users of the internet about the consequences of this. This article really highlights the importance of net neutrality and also helps spread awareness along with the other initiatives.
Monday, July 10, 2017
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Blog Stage 6
Give Youth A Voice is an article posted on Young Minded Perspective of the U.S. that argues that the voting age should be lowered to 16 or 1...
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On July 12 the Washington Post published an article about the net neutrality day of action. Net neutrality is the idea that the internet is ...
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Give Youth A Voice is an article posted on Young Minded Perspective of the U.S. that argues that the voting age should be lowered to 16 or 1...