Blog Post 3.10 "Obama & Environmentalists"

President Obama has had a rocky relationship with environmentalists over the past couple of years, as the administration seemed to be currying favor with utilities, the oil and gas industry and business leaders in preparation for a tough reelection battle this fall. When industry critics warned that a new air-quality rule forcing plants and manufactures to sharply reduce smog-producing ozone would cost millions of jobs, the president last September asked the Environmental Protection Agency to delay action and rewrite the rule. Weeks later, the EPA announced that it would miss a deadline for setting greenhouse gas emissions for coal-fired power plants and refineries, another setback for the effort to combat global warming.


In March, Obama further infuriated environmentalists with an Interior Department decision to open 7,400 acres of Wyoming’s picturesque Powder River Basin to destructive coal mining. Environmental leaders say the president’s decision to block the pipeline project demonstrated that Obama was finally listening to them. Obama unveiled his fiscal 2013 budget blue print that includes cuts in the EPA budget, especially funds for Super Fund toxic waste cleanups, and a revolving fund to maintain states’ water pipelines, purification facilities and vital waterways. The budget would encourage the construction of more energy efficient commercial buildings, and would support the Interior Department’s program of allowing new renewable energy projects on public land.

1. He has had major problems with environmentalists in the past.

2.  He announced his decision to open 7,400 acres of Wyoming’s picturesque Powder River Basin to destructive coal mining.

3. Implementing new rules that will double automobile fuel  efficiency by 2025 and Signing legislation that sets aside two million acres of  wilderness area across the country

4. Cuts in the EPA's budget,especially funds for Super Fund toxic waste cleanups, and a revolving fund to maintain states’ water pipelines, purification facilities and vital waterways.

5. Proposals to spend $6.7 billion on clean and renewable energy projects.

6.  Cap and trade programs establish a cap throughout an economy on emissions of a substance considered a pollutant.
7. The increase would encourage the construction of more energy efficient commercial buildings, and would support the Interior Department’s program of allowing new renewable energy projects on public land.

Blog Post 3.9 "Inflation"

Inflation is up there with unemployment as one of the main ills you don’t want an economy to come down with. But in fact a growing number of economists are arguing that rising prices are exactly what we need to cure our the current economic maladies. It may not be the best answer, but it could be the easiest one to achieve.  The argument for inflation is two-fold. One, inflation would shrink the value of the debts both the government and borrowers have to pay, improving our collective balance sheets. Higher salaries would also make it easier for borrowers to pay back their loans helping banks. Two, and this might be the more important reason now, inflation pushes people and companies to spend money. If you know prices are going to drop or stay flat, then you will delay a purchase. 

1. Because Consumers would use extra money to pay off debts.

2. Inflation would shrink the value of the debts both the government and borrowers have to pay

3. Inflation pushes people and companies to spend money.

4. It could raise interest rates.

5.  The stimulative effects of inflation are short-lived, but the damage of higher prices can last for a long-time

6. He suggests that government spending should boost the economy and institute a delayed consumption tax. that would  end up causing a boost in demand.

7. It could raise money for the government.

8 .It could make things more expensive.

9. The Fed could raise or lower inflation and they would not have to go through Washington to raise or lower inflation.

Blog Post 3.8 "Spending and Infrastructure"

This blog is basicall talking about how House Republicans unveiled a highway spending bill stuffed full of red meat for their conservative base. The bill would would gut funding for Amtrak and nix high-speed rail projects, and it would pay for its $260 billion price tag partly with royalties from expanded offshore oil drilling. This drilling proposal alone probably makes this bill dead-on-arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate.  the federal government has maintained a Highway Trust Fund, paid for mostly by taxes on fuel, that helps cover the repair and construction of our country's mass transit, bridges, etc. 


Two new challenges have come because Americans  started caring about the fuel efficiency again, and the recession struck, and penny-pinching drivers logged fewer miles to save on gas. The White House has recently proposed fuel economy standards that are far more ambitious than anything the commission imagined. Transportation buffs have suggested moving to a system that charges motorists based on the number of miles they drive, rather than the gas they burn as a way of solving this problem

1.  It would gut funding for Amtrak and nix high-speed rail projects.

2. A transportation fund which receives money from a federal fuel tax of 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel fuel and related excise taxes.

3. It is basically saying that inflation kills itself to a third of its value.

4. It is good because congress does not have to worry about people asking for bills to help lower gas.

5. HTF Baseline Forecast vs. Conservative Forecast

6. The Annual Federal Revenue Needed to Maintain Current Highway  and Transit Program Purchasing Power

7. Congress would have to make sure that current system's funding would be obselete.

8. Moving to a system that charges motorists based on the number of miles they drive, rather than the gas they burn.

Blog Post 3.7 "Obama's critics are right"

The author of this article completely disagrees with Andrew Sullivan from the previous blog. Whereas Sullivan thinks Obama has dome so much for the country, David Frum thinks that Obama is the worst thing that has happened to the nation in a while. Frum agrees with all of the critisims that Obama has. 

Frum believes that Obama is spending way too much federal money. Frum also believes that Obama is a Kenyan socialist who is reorienting the country toward more dependence on the federal government. He feel that Obama is saying "this job is too hard for me, " because of the Senate not approving his nominations to the Federal Reserve Board. David Frum does not feel that Obama is a very good president. 

1. He says the Obama adminstration has caused alot of unemployment causing people to be on welfare.

2. More judges and administrators must be hired to hear the vast number of disability cases that are now coming up.

3. Frum says Obama is raising taxes on important products and the letting consumer choose how to conserve that product.

4. He says that Obamacare is causing the government to spend more money on healthcare that what it`s been spending.

5. Tony Blair of Britain was trying to get more government involvement just like Obama now

6. Obama should have hired more Federal Reserve Board members to deal qith the monetary problems or recession.

7. He has influenced it by trying to add more members to it since the president appoints the members of the federal reserve board.

8. Germany’s unwillingness to work with or trust Obama's administration’s ideas for saving Europe from itself.

Blog Post 3.6 "Obama's Critics are Wrong"

Obama, being in his last year of his first term, is being critiqued unmercifully by Republicans and Democrats. This happens to all presidents but author Andrew Sullivan believes that the critisims are wrong. The far right believe that Obama is a socialist and is trying to change the way America handles things. The far left believe that Obama is "a hapless fool of Wall Street a continuation of Bush in civil liberties, and a cloistered elitist unable to grasp the populist moment that is his historic opportunity." Sullivan believes that even though he has not agreed with everything Obama has done during his time in office, Obama has delivered in a way that the "unhinged right" and the "purist left" have not absorbed or been able to understand.

1. They will always get attacked by his partisan opponents and feistier members of his base.

2. They think he`s attempting a "fundamental transformation" of the American way of life.

3. America was in a recession.

4. They feel as if Obama has done nothing but make the recession worse.

5. Obama caused a lot of government job loss.

6. It was viewed as increasing the deficit instead of decreasing it.

7. Majority of Obama`s senate members are republican and he cant really get anything to pass if he`s democrat and majority of his senate members are republican.

8. He generally shows his accomplishments and not generally talks about them.

9. Sullivan says Obama has a moderate-liberal response to problems.

10. He says that Obama has waged a war based on a reading of executive power & he has made a lot of promises since 2008 that he has not kept.

Blo"g Post 3.4 "Obama & the Bureaucratic Agencies

[applesause:) (For Breanna cause she thinks it's funny)

 President Obama announced a plan to reduce the size of the Federal Government. It is more noticible for its political challenge to a hostile Congress rather than it's actual purpose, to fight against the bloat that has been embraced by every modern day president. If he got approval, Obama says that he would start by downsizing the Small Business Administration and five other trade and business companies that would become one agency under the Department of Commerce.

No one is sure whether or not Congress will approve the legislation. The Republicans believe that it was more to help the campaign and reelection of Obama rather than actually reducing the size of government. The Democrats also expressed concerns about "folding" the Office of United States Trade Representative into a large bureaucracy, saying it would do more harm than good to American trade policy. Government efficiency experts are very happy about the inititive, saying it was over due. Speaker of the House John A. Boehner says that streamlining the government was a laudable goal and that Republicans would take a look at the plan.  

1. He is asking Congress to shrink the size of federal government.

2. The Small Business Administration and some other trade and business agencies.

3. He says they`re not to different but they`re different enough.

4. The Republican party.

5. Most people are expressing misgivings about these cuts because a lot of people would be left jobless

6. He`s trying to turn it into his own advantage.

7. Congress is made up of mostly republicans and republicans would not approve of cutting government.

8. It will alter public opinion since one party is for the change and another is against it

Blog Post 3.3 "Redistricting District 9"

Article 1:

Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey (Speaker of the Senate) released details of the statewide congressional redistricting. He and Beth Harwell (Speaker of the House) both have agreed on the details for the redistricting. The state legislature convened to approve the redistricting maps and there are some changes. The majority of Shelby County makes up the 9th District. The ninth district is very democratic and is led by Congressman Steve Cohen. The new district lines give the western 2/3 of the county to district nine and the eastern part is given to district eight, which is led by Republican Stephen Fincher. District nine stayed Democratic but District Eight has become even more Republican. 

1. It is now represented by Chancellor Arnold Goldin. 

2. It occupies the entire western two-thirds of the county, from north to south, leaving the eastern third to the 8th congressional District, now held by Republican Stephen Fincher of Frog Jump in Crockett County.

3. 8th District would now extend from the Tipton County line to the Mississippi state line, taking in Shelby County's eastern suburbs. The 7th District has seen its western border advanced all the way over to Hardeman County, with Fayette County also absorbed into the 8th District.

Article 2:


Steve Cohen is not happy about the new district lines. Stephen Fincher, the Congressman of the Eighth District, now is over a majority of what was formerly a big part of Cohen's district. Cohen is also upset about the fact that he is "redistricted out of contact with all four Jewish Communities in Shelby County." Being Jewish himself, we is not happy about the way the new lines are drawn. The bad thing for Cohen is that the new district lines are definately in favor of the Republican Congressmen. 

1. They control both chambers of legislatures as well as governorship.

2. The Republicans are gerrymandering because the control the legislature and the process.

3. The rights of minorities African Americans in Tennessee can not be abridged or reduced in the determination of district lines.

4. It`s demographics will be completely different.

5. He could end up losing reelection due to the change in demographics.

6. He feels as if Cohen thinks that one race should only be represented by a person of that same race.