Texas Legislature is in need of Change

While I agree with the Texas Legislature in need of Change by Cory Gurganus and believe it would be greatly beneficial to have a full time legislation, I do not think that the legislate would be so inclined to amend the Constitution in a manner that would only require them to work more, even if we did raise their pay.  I mean, we all know that their compensation is not much, but we also know that there has to be another reason why they do it. 

I too, would like to believe that by making Texas a full-time legislature it would not only bring in a better level of representation, it would also greatly improve our financials.  However, I just can’t seem to find that same level of confidence.

How many times were they warned about the budget and precautionary measures they should be taking?   Yet, this did not stop them from over spending and we can’t be mad at anyone but ourselves when it comes to our current representation; we appointed/voted them there.   

Texas has to be one of the most unfocused states both in government and politics.  It appears that they spend far too much time focusing on trivial issues, and maybe they need to reevaluate some of their thought processes. If the state simply prioritized a bit more they might find a reduction, if not resolution, to some of the larger state issues.    

For example, Texas was so worried about preventing gay marriage that they thought it would be a good idea to add an amendment to the constitution (as if they don’t have more important issues to be focusing on) which is now causing a new set of issues due to the phrasing, Oops. Apparently, due to the amendment and the way in which it was worded the constitution could very well be miss interpreted as they banned marriage altogether.   

This leads directly into why the state should spend more time focusing on the educational system and its financial needs. For instance, instead of investing tons of time and energy into modifying/updating texts books due to “questionable verbiage” use the books as a partial teaching tool; teach the kids the correct “verbiage” and then redirect those funds towards a different area within the public school system.  

Better yet, instead of rebuilding/restoring the Governor’s Mansion for 3.5 million use that money towards some of the money needed to fund teachers for the educational system.  Texas already has one of the lower graduation completion rates; let’s not compliment the dropouts with more poorly educated young adults, let's pay to keep as many teachers as we can.   I could probably go on and on with more perfectly good examples, but the point is instead of the state using what little money we have on stupid petty things let us refocus as much of our funding as we can on better things. 

I am sure everyone has heard about the teacher layoffs and many other suggested educational budget cuts, but have you heard about the textbooks issues? Well, in my readings of the layoff situation, I came across an article by FUBAR:   A briefing on the Texas Republicans in charge: public education .  The article is a little forward and although I do not completely agree with his view, he does bring some other interesting items to attention.  

I was aware of the verbiage issue and the debate on how to "fix" the verbal discrepancies, but I was not aware that a Senator proposes publicly funded textbooks for private schools  .  Now, the article itself is quite interesting but what caught even more of my attention were the other blogger posts.

I feel that there are several great points made by blogs, however I feel like the largest issue was completely overlooked.  If the state cannot provide the needed funds for public school teachers and books why in hell would we propose to provide this to private schools?  Now, I am not saying that private school kids do not deserve the textbooks, but I will say that most (not all) but most children in private school are already at a greater advantage than kids in public. You have to pay for your children to attend private school which means those parents already pay for their children to be provided with smaller classes, more one on one time, and with what they believe to be better educational information. Whereas, many children that attend public school would not be provided any education if not for the public school system and there "questionably" worded textbooks.

 

Amazon.com shutting Irving office

I don’t know about any of you, but shopping online vs. going to the store is always a plus; well at least for me it is.  One of those awesome places for me to shop is Amazon.com.  However, after reading this it made me look at them in a new light, as you may too.  Amazon.com,shutting Irving office

 

Apparently, much like you and I Amazon doesn’t like to pay taxes.  Per Texas Comptroller’s Office, Amazon is estimated to owe $600 million in sales tax to Texas.  Now, we all know that we are in the middle of economic hardship and that there are already hundreds of people in search of jobs, but rather than pay the owed sales tax, Amazon is opting to shut down an entire facility near Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.