Anti-immigration Law

Immigration, one of the biggest issues of Texas. One of my classmate article was about Texas rejecting an Anti-immigrant law. She is completely against this Anti-immigrant law, and debates saying that this law is going to affect Texas economy. She has talked about the HB 17 law which is followed by Arizona. The police authorities don’t have specific idea or training which will help them to differentiate between document and undocumented immigrants. I believe it is not a legit procedure to do so.

Now talking about immigrants, let me ask you why do we think people move to U.S.? The answer is simple they want a better and secure life for them and their families. Let me remind you all also that people think that these undocumented people take all the government benefits which is not true. These undocumented immigrants work hard in for living. As Texas depends on sales tax and property tax, these immigrants are benefiting the state by their expense. And as we all have the warning of upcoming budget shortfall, we definitely don’t want to hurt our economy.

Overall, from this article I can conclude that we need to revise old immigration law, and legalize these undocumented hardworking immigrants, and let them work legally which definitely helps the country economy. 

Education and budget

Recently there has been a lot of uproar about how much dollars are funded for an education purposes at Universities and Community colleges. I came across an article titled “Higher Education” while going through “The Texas Tribune”. This article states that the “Funding for public academic institutions is based on formulas prepared by the coordinating board and based primarily on enrollments and semester credit hours.” All these esteemed institutions named University of Texas, which has numerous branches located at Arlington, San Antonio, Dallas, North Texas and many more, and including A&M and all of its branches; depends on an income from “Permanent University Fund”. Regardless, for all other universities legislature has established some source of funding from higher education board.

After the 10 Billion state budget shortfall increasing the tuition fees where only the option. But this step seems not suitable for many students and their parents.  The loss of 10B occurred when Universities were assigned to take care of tuitions themselves and manage their tuitions rate. All these lawmakers and legislators of course, are trying to get back lost fund by blaming and punishing Universities. I personally think that if such responsibilities are given to Universities directly by education board then they must have thought about it more delicately. Texas is already facing budget problem and sources of funds for education like property taxes Texas lotto, etc are just not enough to cover the upcoming budget short fall.

It seems that when states have to do any budget cutting, education is the first to suffer. Makes one wonder, doesn’t it?

Guns or Books in bag-pack?

Reading one of my classmate’s blog bring books not guns where he was debating that guns should not be allowed in college or universities, and I completely favor his argument.  As for example he talks about recent incident which that happened at the Library of University of Texas at Austin.  He personally doesn’t feel safe allowing gun in campus and I agree that. I wouldn’t feel safe if I knew my classmate has gun along with his/her books or my professor carries gun. Even at some point we all agree that someone carries gun for self-defense, but still chances are high that it could be misused. Someone with strong emotion might want to use gun or even some kind of personal issues might force to use gun.  My colleague also states that campus police are trained well enough and will respond in a professional manner in emergency situation.

I know in mass of thousand students you never know what might come up but allowing everyone to carry a gun is surely not better idea. 

Cutting education budget means cutting education

I came across an article where it said that legislature is likely to cut education budget to meet $25billion budget gap. Texas likely to face budget crisis, and in order to prepare for it lawmakers are planning to cut budget on education, laying off hundreds of state workers and public universities employee.  Our budget gap is now larger compare to California.

If education employee loses their job then this will affect the students, having higher number of students in class will certainly affect in student education.  As budget is cutoff, chances of using old textbooks is higher, lack of modern and new technology will also have direct impact on student education.

The author is successful in making it clear to the reader that the Texas budget gap has grown in recent years. It’s been ages now Texans are facing crisis and seems like Perry has got nothing in the store to do for them. From my point of view too, massive downturn in educational fields could be seen during upcoming government session .The article concludes on a positive note by putting the hopes on the government and being hopeful of its successful actions. Let’s wait and watch what’s upcoming governor has to do about it.

Pay at the Pump

I came across with this article in gifts for breakfast.  The article said Corpus Christi is having an insurance checkpoint, towing and even auctioning uninsured vehicles. The report showed that one in four vehicles don’t have auto insurance. The city of council gave the police department authority to take action against uninsured vehicles, and also approved fund to increase enforcement. The penalty ranges between $175 and $350 for first offense, and about $280 to get the vehicle out of impound. Their cars can be sold if violators don’t pay their fine within 30 days.

Something has to be done about the large number of uninsured vehicles, and this “pay at pump” might be a better option.  This might help uninsured people get auto insurance. But all people do not agree in this matter.  They say DPS have record of insurance data of people having insurance, so this  doesn’t require to create any checkpoints. As this state has higher rate of illegal immigrants and they don’t have state valid driving license. Without license on cannot get insurance, so there is another backdrop also.

Therefore, people are curious to see whether this policy helps to solve inequity between insured and uninsured drivers.

Crime, Guns, and Money

In this article Wealthier, More-Conservative Texans Have Gun Permits by Gun Permits

by Brandi Grissom, Matt Stiles and John Tedesco in The Texas Tribune talks about group of  people who owns gun. The article tells that people from low- income south side do not have gun permit where as north side is popular for concealed handgun license. The pattern is surprising because residents in low-income are not taking that much advantage of concealed handguns as compared to wealthier and more conservative areas.  The rates are low in the inner city areas where crime rates are higher.  Michael Arnold, Concealed handgun instructor, makes a statement saying to win a fight you need to avoid it, and stress how a handgun owner should avoid pulling the trigger unless there is no other choice. It is said that area where crime rate is higher more people have low chance in getting the gun license.  Texas can legally keep guns without a license so there are people who don’t care what’s legal and carry guns with them.  Thus, this article is showing what range of people have guns and in what areas. This article also talked about the various reasons to keep gun with you. 

The Dream Act

I found an article in Texas Tribune about the Dream Act, and this topic has been hitting news nation-wide and state-wide. The Dream Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) is for undocumented immigrants to give them permanent status. In order to qualify you must be student of good moral character, who came to the US before the age of 16, obtained a degree from an institute of higher education or served in the uniformed services for at least two years. I think that young people should not be penalized for the behavior of their parents in entering the US illegally. These graduate students should be given a chance to work, and government should use them as human capital.