book review

For the book blog, I chose to read a book about Senator Joe McCarthy and how his way of thinking impacted the government. The book was written as a biography of Joe McCarthy's life, his rise and his fall in the government. The book started out with Joe growing up on a small family farm near Grand Chute, Wisconsin.  The text includes pictures and political jokes made at the time and it also showed real testimony from committee hearings on Communist Investigations. I think the author, James Cross Giblin, achieved his propose in writing this book, which was to show how much control and power Joe McCarthy had as a Senator.  Joe went to school, graduated high school and was accepted into Marquette University in Wisconsin where he studied law.  After college he got a job with Micheal G. Eberlein, a lawyer practicing law in a neighboring town.  Joe ran for the District Attorney position and lost. After his loss he campagined  for the District Judge seat.  He won the position and was judge until World War II started when he enlisted into the Marines for two years. While he was fighting in the war he was also running for U. S. Senator but lost.  In 1946 Joe ran for U.S. Senator again and won in an upset over his opponent. After becoming Senator, Joe started to make accusations of subversion and disloyalty in government offices and of people in the State Department. Many people disliked Joe for what they believed was his dirty, underhanded way he spread lies to gain leverage in his position as Senator. But just as many people liked Joe in his fight against communism and his dedication to America.  Joe started to make some friends with Wisconsin newspapers such as the Madison Capital Times and the Milwaukee Journal.  For Joe's whole political career he obsessed over the threat of Communism and how to stop it from spreading in the United States. Joe accused a trusted government official, Owen Lattimore, of espionage and Communism  but he was actually a Soviet Agent that work for America. This claim was outrages and many disbelieve Joe and trusted Owen, who was loyal to America. When 1950 rolled around, Joe was still fighting communism and its penetration of China and North Korea. A subcommittee under Senator Tydings found Owen was a good American but Joe still had his doubts.  In 1953 when John F. Kennedy was running for Senator, Joe was an supporter of him and had a good relationship to the Kennedy family.  When Joe was re-elected to the U. S. Senate in 1953 he was head of the Committee on Government Operations and Full Investigations. Joe married his long time secretary, Jean Kerr, they adopted a child. Joe's major break didn't happen until the rumors that Soviets had infiltrated the Army's radar laboratory in Fort Monmouth where Communists were found.  After that Joe's drinking got to much and he lost many supporters. He died on May 2, 1957.

Data

In today's Federal Goverment, spending is like  drug to them.   They need to spend more and more every day to keep America going.  I found two graphs on the website http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/ which show the amount in billions of dollars being spent in the following six categories, welfare,education, transportation, pensions, protection and defense.  The top area for the most spending is welfare and pensions.   In 2010 $800 billion dollars is estimated to be spent on welfare and approximately $1700 billion will be spent on pensions.  This gross over spending incorporates to the vast debt of the United States.  With these graphs, it clearly shows me that the government is to big and spends to much.  They also show that major change is required for America to be prosperous once again. The amount of spending on education and transportation in the United States in 2010 is expected to be a combined amount of approximately $210 billion dollars.  I would think that that number would be closer to $500 billion because education and transportation are vital for America compared to the enormous amount being spent on welfare and pensions.  This is a sad time for America with such a large debt and such a bad economy.  The United States borrows money from foreign countries to help balance our budget and we pay approximately $250 billion dollars per year in interest alone for these debts.  That number is expected to double, to over $500 billion by 2014.  I think it is so important for every American to educate themselves to the outrageous amounts of money our government spends when we are the ones funding the government, with our taxes.  If America can not support itself, we become weak and are at the mercy of forgien countries.

reflection

During these weeks of research I have learned alot of interesting things about my topic, Government Agencies. I have also improved on my writing and researching skills.  Through this project I have been learning about government agencies and what they are about.  I have also learned more about the size of government. I think that this process is not only educational but a good skill to have in the future. It has also shown me what is necessary for a good argument with a formidable opponent. This project could also be improved by letting the students write about what they want to write about and let the students grade each others work with the educational knowledge that they learned from the other students.

I think that this blog project has taught me many things about my topic and government and about electronic means of communication in regards to blogging and how it can teach you new skills that can be used outside of the classroom and how to apply them to real life scenarios.

big question

The over employment in today's government is over crowding the many agencies with unnessecary people and jobs.
According to Chris Edwards of the Catto Institute the government has been mismanaged and over budgeted.  "The 2.3 trillion Federal government has simply become too big for congress to over see".  This is saying that we need to reduce the size and spending of the federal government.  "But the need for spending cuts is even more acute today because of the large fiscal imbalances that loom from projected growth in entitlement cost. Spending cuts would not just balance the budget; they would also increase individual freedom and expand the economy".  He is also saying that government needs to cut employees and reduce the spending and borrowing that big government is doing now.
One of the best ways to reduce spending is to cut pay, jobs, and employee benefits like covering the cost of health insurance which would reduce wasteful spending.
An article in the Washington Post published in October 2008 stated that big government gets bigger "it has begun with a decision to use 700 Billon of tax payers money to buy up financial assets and take an ownership stake in the nations largest banks and could be followed by a stimulus program of up to 300  Billon driven by congressional Democrats."  What this means to me is they are buying stuff that they don't need, spending our tax dollars to bail out banks instead of using the money to help everyday Americans in the form of a tax refund.  In addition, "a total of more then 5 trillion dollars on wars abroad and anti-terrorism efforts at homes since 2002.  Of that hundreds of billions was misspent in large part due to a broken contracting system according to congressional oversite reports"
With all this, it shows me how government has been overspending and needs to reduces its spending to help us recover from past damage.

size of goverement

According to Chris Edwards, Director of Fiscal Policy at The Cato Institute and author of "Downsizing The Federal Government", "The federal government is headed toward a financial crises", and "most Federal programs are unconstitutional, unnecessary, actively damaging,or properly the responsibility of state government or the private sector".  He also says "the budget is littered with wasteful and unnecessary programs".  What he is saying is the without reduction of government programs Americans become  lazy and expect every thing to be handed to them.  Not to mention the fact that many Americans pay  for these programs through taxes and fees which means we have less income to freely spend which can damage the economy.  In addition, because the programs are expensive to run and inefficient, they will cost more which would mean Americans would have to pay even more taxes or fees to cover the programs. The programs are not sustainable at the levels they are at.  His thought is to terminate business subsidies and commercial activity should be privatized. He concludes that "Given the governments record of mismanaged and damaging programs reviewed in this report, policy makers should be far more skeptical about the governments ability to solve problems with higher spending", meaning the government way of fixing things is with big programs that cost alot of money.
Texas Congressman Ron Paul says that President Obama wants to expand the size of government and states in an article written for PrisonPlanet.com by Steve Watson that the proof is in Obama's inauguration speech where he stated "the question is not weather our government is to big or to small but whether it works". Ron Paul goes on to explain that Obama "will make the government grow faster" and believes the only way to pay for this is "by printing more money" perhaps because Americans are taxes to death already!

servay resultes

For my survey I asked "What government concept created many agencies that are still around today?"  The four choices to answer were: Proposition 215, Amendment 64, The New Deal and Question 1 D.  Eleven people responded to my survey with 2 responding Proposition 215,  8 said The New Deal and 1 respondent said Question 1D.  I expected most people to know the right answer, which was The New Deal.  After seeing these results I know that I am giving good information in my blog and for the three that didn't get it right maybe they should read my blog more in depth.

The FAA Website

If your are looking for anything related to flying one of the best places to start looking is the FAA website. For my web site I researched the FAA or Federal Aviation Administration website. This website was very well organized and well composed with an easy way to see the whole website.  It had a search button and an A-Z index so you can search for what your are looking for. It was fairly easy to see who ran this agency, J. Randolph Babbitt, who has been the administrator since June 1st 2009.  After looking though this web site I believe that it is well established and accurate information and is considered accurate with the truth. There are many things that are available with in this web site.  First you can easily find where the official offices are.  The there are also information on the school for becoming a pilot and also airplane safety and inspections,  airport security information and the leaders and budget for this agency. This website also includes rules for luggage and travel safety tips. All in all the FAA web site is a grate place to get information about flying and the FAA.