Endorsing a Vote for the City of Austin

                 The city of Austin needs voters to vote on an important issue on November 4, 2014. Proposition 1 is a subject everyone registered should vote upon. Even if you are not registered, I recommend looking into this proposition.  It would provide funds to help transportation. 

                  Road improvements are a very important thing to fund, the proposition would help better construct roads and add newer roads. The proposition would also fund to build a rail line trough Austin, perhaps reducing the car traffic. The rail line would link many locations such as Downtown, the UT campus, and the new ACC campus just to name a few. 

                  The author of the Burnt Orange Report puts forth a very good point. Prop 1 would lessen the burden on tax payers by taking money from the rainy day fund and push it towards road construction and a rail line. The author was overall persuasive with his article - Endorsing a Vote for the City of Austin Proposition 1. He puts a very interesting idea of augmenting bus routes with the rail line to provide more cross town linking. 

                  Even though this article is good, the author missed one of the major points. How are the funds going to be distributed among the construction and the rail line? Even though a few blips in the article. I recommend reading this article, but also researching more into the topic. Personally, I would also recommend voting yes on Proposition 1.

                                                                

Time to Raise the Gas Tax

               As I was reading through the Newspaper My San Antonio, the article – “Time to Raise the Gas Tax” - caught my attention. In this article, the author describes the reasons he believes we should raise taxes.  Naturally, he describes his reasoning as State debt, and gas prices not keeping up with inflation.

                 

               The author on the editorial board on this newspaper defends his reasoning; that gas tax has not kept up with inflation. Since 1991 the gas tax has remained at 20 cents per gallon. Lawmakers say when adjusted for inflation, that’s only 9.2 cents per gallon. “If the tax had been indexed to increase with inflation, it would be 43 cents per gallon. He also argues that the state has relied on billions and billions of debt to maintain Texas roads. Texas spends over one billion a year financing road maintenance. The author also believes we should raise registration fees on cars. Even though the author has a few valid points, I still don’t agree with his reasoning except for one thing in the article, Proposition 1, which is clearly supported by the Express news editorial board of this newspaper. This proposition would “take part of the [Texas’] oil and gas production tax revenue” that is directed towards the state rainy day fund and direct that 1.7 billion portion towards road maintenance. Proposition 1 certainly has my vote.

                 

                The author has interesting points in this article but other than that. He really isn’t all that persuasive towards his points. He doesn’t mention the obvious points that can be observed if looking with a skeptical eye. He avoids the fact that part of the reason we have debt is because a select few have power and money which they maintain strict control of. Oil business tycoons and construction business tycoons who have close relations which certain elected officials pocket a large amount of money, but that’s whole another story. I only recommend reading this propaganda article for raising taxes, as an inquiry towards interesting points other than that don’t bother.