Gas is For the Rich

 In the article from the New York Times, it talks about ideas about raising taxes on gas to help pay for road repairs and make people get fuel efficient cars. The author is Valerie J. Karplus is a research scientist in the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change at M.I.T. Her credibility has it all in her name. She compares a way that Germany raises taxes on gas nearly 18 more times than the United States. All that extra money goes to fixing bad roads and making new ones. The authors’ idea is that, if we raise the United States taxes, we could potentially be doing the same thing. Another argument about raising taxes is that; the higher the gas price, they fewer people will buy it. The United States is trying to push its people to use energy and fuel efficient cars. Ones that are battery powered and use very little gas. Another reason, the government wants people to get fuel energy efficient cars is for the air, and the pollution that normal cars produce on a regular basis. We are trying to minimize this, though that is going to take a while for people to actually do it. They think that if they raise the taxes on gas, more people will start using these other modes of transportation. In my opinion, both of these ideas are great. The higher the tax the more money going to our roads, but also eventually more people will buy more efficient cars and will pay less on gas. I think that could be considered a win-win situation, am I right?

Illegal Immigrants, Illegal Money

After reading the article from the Austin American Statesman, I discovered that a lot of the reasons why the United States has not proceeded with making illegal aliens legal is because they want to secure the border first. This to me is absolutely ridiculous. In my opinion, you cannot successfully secure the border until the illegals that are coming stop. It will never stop until the people that want to come are actually here. The legislation talks about all these different steps that they will take to make the border secure as well as safe and not using force as we have in the past. Examples include, “prohibitions against racial profiling and inappropriate use of force, enhance the training of border patrol agents, increase oversight, and create a mechanism to ensure a meaningful opportunity for border communities to share input, including critiques.”. Seriously, is all I have to say about these ideas. The only reason that the border is unsafe is because of the way the United States handles it. There are hundreds of illegal immigrants that pay taxes and get jobs, why do we have to keep pushing them away when they help the economy? People argue that it’s the immigrants and not the people on welfare and government aids that make the economy bad. I could not disagree anymore. Most people that are coming here from another country are coming for a reason, and most are not coming to take advantage of our system but to have a better life. There are more lazy citizens than there are illegal immigrants. Why don’t we just kick the people out that are abusing the government aids, oh wait, we can’t because we can’t regulate it. That alone is another perfect reason why we should allow immigrants more easily because more of them are here to prosper than to take advantage.