Tag: bills

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college Express Yourself family job money teenager

The Desire To Be Independent

Last night I drove my friend Kim and her sister home and got into one of the most interesting conversations I’ve had in quite a long time. Kim believes her boyfriend needs to become more independent from his parents as she sees them as still treating him as if he is a young kid, he is actually nineteen. He recently got a good paying job and she says that he is on his way and hopefully will become less dependent on his parents. Her sister on the other hand says that neither of them are ready to be fully independent; she brought up very good points seeing that both live under their roofs of their respected parents still and a part time job will never even pay half of any bill. Her final thoughts on the matter were “You’re both not ready to be independent , nobody is forcing you to do so. Ya both can still ask your parents for whatever you want unlike when you’re older. You need to enjoy that luxury while you still can.”

The most expensive thing I ever bought with my own money, I did feel quite accomplished to do so

Going through middle and high school I was always labeled as the “rich kid” and I tried so hard to shake that false nickname. That goal coupled with just growing up can explain why I desire to be seen or at least try to be independent and make my own way. I can’t even remember the last time I asked for a gift, birthday or even Christmas, on top of that fact nights I go out with friends I always turn down any money my parents want to give me. I’ve gotten into the habit of “If I can’t afford it, I don’t buy it.” It seems to be quite a good motto to live by. My desire to be independent is fueled by my pride, I feel that relying on my parents when I’m eighteen isn’t something I should be doing.

Looking around at my group of friends most of them go to school full time and a handful have a job on the side. Of course thanks to scholarships and loans that money earned from a job is mostly used for leisurely purposes and rarely saved or invested. On the other hand though, most of them want to make it on their own as well and really just grow up and be dependent on no one by themselves. It’s safe to assume that all of us teenagers want to be independent.

Perhaps though, my friend’s sister is completely right. Perhaps none of us teens are really one hundred percent ready to make it on our own just yet. We still live under our parents roofs and I can’t say I know any of my friends who pay all of their own bills by themselves. We still have the luxury of being helped by our parents and it really is something we should enjoy and not brush aside. I guess my desire to be fully independent can be put on hold for at least another year or two.

Categories
Politics United States

Can President Obama Really Create Jobs?

The simple answer is, of course he can’t. And that is because we operate under a system that is governed, for the most part, by the United States Constitution.

There are specific Constitutional duties set forth for the President of the United States. Included in these duties however, are specific restrictions. According to the constitution, the President – although his office is one branch of government and is considered one of the most powerful positions in the world – cannot make legislation. Introducing bills or legislations that could eventually become law, rest solely in the hands of Congress. And more specific, any bill or legislation that has to do with finance or revenue, must begin in the House of Representatives. This too is laid out in Article 1, section 7of the Constitution, that states – All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

So what’s a president to do when government is divided, when he and his party controls the Senate and the opposing party controls the House of Representatives? What can the President do when the unemployment rate hovers around 9.1%, representing over 14 million people looking for work? What can he do when the arm of government responsible for revenue – in this case, the Republican controlled House of Representatives – refuses to do their job and is content to just watching the economy go down the toilet?

What’s a president to do? Exactly what President Obama has done.

Realizing his constitutional limits, he proposes jobs solutions and negotiates with the enemy in hopes that they will work with him in good faith to get people back to work and get the economy and country moving in the right direction again.

This President have been criticized on many occasions by members of his own party for negotiating with the enemy. They question the President’s ability to “get things done” or “fix the economy.” We have all seen the weekly, sometimes daily polls asking participants if the country is moving in the right direction, and the pundits all wonder aloud whether the President can right what is wrong, “fix the economy,” and reduce unemployment before the next election.

These questions of course, all deal with revenue, and the President’s hands are tied by a sacred document called the Constitution. His duties are specific, his restrictions are precise. And with a Republican party determined to hold the American worker hostage, we can just be thankful that the general unemployment numbers are at only 9.1%

It is time that the pundits and the American people realize what is happening. There is a Republican agenda at play here, and it is to make sure this economy fails, to bring down the middle class, and thus, to bring down this presidency.

We must realize who the responsible party is, and we must draw a clear distinction between them and the irresponsible Republicans in Congress.

Categories
Abortion Domestic Policies South Dakota women's

In Four Months, Republicans Introduced 916 Bills Against Women’s Right To Choose

It’s almost an unbelievable figure – 916. That’s the amount of legislation that Republicans introduced from January to April, trying to regulate a woman’s reproductive system. It’s absolutely stunning!

This information comes from a report by The Guttmacher Institute, and it finds that 49 states have contributed to this number with various bills geared towards regulating abortions and a woman’s right to choose. The report says that in 15 states, the following measures became law:

  • expand the pre-abortion waiting period requirement in South Dakota to make it more onerous than that in any other state, by extending the time from 24 hours to 72 hours and requiring women to obtain counseling from a crisis pregnancy center in the interim;
  • expand the abortion counseling requirement in South Dakota to mandate that counseling be provided in-person by the physician who will perform the abortion and that counseling include information published after 1972 on all the risk factors related to abortion complications, even if the data are scientifically flawed;
  • require the health departments in Utah and Virginia to develop new regulations governing abortion clinics;
  • revise the Utah abortion refusal clause to allow any hospital employee to refuse to “participate in any way” in an abortion;
  • limit abortion coverage in all private health plans in Utah, including plans that will be offered in the state’s health exchange; and
  • revise the Mississippi sex education law to require all school districts to provide abstinence-only sex education while permitting discussion of contraception only with prior approval from the state.

The report continues;

In addition to these laws, more than 120 other bills have been approved by at least one chamber of the legislature, and some interesting trends are emerging. As a whole, the proposals introduced this year are more hostile to abortion rights than in the past: 56% of the bills introduced so far this year seek to restrict abortion access, compared with 38% last year. Three topics—insurance coverage of abortion, restriction of abortion after a specific point in gestation and ultrasound requirements—are topping the agenda in several states. At the same time, legislators are proposing little in the way of proactive initiatives aimed at expanding access to reproductive health –related services; this stands in sharp contrast to recent years when a range of initiatives to promote comprehensive sex education, permit expedited STI treatment for patients’ partners and ensure insurance coverage of contraception were adopted.

Four months, 916 bills introduced. Sounds like a new record is about to be set. Whatever happened to Roe v. Wade? You know, the 1973 decision by the Supreme Court that gives women the right under the 14th amendment of the Constitution to have a choice? The law that has guided this issue for the last four decades.

Why is Roe v. Wade now a mute issue?

 

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