Just another case of the gov't wasting our money

I chose to critically analyze and article on statesman.com called “DPS argument over tapes is weak and waste of money.” It is intended for the readers of the Austin American Statesman and was written by the editorial board on October 16, 2007.

First I’ll explain the situation the article writes about and then I’ll give you the article’s perspective. In May of 2005 the liberal party of the Texas House of Representatives attempted to seize surveillance tapes in the back hallways of the capital in suspicion of republicans illegally lobbying. The DPS has refused to turn over these tapes so far as hire private lawyers with public funds to dispute the claims of illegal lobbying. The DPS insists that handing over the tapes would compromise capitol security and it would set precedent for handing over the capitol tapes to anybody at anytime with no real evidence. The Democrats believe that they are not handing over the tapes because there was something fishy about the tapes that the republicans didn’t want to be seen. This article by the editorial board argues that what ever the reason for not handing over the tapes, the DPS should never use taxpayers’ monies to hire private lawyers to handle this case.

The evidence for the case the article is trying to make is obvious an undoubtable. Every penny that the DPS spends is documented and available to the public. They indeed have so far used $120,000 to fight the release of these video tapes. Neither party in the fight for the tapes has much evidence other than hunches and animocity but that is not really this articles argument.

The conclusion is very simple and clear. The DPS should not be spending our money to fight a battle that is completely created by them. The public funds should have never gotten dragged into this. It is ridiculous to think about the working people of Texas paying for the governement to have little fits and dominance struggles in the capitol. It comes across as very immature and childish.

Hopefully the DPS is reprimanded and the money they spend fighting this case is taken out of there budget but since they are on the side of the republicans and the house is controlled by the republicans, our tax payers will never see this money again and it will be just another case of $120,000 down the drain. If anybody at the capitol wanted to give me that amount of money I’m sure I could find a better way to spend it then to use it to fight with my little brother.

Here is the original article:

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/editorial/entries/2007/10/16/dps_argument_over_tapes_is_wea.html#comment-1676969

Public Office Votes

The article I am analyzing is called “No More Hiding from Folks in Texas” and it is an editorial from the Austin American Statesman that appeared on September 24^th of this year. The targeted audience is the readers of the Statesman and the source is the editorial board of the same.

This article argues that in the November 6^th election this year voters should approve proposition 11 to make all legislators’ votes on all bills public and available on the Internet. The editorial board argues that this is an important change because under current law the legislators just say “yea” or “nay” verbally and it is impossible to keep track of all lawmakers’ responses. The board also argues that this bill has no down side but most importantly informs the voters of what kind of decisions their representatives and senators are making on controversial bills.

The evidence put forth by the editorial board says that keeping citizens virtually uninformed on lawmakers’ decisions is bad government and citizens have the right to know what their elected representatives are voting for. The editorial board argues that excuses from lawmakers on why their votes aren’t made public aren’t valid and that they are afraid of political backlash, which is inexcusable. The main piece of evidence is brought up again and it is stressed that it should be a right to know what the public’s elected officials are actually doing with their position of power.

When evaluating the conclusion I first thought that the editorial board didn’t make a very good argument because it was only supported by really one substantial piece of evidence but then I realized that that one piece of evidence is all there is and all the needs to be. Citizens should be more informed as to what is happening in the capitol because since the public elects the officials the public has a right to know that their candidate isn’t just talking the talk, and that he/she is actually walking the walk.

The political implications of this shouldn’t be too major although if there are some legislators that vote differently than they say they do, or promise they will, there could be new lawmakers in here in Austin.