manifesto 2.0, yo

1. If a large corporation were to go out of business, I think that the government should subsidize them. A large corporation such as Nike were to go out of business all of a sudden, the number of employees all across the nation that would lose their jobs and only source of income is unimaginable. Coming from a moral standpoint, I cannot see how the government could simply sit back and watch all those people become unemployed, and do nothing. It would look so bad on the government if they did not do anything. Also, the economy would greatly suffer. A huge corporation all of a sudden going out of a business would mess up many different markets.The government should subsidize a corporation if it were to go out of business, in order to save thousands of workers from unemployment and to not mess with the market and economy.

2.After reviewing over the revenues and expenditures for the Fiscal Year 2011, I have noticed that most  federal spending as well as taxes goes to Social Security and Medicare. Both Social Security and Medicare are very important to everyone'es personal lives. Without Social Security, the retirement age would rise once again, to an unhealthy age to still be working. Moreover, I also noticed that the Defense Department was also a large area that the United States spends a lot of our money on. I think that during these current times, it is not necessary to spend so much money in that department, simply because a lot of countries around the world, including the United States, would rather talk something over and come to an agreement rather than dropping bombs or going to war.
          The tax receipts for the Fiscal Year 2011 were not surprising to me. Most of our taxes were collected from individual income, which is how our current taxation system works. I agree that that is where most of our tax dollars should come from, except not in the fashion of which the United States does taxes. We should adopt the Flat Tax system in order to keep all taxing fair by using the same percentage of tax for all incomes. That way, the wealthier still pay more by default, but it is only fair.


3. After looking over the charts for the Fiscal Year 2011 and watching the in-class movie "IOUSA," I have become more educated on the National debt crisis that we all face. Although our nation has made the debt many, many times worse in the past couple of years (since the Bush Administration), it is true that the United States has been in debt since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It is inevidable that such a  large nation has to spend money in order to keep its economy running and its people prosperous. However, learning about the amounts that we are in debt was extremely shocking. Although I am just lightly educated on the issue, I do have some ideas that could theoretically help save our nation from debt.
    For instance, I think that the government should not spend so much on medicare and medicade. Althought numerous people cannot afford proper medical care without it, I think that spending on that should be cut, and it should be dealt with in individual states. Also, I think that we should switch to Flat Taxation, and raise the percentage at which all incomes are taxed temporarily, so that everyone is contributin equally to the government, and not just the wealthy. There are many more middle and lower class families and individuals in America than there are wealthy. If everyone contributed more and payed more taxes, it would give the government so much more money to help bail them out. I do not think that only the wealthy should be responsible for paying for the United State's debt.

Option A

Throughout my years in high school, the economy, overall, has been low. When I was a freshman, it seemed to be at its lowest. The recession that we were in, however, was beginning to look up. Four years later, the economy, in my opinion, has raised a little. We are not in a recession anymore, even though the United States is deep in debt. I believe that the debt will not be settled for a long time, and the fiscal cliff which we are bound to go over, might cause a small recession.
                    Personally, I have seen many affects that this low economic time has caused. Three of my neighbors have had to downsize their homes, in order to make easier payments. I feel as though not as many kids can go to a university college as in previous years. With tuition costs rising, and incomes dropping, it has become a struggle. Scholarships have been given a different meaning, since there are so many given out these days for so many different reasons. I hope that the economy can shape up in the near future in order to help us younger generation kids.

QUESTION: How else would a bad economy effect my generation?

WORKS CITED (blogger messed up format)

Works Cited

"American Experience." PBS. PBS, 1996. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.

"The Great Depression." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.

McIlvaine, Bill. "Harry Hopkins: President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Deputy President." History Net Where History Comes Alive World US History Online Harry Hopkins President Franklin D Roosevelts Deputy President Comments. American History, 12 June 2006. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.

Works Progress Administration

Tera Perala

12/5/12

Period 4b

Works Progress Administration

            The Roaring Twenties were a time of luxurious living and spending in the United States. However, it all came crashing down in 1929, which marked the beginning of the United State’s deepest economic downturn, also known as the Great Depression. It left million of Americans unemployed, homeless, and hopeless. However, president Roosevelt helped turn the economy around by creating the New Deal, which was a series of relief programs in the United States. One of these organizations was called the Works Progress Administration. The Works Progress Administration was created during the Great Depression to put men and women back to work.

            The Great Depression began in 1929. During the twenties, people spent in excess and believed that the stock market would continue to rise steadily for an infinite amount of time. They ignored warnings from economists, who believed that a constant rise in the stock market was impossible, and that one day it would crash. Their predictions were extremely accurate, because on October 29 1929, over sixteen million shares were traded, and the Dow Jones lost 30 points. This day has been remembered since as “Black Tuesday.” It completely wiped out investors and consumer spending dropped for years to follow. This caused large declines in industrial output, which led to high unemployment rates. In 1930, investors began to demand deposits in cash from banks, which forced the banks to liquidate loans. President Hoover’s Administration made an effort to help failing banks by using government loans. In return, banks would loan to businesses, which would hire back employees. By 1933 about fifteen million Americans were unemployed, and nearly half of the banks in the United States had failed. Living was almost impossible for some families, and they were forced to make great sacrifices. Many farms could no longer afford to harvest crops, resulting in the farms being shut down, and leaving more people without jobs.

            In 1933, President Hoover and the New Deal created an organization called the Works Progress Administration (WPA). It was headed by Harry Hopkins. Harry Hopkins was always dedicated to helping and relieving the struggling and less fortunate. He first worked in the Ghetto of New York at the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor (AICP).  Later in his career he was appointed the executive secretary of the Bureau of Child Welfare. He also worked with the American Red Cross, American Association of Social Workers (AASW), and the New York Tuberculosis Association. After the Great Depression hit, he worked with a relief organization called the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA). Then he became the head of the WPA.

            Roosevelt and Hopkins put their brilliant minds together and realized that all across America, the streets, bridges, sewage systems, parks and forests were eroding and crumbling to the ground. They decided to make the main focus of the WPA to rebuild the face of America by employing millions of jobless people and putting them to work on different projects to reconstruct. The organization also focused on putting artists and teachers back to work. Hopkins believed that they had every right to be relieved as other workers. Also, they worked to employ women as well as men. Although the WPA paid equal wages, the women were generally employed with lower wage jobs such as school lunch cooks, book binders and care for the elderly. Furthermore, workers were sent to places burdened by natural disasters to fight against floods, fires and hurricanes, and to eventually rebuild what was destroyed.

            Conservatives, who believed that the organization was inefficient and wasteful, often criticized the Works Progress Administration. They thought that it was a communist group, and that it gave people bad work habits. However, regardless of the cruel criticisms it received, the WPA impacted millions of Americans in an extremely positive and hopeful way. For instance, in 1933, unemployment was at 2.49 percent across the United States. The WPA employed eight and a half million of those citizens. They spent 10.5 billion dollars employing them. The administration also funded artists in the creation of 2,566 murals and 17,744 sculptures that are displayed in buildings all across the United States. The federal art support from the WPA also led to the creating of the Nation Endowment for the Humanities and the National Foundation for the Arts.

            Congress shut down the Works Progress Administration in 1943. Millions joined the service during World War II and millions of other people were hired by other companies, causing the need for mass-employment to drop drastically. Unfortunately, soon after the WPA was terminated, Hopkins passed away in 1946 due to terminal illnesses.

            The Great Depression was a time of turmoil and despair for men, women, and children all across the United States. It left millions of workers unemployed, homeless, and starving. However, in this time of hopelessness, President Roosevelt and the New Deal created an organization that saved millions of lives. The Works Progress Administration put Americans all across the nation back to work, not only to restore the eroding beauty of the country, but to also help improve and save other people’s lives. Although it was shut down in 1943, the WPA remains a symbol of hope and salvation during times of disturbance and anguish.

My Manifesto, Yo

To be completely honest, I'm not entirely educated on what the government spends most of their money on. I choose to not go out of my way to learn about it because I feel as though it would anger me. I base this decision off of my parents and now they act and react towards the government. They seem to always be angry with decisions and choices Obama or anyone else makes. However, I do have some ideas about how I would correct the few things I do know, and other ways I would make a good government. I think that the government should waste less money on things like welfare and social services and give more to services like police, fire fighting, hospitals, schools, etc. I would also want some of the money to go to the army. Even though a lot of people are against military funding, it is vital to have a large army and military big enough to properly protect our nation. These services are always in need of better equipment, more job positions, or buildings in order to keep running and making our community a better place. This money could be gathered from what would be given to the poor, and some from our other taxes.
         
               Furthermore, from what I do know about the government and taxing, Obama likes to tax the rich so that the poor don't have to do any work. I know that my parents get really angry because my dad makes enough money to be taxed extra. I would definitely change that, from the beginning. It is not fair for people who work extremely hard for their money to have to give more of it back to the government than lazy people who won't work hard. Even though I want to be a teacher when I'm older and won't make half as much as my dad, I still believe it is wrong to tax the rich more. People or families who have lost their jobs often times wait for a long time to get another job because they get welfare  AKA the rich's taxes. I think that everyone should be taxed the same amount, barely adjusted based on incomes, and some of that income should go for people who have been recently unemployed. However after a certain amount of time being unemployed, they should stop receiving government money, as an incentive to go find a job.
                 
              Overall, I feel as though my manifesto is extremely wrong and bias based loosely off of what little I know about the government's spending. I think that there is no perfect answer to how to run the government's spending. Obviously there are countless things that citizen's taxes pay for, but I believe that the rich should not be taxed a lot more just because they work hard. It is not fair at all, and people should be rewarded for working hard, not have to pay more. So with my new plan to tax everyone around the same, that would generate money to spend on social services. I also think that we should stop spending so much on  the poor and supporting their unemployment, and that should be incentive to get a job.



QUESTION: How does the government decide what to spend money on?

Minimim Wage

In my opinion, minimum wage should be raised by one dollar an hour. As stated in the article, it would mean around $2,000 more a year for full time minimum wage workers. There are all types of different jobs that require different skills, including physical and mental, but all are strenuous to some degree. Even though people can survive on minimum wage as it is now, it is no luxury. Most are living paycheck to paycheck, and counting every penny. However, if it was raised by $1.00, the extra amount would do nothing but help those struggling to get by every day. As it was also stated in the article, more money to spend would increase the demand on products such as clothing or food. If more people have the money to buy something, more people will buy it. This helps businesses and compaines make more profit. A one dollar raise on minimum wage would be helpful to many Americans.

Price Floors

When it comes to price floors in the United States, I support them. There are items that should have a minimum cost for many different reasons. For example, alcohol should have a price floor. Until recently, there was an alcoholic drink called a Four Loko that contained a high alcohol level as well as high caffeine level. For obvious reasons this drink was very unsafe and unhealthy. However, it was being sold for under three dollars for a large can. Therefore, young adults everywhere were settling for buying this awful drink solely because it was cheap and not hard on their wallets. Although it recently became illegal, it was a prime example of why there should be price floors on alcohol. If all alcohol cost at least a certain amount, it would stop people from buying harmful drinks just because they are cheap. There would be better alternatives at the same price. This effects the equillibrium because it would have to rise in order for the price and quantity supplied to remain above the price floor, or legal price.