The Critique

In Ashley Woodruff's post, "Texas Spends Millions on College for Prison Inmates," the budgeting deficit for Texas is discussed. This post hits at the fact that prison inmates are not getting "student loans," that allows them to get an education and pay it pack once they are released. Now on to the statistics. According to the post, 22,000 prison inmates have pulled these "student loans," and only 6,630 inmates have actually paid them back. Only $4.5 million has been paid back, leaving $9.5 million going unpaid. Nevertheless, his totals around $15 million that is going to fund prison inmates.

According to Mrs. Woodruff, the total of $15 million should have been spent on funding the people who are not in prison. With the current talk and proposed cutting of education; Ashley would rather see the funds cut for prisoner education and have that money help with non-prisoner education.

In my opinion, I would have to agree with Ms. Woodruff and her belief on the correct cutting of funding. I do think that it is a good idea to give prisoner inmates a chance to better themselves, but in hard times I believe that money should be cut from prisoners first. Education is a key part of our growth of a nation and cutting education can be crippling. Texas already struggles with k-12 education, so cutting that much needed funding does not make sense. If Texas could come together and cut small, not critical, and ridiculous funded entities, the budget crisis might be adverted. Leaving our legislation to come up with a new plan will give way to where those cuts will be made.

Bills, Bills, Bills.

In this article Price Comments on Budget Bills: C.S.H.B. 1, 4, and 275, posted by On the Record, discusses the substance of Committee Substitute to House Bills 1. As of April 4th, the Texas House of Representatives passed, without raising taxes, a proposed budget for the 2012-2013 year. CSBH 1 will provide funds for education and state services. Also, the house voted for withdrawing a chunk (3.1 billion) from the Rainy Day Fund. Rep. Four Price stated "by voting to use a significant portion of the Rainy Day Fund for this current budget cycle, we were able to free up nearly 2 billion dollars for education  and vital services for the elderly and disabled." To me, this seems like progress. Price later went on to state that the rest of CSHB 1 will freeze the remaining amount of the Rainy Day Fund, for it may be needed. Education is top priority, as followed by state and human services, and public safety. I agree with this order of importance and think that education is key. Taking away from an already weak part of society is not a good idea.

From my standpoint, I agree with Mr. Price. I believe education and state services need to be funded, not cut. I also believe his reasoning that taxes will put too much of a crunch on the average consumer. If Texas is to get out of debt, cuts will need to be made and choosing those areas is very difficult. I think that Mr. Price had a good point about making tough decisions and some people are going to have to "tighten the belt." I also agree with Price on the saving of the rest of the Rainy Day Fund. As far as my little knowledge of the Rainy Day Fund goes, I believe that saving some of it for possible emergencies is wise. Spend a little to help get stimulation from the economy and start the budget cut, but keep a majority for down the road. Like Price said, the recession may not be over with when they meet back up in 2013.