Jonesin for an Overdose.

In Christian Morales's article "Vicodin is One Hell of a Drug," many loopholes in pharmaceutical prescription drugs are discussed. Apparently Travis County is pumping up its game to inform people of the dangers of overdosing on prescription drugs. Mr. Morales states that he works at a pharmacy and sees firsthand the abuse and problems with filling prescription orders. He states it is a little disturbing when you see people regularly pull up in their expensive cars to get their pain killers every two weeks (or whenever the prescription needs filled). They keep coming back due to some “pain” that they are currently undergoing. It is such an easy system to cheat by going through multiple pharmacies. Point being, it is real easy to get pharmaceutical drugs that are very popular these days. That is easy money for some people. I agree with Mr. Morales that some sort of system needs to be tied together to track all prescriptions so that they are not filled multiple times. Overdosing should not be on the doctor or pharmaceutical company. The company or doctor cannot hold the patient's hand at home and force them to take the correct or prescribed amount. The label and doctor clearly states the correct amount that is all they can do and should be accountable for. Frivolous lawsuits really piss me off. In the end, regulating drugs will always be a very difficult task at hand.

The Evaluation of Evaluations

In this article "Senate Oks Teacher Evaluations," Andrew Weber talks about a bill the Senate passed that will insure all public school teachers to be evaluated. The bill was issued by Sen. Florence Shapiro and it has a very controversial segment that basically states that school board can pull the trigger and fire teachers who have poor "turn outs." They also can fire these teachers without informing of the reason. Sen. Gallegos feels that teachers, who go to school and pay good money for that degree, are not completely being treated fairly. Sen. Gallegos also believes that the teachers need to be evaluated and given the chance to better themselves. Nevertheless, the teachers who have been "pinked slipped," should get an opportunity to have their job back. Shapiro retaliates by saying that issues that Gallegos states should be addressed to work out the flaws and kinks in the evaluation system. Regardless, the bill still needs to pass in the Senate to actually be final.

In my opinion, this bill has the potential to be a stepping stone for a lot of future lawsuits. I have a strong feeling that a lot of teachers who are young and new to a certain areas, will have to deal with the "good ol' boys" situation. Hypothetically, if the other teachers do not like the new teacher due to any reason, they can influence the school board to fire that person for a "poor" performance. The board would not have to disclose the reason as well, allowing the real reason for firing that person to go undisclosed. Another problem I see with this bill is what is going to be the "measure" for performance. Texas already has an epidemic with its k-12 education tests that forces a teacher to prepare their students for the tests, rather than actually giving a good quality education. The teachers have no choice due to the fact that their job is on the line. This bill seems to pose a possible "clone" problem. In the end, I do not really like this bill, unless more specific elaborations are brought to my attention, I might change my mind.

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.

Rain on Perry

In the article Perry Takes "Rainy Day" Literally, Paulburka (his signature), pokes at Mr. Perry's resistance against the use of the Rainy Day fund. Paul, the author, believes that Mr. Perry is only using the fund for natural disaster situations. Paul believes that this statement is rubbish only due to the fact that he believes many of the local districts will pay for the damage. The government will only have to pay for fixing up schools and other government entities. Again, Paul believes that the Rainy Day Fund is to be used as insurance for the state of Texas. When Texas can't pay for its public services, Rainy Day saves the day, or as Paul believes. He also believes that Rick Perry will never spend the Rainy Day Fund on helping out with the deficit.

I would agree that cuts are needed to help fix the budget. "Budgeting," allows for money to be saved and also gives us the idea of where money needs to be, and where it does not. I do not agree with where some of the cuts are going to be made (particularly education), but I do know that cuts need to be made, obviously. I also agree with Mr. Perry on the use of the Rainy Day Fund and believe that we should make cuts, before we dip into it. It is, if you will, a last resort. I also enjoyed the jousting in the comment section between Paul and Anonymous. It is my belief as well the Rainy Day Fund should be saved, or a good chunk of it, for other major events that may happen. Look at the incident in Japan. I do not know if they have a type of “Rainy Day Fund,” but if they do not, I bet they wish they did. Something devastating might happen and it is good to have a backup emergency fund. As for Paul’s credibility, I am uncertain. Every person is entitled to their own opinion.

Dallas scrap clean air agreement?

In this article, "Dallas Should Return Clean Air Agreement to the Drawing Board," a unanimous author posted an article on the The Dallas Morning News regarding Dallas needing to take its clean air agreement back to the drawing board. This article reflects Dallas's power to buy cement from "clean" cement companies, forcing others to comply to air regulations. Ash Grove, a cement company, could not meet part of that agreement and took the Dallas City Council to court. Ash Grove is contesting that state law did allow cities to make purchasing preferences based on clean air conditions. TXI and Holcim, Ash Grove's competitors, have met the standards.

The author states that if Dallas would not have backed down, Ash Grove would most likely complied to the regulations. The author also believes that the Dallas City Council could make huge/vast improvements to a cleaner atmosphere. The author also states that Downwinders at Risk, an environmentalist group, has the right to ask City Hall why it has not gave precise numbers on the amount of pollutants that Ash Grove would be expected to eliminate. The author strongly believes that Dallas should not back down. This is a fight worth fighting.

I think the author believes in a transition to a greener planet, as do a lot of people. I think that Ash Grove is in a tough spot. I do not know if they can afford to go green (sometimes transitioning to cleaner processing is expensive), or if they are being stubborn. As for the Dallas City Council, their ability to influencer policies happens globally, welcome to politics. Maybe Ash Grove needs financial help to become cleaner, to comply. I believe that it depends on Ash Grove's situation. Pollution is something that I believe needs to be considered and dealt with. I do not believe in hard crack downs that make companies struggle to comply. The Dallas City Council did not crack down, but simply controlled the economy buy purchasing cement from other "cleaner" companies. This is a way to make a statement without direct concentration.

Nursing Home Cuts

This article "Texas Nursing Homes Brace for Medical Cuts," by Ben Philpott, goes into detail about the Texas House and Senate budget proposal. Ben mentions that the proposal is said to cut 10% of the rate the state pays medical providers, but with the Medicaid portion lost by stimulus money, that number is around 33%. He also gets at the point that most Nursing Homes do not have customers that can pay for insurance, most are covered by Medicaid.

 It is discussed that this imbalance in the Medicaid cash flow with cause many families to resort on taking care of the elders. Many families will not be able to do this and it is crucial to the local economy as well. Ben gives an example that if Avalon Place goes under, roughly 2 million dollars in payroll will weed out of the local economy. To a small and rural area, 2 million dollars is a crucial influx to the economy. Overall, budget cuts are going to  be a burden on certain areas of Texas.

I think this article is worth reading because budget cuts are a big issue concerning politics. Placing names on where those budgets are going to be made will spark criticism. The topic of cutting money given to medical providers will anger many people. Some believe that education should not be taking hits, where as Texas k-12 education is needing some improvements. Either way a person looks at it, I think that no organization is not going to like "budget cutting." Some are going to take the heat, no way around it.