Thursday, February 19, 2009

What is the role of schools in the economy, both present and future?

Can school funding be seen as an economic stimulus? If so, how can funding education help the economy? Were should the money be spent? What types of programs should be continued, cut, or created?

By the way, does your school have an Economics course?

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Bipartisan Washington

Many a time, President Barack Obama has called for more bipartisanship in the government. This would mean that far left liberals and far right conservatives would be essentially “reaching across the aisle” and either pushing for better compromise, or fighting for what they thought to be right, and not just for what their party decreed as beneficial. However, with an astounding number of same-party votes, Barack Obama’s words don’t seem to actually reflect his own actions. Is this hypocritical?

Can President Obama make a bipartisan Washington a reality or will it remain a political fantasy?

The Populist President

Populist Public Persona
1. President Obama plans to create community service jobs for the people via online. His plan is to help people be able to work outside of their homes at unusual hours like at night.

Question: How is this going to help our economy out, volunteers do not make anything?

2. President Obama plans to use you tube as his main source to the public, basically to relay information to them both audio and video. If Obama is using You tube as his primary source to relay information to the public, what happens to the people who do not have the internet or a computer.

The Stimulus Plan

President Obama in his speech promised a five day “sunlight” period before the signing of any bill. The president said that he wanted to introduce more sunlight into the lawmaking process and he was going to do this by posting non-emergency legislation online for five days before singing it. He decided to have this wait period before the signing of the bill for public comments and concerns. With the first bill he signed he broke this promise. To hind the fact that the promise was broken Obama said that, "Since this version of the bill is expected to pass the House of Representatives in the coming week, we are making the legislation available for public comment now." Yet the legislation was still in process in Congress at the time. Luckily there was no significant changes made but if that happened he would have not lived up to his five-day waiting period had had promised. Do you feel that it was a good choice to break the promise made with the first bill passed?

President Obama and Guantanamo Bay

A campaign fact sheet on counter-terrorism said this about Obama's promise to close the detention facility at Guantanamo: "Guantanamo has become a recruiting tool for our enemies. The legal framework behind Guantanamo has failed completely, resulting in only one conviction. President Bush's own Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates (who Obama has since nominated to retain this post), wants to close it. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, wants to close it. The first step to reclaiming America's standing in the world has to be closing this facility. As president, Barack Obama will close the detention facility at Guantanamo."
On his second full day in office, President Obama issued an executive order to review the disposition of prisoners being held at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and ordered that the detention facility be closed within a year.
President Obama advisers are crafting plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. But, underscoring the difficult decisions Obama must make to fulfill his pledge of shutting down Guantanamo, the plan could require the creation of a new legal system to handle the classified information inherent in some of the most sensitive cases. According to three advisers participating in the process, Obama is expected to propose a new court system and may appoint a committee to decide how such a court would operate. Some detainees likely would be returned to the countries where they were first captured for further detention or rehabilitation. The rest could probably be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts, one adviser said. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing talks, which have been private.
www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-11-11-obama-guantanamo_N.htm

Should Obama Close down the Guantanamo bay?

Friday, February 13, 2009

Intro

The first 100 days are considered to be quite important for a newly inaugurated President, and President Obama is proceeding at a breakneck pace to fulfill his campaign promises. Topics such as the impending closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison/holding facility, the U.S. economic stimulus, the Cabinet controversies, his populist public persona (so far), and President Obama's attempts to change the partisan politics of Washington will be discussed in this blog.