So, at the end of the Wisconsin primary it would appear that Mr. Obama has extended his lead even further. Mr. Patrick Healy and Jeff Zeleny, of the New York Times wrote a very thorough and insightful article, Wisconsin Hands Obama a Victory, the Ninth in a Row, which provided complete coverage over tonight’s primary races. It would appear that “candidate bashing” is the new trend. Both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain were quoted tonight taking shots at Mr. Obama. Although much of the first page of this article includes many of those derogatory comments made by the various candidates, it gave a very nice perspective of where everyone stands in the race right now. In the Democratic corner, Obama and Clinton are neck and neck, and it would appear that McCain has a firm grasp on the Republican side. When you get to the heart of the article the authors break down the remaining primary races and explain exactly who has to win what in order to be the victor. The authors also go into great depth on whose support they are campaigning for and what platforms they are using. For instance, Mrs. Clinton is “burning the midnight oil” as she puts it to capture more blue-collar and union votes. While Mr. Obama is working hard to get the youth’s attention. One thing that was extremely interesting in the article was exactly how much they broke down the individual results and exactly who voted for who. Both the authors,
Mr. Healy and Mr. Zeleny have been political commentators for many years with the New York Times. Mr. Healy in particular has been following the presidential race like a hawk posting daily on his blog at nytimes.com. Overall, if the authors intended to give a thorough outline of where the race stood they did a great job. They were very clear and concise as far as exactly where everyone stood. In particular they did a very nice job giving both the Democrats and the Republicans their fair share of the coverage. This helped inform the reader and give them an overall clearer picture of things. The only thing that was a bit much was the extensive coverage of the various smear campaigns of the candidates. In my personal opinion I could care less what one candidate has to say about the other, let us, the voter decide what should be taken into account when filling out our ballot. I don’t believe that the authors’ inclusion of the derogatory comments took away from the overall impact of the article, in fact it added to it by creating the whole picture.However, from the perspective that I get it looks like the race is going to get a bit dirtier.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
2009 Federal Budget
Bush's Budget Projects Deficits
Yesterday,The Bush Administration released their 2009 federal budget. Many of the items proposed in the budget will make it very difficult for the next presidential administration to balance it in upcoming years. To no surprise, military and defense spending is up, the Defense Department in particular will grow by nearly seven percent. Once again it appears that The Administration is continuing to push their agenda of homeland security and the ongoing war on terror, as it may be their last chance. The 2009 federal budget also contains provisions that would keep tax cuts, that are scheduled to expire in 2011, on the books as permanent. In total the 2009 federal budget would create a deficit over $410 billion. In 2004, at the end of President Bush’s first term in office the deficit was pushing $413 billion. When he had stepped into office three years earlier there was in fact a budget surplus. Many of the nations financial problems can be attributed to the steady increase of defenses. The economy has also slowed down considerably in the past years. Bush proposed several items in the budget to help stop the growing deficit, one of them by collecting healthcare fee’s from non-disabled veterans. They have also proposed that any domestic program not related to defense keep their funding at $393 billion over the next five years. The next administration will have their hands full trying to get the budget out of the red.
DIRECT LINK TO ARTICLE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/04/AR2008020400493.html
Yesterday,The Bush Administration released their 2009 federal budget. Many of the items proposed in the budget will make it very difficult for the next presidential administration to balance it in upcoming years. To no surprise, military and defense spending is up, the Defense Department in particular will grow by nearly seven percent. Once again it appears that The Administration is continuing to push their agenda of homeland security and the ongoing war on terror, as it may be their last chance. The 2009 federal budget also contains provisions that would keep tax cuts, that are scheduled to expire in 2011, on the books as permanent. In total the 2009 federal budget would create a deficit over $410 billion. In 2004, at the end of President Bush’s first term in office the deficit was pushing $413 billion. When he had stepped into office three years earlier there was in fact a budget surplus. Many of the nations financial problems can be attributed to the steady increase of defenses. The economy has also slowed down considerably in the past years. Bush proposed several items in the budget to help stop the growing deficit, one of them by collecting healthcare fee’s from non-disabled veterans. They have also proposed that any domestic program not related to defense keep their funding at $393 billion over the next five years. The next administration will have their hands full trying to get the budget out of the red.
DIRECT LINK TO ARTICLE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/04/AR2008020400493.html
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