Voting in America

There are several ways in which democracy and representation in American could be greatly improved to hold true to the statement “government of the people, by the people, for the people” as stated in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. One area, in which several Americans see an opportunity for improvement, is through the current voting system.

According to “The Infrastructure of American Democracy is Dysfunctional” not even 55% of U.S. citizens in the eligible voting age vote in the presidential elections. If just over half of Americans are taking the opportunity of democracy to vote for those who represent their country nationally, then it seems prudent that most citizens would not be satisfied with issues that are addressed.

In addition, when “every voter in every state has a roughly equal chance to cast a ballot in a timely manner” then votes among each state, race, age, status etc. will also even out to represent every citizen in every state respectfully. This is necessary to have fair representation of each state, proportional to the population. In order for an American citizen to know that his/her vote truly counts, each person must also have an equal opportunity to vote. If voters in Florida are standing in line for hours to vote, then it is discouraging people from wanting to vote. In addition, there is no universal system to register teenagers prior to their 18th birthday. This in turn, creates difficulty for those 18-24 to vote, especially when in college or for those who turn 18 close to Election Day. These issues require an improvement in the current voting system to increase representation of all Americans through an increase in voters.

Overall, it is known that “United States makes it hard to vote” for several reasons. The fact that citizens cannot register onsite creates difficulties for those turning 18. This creates a lack of voters in the 18-24 age range. In addition, Election Day does not take place on a weekend, nor is Election Day a holiday. These factors alone make voting especially difficult for those who work and are unable to make it to the polls on time. All of these factors influence why there is a lack of voters in America. By modernizing voting, several of these factors to improve democracy and representation in American can be improved through improving the current voting system.

References:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/178057/infrastructure-american-democracy-dysfunctional?rel=emailNation&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=email_nation&utm_campaign=Email%20Nation%20-%2020140123

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abrahamlin101395.html

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/socdemo/voting/publications/historical/a1-presidential.jpg

The Mess of the U.S.

Please read the post below as a comment, I'm really sorry, my blog posts keep highlighting themselves white with pink text.

The Cost of Congress

Coming into this week, we had several readings that dealt with and discussed the various aspects to the U.S. government, and social/economic classes. I'd like to tie this article in with my post from last week.

To start off, let's throw some numbers around. It's astonishing to me that the U.S.'s law makers on Capital Hill are all worth at least $1,000,000 in addition to the 534 members of congress who average a net worth of over $1,000,000 as well from 2012 statistics, which is an increase from the previous year! So while the middle classes median line is reducing, the 1% has seen an increase in income. Why do they need more money while the average american - and majority too might I add - is struggling to keep up? From 1998 to 2008, the median income went from $33,400 to $33,000 (not the most significant decrease for ten years, but with inflation and the market, makes a large difference, whereas the top 1% saw a 33% increase!

This completely relates to our discussion and readings about representation. How are these law makers and politicians representing the majority? Is this true democracy? I think not. They pay to benefit themselves, not the majority. The middle class is the majority being 79% of our country. It seems as if the government is in it for the money, pay and you'll get what you want. Large corporations are the most popularly invested into by the government employees. It's a cycle of money, where everyone in D.C. wants to win.

To add in a few definitions for clarification, I decided to do some research on Democracy and Representation. Here are my findings, thanks to www.merriam-webster.com.

     Representation:
F          A person or group that speaks or acts for or in support of another person or group
            One that represents as
T                 A statement or account made to influence opinion or action, an incidental or collateral statement                    of fact on the faith of which a contract is entered into
                   A usually formal statement made against something or to effect a change
T          The act or action of representing: the state of being represented
F                The act of fact of one person standing for another so as to have the rights and                                      obligations of the person represented, the substitution of an individual or class in place of a                      person
T                The action of representing or the fact of being represented esp in a legislative body

     Democracy:
T          A form of government in which people choose leaders by voting
T          A country ruled by democracy
F          An organization or situation in which everyone is treated equally, and has equal rights
F          A government by the people, especially: rule of the majority, a government in which the                         supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a             system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
T          A political unit has a democratic government
F          The common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
T          The absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges

In regards to these definitions, there are areas in which our government 'represents' a democracy, and others where there are large gaps. I marked next to each definition my perspective of how the U.S. government relates to these positions (True/False.) Although they are partly true, it is the larger issues that are false. Yes, one does not inherit being President, but one could inherit his/her fathers/mothers name or wealth which adds favor to them. In addition, it is the problem that our democracy does not accurately and wholly represent the majority as shown in bold above. It's about the wealthy and powerful, maintaining that power, not representing the majority, being vested in the people or maintaining equality.

http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0912/which-income-class-are-you.aspx
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/representation
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democracy

Minimum Wage and the American Economic Classes

One thing that stuck out the most to me during Friday’s lecture was when Professor Breyman mentioned minimum wage. It astonished me that when minimum wage was first instated, that the purpose was for two adults who were working full time at minimum wage and 40hrs/week, could support a family of four. Today’s federal minimum wage being $7.25/hr which would be $15,080/yr for one person, or $30,160 for a family of four with two adults working full time. By today’s standards, the poverty line is $23,550. Surprisingly, this means that today’s minimum wage holds true the purpose of the minimum wage. Honestly, I did not expect this to be true when calculating it out. It's hard to believe that $23,550 is suppose to efficiently support a family of four. Due to these statistics, this got me interested in the other economic classes in the U.S.  

The following was found: 

Upper Classes:

                $250,000+                            1%

                $150,000+                            5%

Middle Classes:

                $100,000+                          Upper Middle (33%)

                $50,054                              Median (50% mark)

                $32,500 - $60,000              Lower Middle

                $23,050 - $32,500              Bottom Middle - Working Class

Poverty Line:

                $18,000 - $23,050              Lowest 15%

It is obvious from this data that the middle class is by far the largest, being 79% of the American economic society. In addition, it has the most hierarchies within the class.  With this being the largest area of the American working class, it also relates back to Woodhouse’s Chapter Eight: Technological-Economical Innovations II when discussing democracy in the workplace. If workers were to function was “representatives” of people otherwise excluded from a business firm’s technological-economic decision making, how would they be fairly represented? I see today in the federal government that representative do not accurately represent what the people want or stand for. As stated in "Henry Giroux on resisting the Neoliberal Revolution" “economics drives politics” and those with wealth have power. So based on these economic statistics, and this week’s articles, I wonder how can the poverty and median line be moved up and these individuals be better represented, both in the work force, and the government?

References:

http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/henry-giroux-on-resisting-the-neoliberal-revolution/

http://www.dol.gov/whd/minimumwage.htm

http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0912/which-income-class-are-you.aspx

Ethics in the Market and How They "Regulate Themselves"

I found the article depicting various markets “regulating themselves” to be very eye-opening to the fact that “morality isn’t built into markets.” It is very true, and here are some examples from this article that relate to this.

As it starts out, 85 people - the top 0.00000001% - own as much as the poorest 3.5 BILLION people. That’s astonishing! Then on top of that, to note that these high levels of inequality corrode the democratic process because these people use their wealth to influence the political process to create laws and regulations that benefit them, the rich over everyone else, those who are not in the top 0.00000001% and especially not the poorest.  For example, when running for president, or any government elected official position, one must campaign to be elected. However, those campaigns are expensive. Thus, those who support these campaigns financially essentially just bought themselves influence in the government through that campaigning and potentially elected official. This is something that it seems most people who vote and have a partial awareness around of the government and how it works, seems aware of, but don’t know what to do about it, or can’t do anything about it. This problem then gets brushed under the rug, because those who pay for it gain them influence, or else the system must be changed.

Another incident that most of the American population became aware of is the Bangladesh garment factory collapse. The majority of Americans are aware that goods sold in the United States, are often not produced or manufactured here, thus the low prices. However when this incident happened, it was all over the news, creating awareness in American citizens of the conditions that these workers are in. When it’s not our workers (American citizens) who are in danger, how apt are American consumers going to change the conditions in which goods are produced and manufactured?

Today’s society also seems to have an abundance of waste type disasters, such as oil spills, radiation exposure and toxic waste. All of these have extremely harsh impacts on the environment, something humans seem incapable of truly preserving. Oil spills destroy oceanic life in an unnatural way and are spread across the globe due to currents. Not only do these have major impacts on the environment and humans, but also costs an astronomical amount of money to “contain” or fix. In addition, although there are regulations that revolve around these types of disasters, not all of them are full proof as shown in this article. The containment of radiation is sometime not enough, or as well done as it should be. The link below shows an innovative way in which nuclear waste could be stored. It makes one think, why aren’t more innovations such as this being implemented to solve these various market place and regulation problems?

Overall, this article well depicted the lack of knowledge that the general public has about various markets and regulations. Not only does it inform the reader via text, but the images add a very compelling component to addressing this problem.

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/making-nuclear-power-safer/handling-nuclear-waste/infographic-dry-cask-cooling-pool-nuclear-waste.html#share