Tax breaks are great, but "Who Gives?"

     Dear Krista, of "Kids in Cattle Country":  First of all I appreciate you bringing such matters to my attention.  You bring up a very relevant issue in your July 25th entry titled "Healthy Business is the Cure."  Thanks to these blogs, this class has probably been the learningest class I've taken at ACC.  If you haven't read my blog, you might not know that I've been planning to follow the food trailer trend that's taken over Austin in recent years, and open up my own smoothie/sandwich shop in a renovated AirStream soon (location to be determined by lease price, obviously).  Anyway, it's of great interest to me to know that Perry is planning on giving a tax break to help small businesses thrive in central Texas.  While this action will no doubt be beneficial to us little guys who need the assistance most, I'm not sure that, alone, it'll be enough to fix our growing state deficit.

      People, not just the state, are broke.  That's the issue.  They don't go out as much.  They can't afford to drive as far.  They can't lavish on themselves like they used to.  And the relatively low number of teachers that you say were laid off are not just moving out of the city or state to go find new teaching jobs.  They're going back to old jobs; getting back into the hospitality and service industries, and further raising competition for the positions that we undergrads have held onto so dearly for years.  What this has created, in my opinion from the inside of the beast, is a perpetual black hole of debt.  Unless it's just me, the money being spent in all industries (except for petrol and technology) is waning.  And if we aren't even spending like we used to, then how can the state justify 40,000 tax breaks?  I'm not denouncing the tax leniency for small businesses, just making the argument that such a grand problem needs more than one solution.    

      In order to make money where there is none, the citizens of Texas, not just the governing bodies, need to get more creative.  From what I've read in a March article in Community Impact's online News Magazine, Austin already has about 40,000 small businesses (with annual incomes under 1 million dollars) that may be eligible to bypass the franchise tax.  Also, though I know that Austinites have a general "Anti-Wal-Mart" mentality and prefer to shop local, my question then is "Why are our small businesses struggling, and why are our schools being shut down?"  I know these questions might sound irrelevant, but my simple point is, Austin has the small business thing down.  But that doesn't keep people out of Wal-Mart and HEB, where everything's cheaper because they buy in bulk and from far far away.  If people could afford the prices at their local "specialty shops," then they would probably shop local more often.  The thing that Austinites look for if they are willing to shop at these niche shops is uniqueness in selection, stand-out food (in an eatery), or just to get more bang for their buck.

      I propose a new type of internet advertising agency that kills these two birds with one stone.  While I'm not gunna go completely into detail (as it's still in its infancy, and I don't want it stolen) I will explain the most important aspects of my affordable ad agency, "Who Gives?".  First, it will be cheap.  I'm talking cheap enough for the small mom and pop shops that never thought they could afford a commercial to have a face in quality production, HD video.  Next, and most importantly I believe for the economy and smart shoppers alike, it will feature only companies that give to a cause of some sort.  Any cause what-so-ever.  As long as they are giving back to the community, or to a non-profit organization, we will feature them, and do all the boasting of their benevolence for them.  Most companies that give, although it may be a tax write-off, don't often go much further than hanging up a 'Thank You' from their neighborhood church/school.  In my opinion, if I'm gunna shop locally, and pay a higher price for my specialty goods, I would just like to know what exactly that company stands for other than profits.  If they have an ad agency that highlights the good they are doing for the community while offering cheap commercials, you can bet their business, along with their neighborhoods, will begin to come alive again with an audible heartbeat.

      If you had to pay a dollar more for every burger, sandwich, cup of soup, taco, donut, or cup of coffee, but it was local, delicious, and it helped keep (insert school name) Elementary open another year, clothed the homeless during winter, or helped save puppies from slaughter... Wouldn't you pay more attention to where your money was going, and in turn be willing to pay more for goods offered by local businesses?  I think Perry's small business tax break is a good idea.  But with "Who Gives?" and a New Level of genuine concern for where our dollars go running concurrent, local start-ups in Austin, Texas and eventually the entire country can really start to make their mark.

New Austin Rule Proposed: BYOBag?

    
     Austin has always felt just a little more green to me than most cities in Texas.  With the exception of Lake Tahoe, California, Austin seems to take better care of our parks and wildlife than other urban developments I've encountered (the beautifully refreshing Barton Springs and the small but sweet Blunn Creek Reserve are just two testaments to this notion).  Let's not forget the Single Stream Recycling system Austin put into place in 2008, an enviro-friendly luxury afforded to few US cities.  Now, city officials are trying to plant a foot into the Green Frontier by ordering a city-wide ban of the much denounced (yet widely-used) plastic shopping bag.  

      Mayor Lee Leffingwell along with Bob Gedert, director of Solid Waste Services,  on July 25th proposed a ban on plastic bags throughout the city of Austin.  The motion is to be considered in this November's City Council legislation.  Though it sounds rather drastic, we wouldn't be the first city to do so in Texas.  Brownsville, the 3rd largest of Texas' border towns, enacted the ban earlier this year.  If Brownsville (a city of 175,000) officials think plastic bag use is wasteful and excessive enough to ban them altogether, imagine how many millions of plastic bags Austin (a city of 1.7 million) consumers are pumping into our landfills.  Apparently, too many!  Leffingwell says that our estimated 263 million discarded plastic bags cost the city over $800,000 per year in pollution and disposal costs!  Recent efforts by many plastic bag contributors (like HEB and Wal-Mart) to sway consumers over to paper and recycle their old plastic bags at storefront receptacles have proved almost fruitless.  The number of plastic bags used annually just keeps growing along with our city, and now that it's costing damn near 1 million dollars to city tax payers, Leffingwell is ready to do something about it.  The Plastic Bag Ban Report says he has until September 23rd this year to figure out how much it'll cost Austin tax payers to include plastic trash bags in the Single Stream Program, and report it to City Council .  

     I will be the first to admit, I use plastic bags.  As I usually ride a bike to HEB, I'm even known to double bag (a practice that I do not feel too bad about, considering I reuse all of the plastic bags that I don't recycle as small trash can liners.)  For this reason, I cannot agree with the term environmentalists have come up with: "single-use" bags.  Out of occasional guilt, I have purchased maybe 10 of those reusable cloth bags that most chains sell for 99 cents at the register, but have probably only thought ahead enough times to pack them with me a handful of times.  Oh I use 'em, but more often to carry food and frisbees to the park, not to bring home groceries.  This is likely the problem across the state of Texas.  It's not that we don't care about the costs and damages involved in using plastic bags; it's just that they are more versatile and more convenient.  I mean, who lines a kitchen or bathroom trash can with a paper bag?

     Being a natural born cynic, I think it's funny that the Mayor gets behind the cause when he has been alerted that it costs his taxpayers about 17 cents a bag.  I mean, do you really think he sits up at night thinking about how he can save the environment?  Is it just in an effort to get in the Green Party's good graces?  Does he have plans to take Perry's office when he makes the move to President in 2012?  What plans specifically does he have for the newly freed-up funds?  I dunno.  But honestly, though it would inconvenience me if Austin decides to go all paper at the stores, I stand behind the Mayor's proposal no matter what his initial motives.  I'll just have to learn to adjust.  I don't see the harm in reducing non-biodegradable filler in our landfills and freeing up taxpayer money for more tactful expenditures, that's for sure.  Maybe he's just smart enough to take a hint from San Fransisco's plastic-free success.  *The city of San Fran proper went from an estimated 180 million plastic bags used in 2005 to...well, fewer in 2007 when they became the first municipality in America to enact the plastic bag-free law.

     With the state already in troubles with the EPA to get it's pollutin' in order, I think it's a measure we Texans can afford to explore.  But can small local businesses afford the cost of goin' paper?  Some people think it's too expensive, and even more harmful to produce recycled paper bags strong enough to hold mixed goods.  Read here for a much different opinion on the issue than Leffingwell and I share.  The Save the Bag Coalition website claims that "...(they've) discovered that paper bags were worse for the environment, especially regarding energy consumption and CO2 and methane emissions."  If this information is true, and "Paper Bags are even worse for humanity than Plastic Bags!"...in all honestly, by then, I'm bored with the subject.  I've just got too much going on to research bags all day.  Let's call it a draw, and take the grassroots approach to cleaning up Texas' streams and coastlines.  Take your reusable bags (you know, the ones you already own) to the store with you next time; save yourself a few wasteful tax dollars in the end.  


     Maybe the Single Stream Recycling Program, until the measure is passed, could just include "single-use" plastic bags on the list in the meantime.  Perhaps, even if the law is passed in November, it'll be an effortless way to recollect the 200 Million (my personal estimate based on the 300 bags that I keep thoughout the house waiting to be used or recycled) plastic bags that Austinites hoard away in their kitchen cupboards and drawers.  At least this way, while we prepare for Plastigeddon, the effort is minimal on our part, and booming Austin can remain the utopia of the south it prides itself on being.  

Creationism Shmershmashionism (or "Texas to Preach, err, TEACH Religious Theory in Public Schools")

     Have you heard the news?!  We know exactly where we came from, and have enough proof, we're going to put it in the textbooks!  As long as the liberals keep their 'Evolution Theory' to themselves, one day Texas public schools will TEACH KIDS TO BELIEVE IN GOD!  Yay!  No more lost, wayward or undeclared teens!  No more refugees persecuted for their silly beliefs!  No more terrorists killing in the name of their make-believe Gods!  No more War!  (Did you catch the sarcasm yet?)  Maybe I surmise or digress a bit, but what are we really doing by continuing to let self-proclaimed religious Zealots lead as Chairperson to the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE for short)?

     A little article by "Off the Kuff" author Charles Kuffner released on July 20th 2011 brought to my attention that the SBOE is meeting tomorrow (10 am, Thursday the 21st) to decide whether schools should include "supplementary reading" material that, as Kuff puts it, aims "to force mainstream publishers to rewrite their supplements to de-emphasize or undermine evolution education."  Other than that, the article is cut and dry (unopinionated), but it left me wanting more; so I continued a search through my links' links to find out what Texas bloggers have to say on the subject of teaching Creationism in our schools.  It turns out, they are more opinionated than I, but not as well spoken.  


     Richard Connelly of the Houston Press's Editorial Blog "HairBalls" writes on the issue in his July 19th 2011 article titled "Texas Science Textbook Wars: Ed Board Slashes Time for Public Comment."  Supposedly reporting on the cut backs in time allotted for public arguments during the hearing, he stays clear away from arguing for or against Creationism being taught in our schools.  Rather, Connelly starts off by mocking Barbara Cargill's ideals, and goes on to say that Christian fundamentalists are "entertaining at best" in their arguments against Evolution.  While I  can see the entertainment value in his article, I think he misuses an excellent opportunity in a public forum to get across a very simple joke instead of bringing more credibility to himself or trying to inform the reader of things we don't already know (what I thought was the very point of reading political blogs).  In my honest opinion (is there any other kind?), you lose the reader immediately if you focus on cheap attacks on one side, and fail to explain why you, the author, know any better.  


     Maybe a better way to approach this issue would have been imagining the future of our youth if the SBOE decides to pass the addition of Creationism supplements in our textbooks, as I so graciously did for you "in the beginning." Get it?  While I claim no religious affiliation whatsoever (Hell, I even just recently learned I'm not an atheist, but technically an agnostic), I do understand the need for texts to be revised from time to time, and don't exactly think we should be "force-feeding" Evolutionary ideals down 8th graders throats when it clearly undermines some students religious beliefs.  


     Perhaps it's better that students begin to choose their classes (as in college) earlier in life if they have a specific "agenda of theory" in which they choose to follow.  Or, if it's the parents who have the issue with what their kids learn in Biology, then maybe they should put them in a private academy that teaches according to their belief in God.  All these "maybes" sound silly, I'm sure, when the ultimate goal of the SBOE should just be to teach fact over unproven theory.  Simple as that.  If it can't be proven, why are we teaching it as fact?  If a theory is just that, and especially if it's faith based, it belongs in a Theology class, or in the dusty Book in the nightstand drawer.  


     I'm not saying that Evolution takes the cake, but I also don't remember my science teacher ever saying "You KNOW we came from monkeys, right?" I made that assumption all on my own soon after I started dating.  Let's keep religion and education as separate as oil and water, and not be completely terrified when our kids decide to explore their own origins and form their own beliefs.  


** The YouTube video above is from the National Center for Science Education's page which can be viewed by clicking This Link.  It's quite addicting (and mildly informative) so make some popcorn, and be ready to be enthralled.  

Texas! You dirty, dirty boy.

  You learn something new everyday.  In all honesty, I had no idea that we were So Filthy of a state when it comes to air and water pollution.  The Dallas Morning News Editorial team brought this to light for me in their July 13th, 2011 article entitled "With new pollution rules, EPA tries to save Texas from itself".  In a clear argument, DMN identifies the way that Texas Republicans are trying to dodge responsibility for spending the funds necessary to bring Texas' aging, sulfur/mercury emitting power plants to the EPA's new standards of compliance.  They even offer some estimates on the annual cost of pollution control/compliance vs. the anticipated annual health benefits.  

While the benefits seem to outweigh the costs, not to mention we're talking about saving lives and keeping our kids' air breathable, it seems Gov. Perry just can't come to terms with the EPA's rules if it's gunna cost money.  The article claims he says "Unfair!".  As if maybe he was Just handed a 24 hour notice, and hadn't a chance in Hell to comply by the deadline.  But a quick Google search of "Texas Pollution Ranking" brings up a September of 2009 article

from the El Paso Paper online that proves the EPA's been on Texas' butt about it's insufficient pollution standards.  In the article, they even say that were Texas an independent nation (as I'm sure some if not most residents consider it to be) it would rank 7th in the world for deadly toxic emissions!  Now, 2 Years later, Perry hasn't made a move to comply, or attempted to pay up?

I agree with the DMN, that if Texas has long been the leader in polluting our air, that we should also set a better example by putting our money into a cause that will benefit our lungs for years to come.  I understand that observing these rules will undoubtedly cause some shutdowns, heartache, and lost wages for plant workers in the Texas Panhandle and coasts.  But everything comes with a cost.  What happens when we can no longer hike in the Rolling Hills of the Greenbelt, fish in our Beautiful Lakes, or dip in the Guadalupe River on a 105* summer day?  I tell you what:  Texas will be just another hot state.

(A commentor on the DMA article stated the following: "More U.S. waters are closed to fishing because of mercury contamination than because of any other toxic contamination problem. In Texas, 361,433 acres of lakes and the entire Texas Gulf Coast are under fish consumption advisories.")  It was the motivation for me to look into how I can help comply, and make my state a little cleaner.  

Austin #1 on Forbes' List of American Boomtowns

      It's no secret that Austin is Booming.  Anyone driving through downtown, up SoCo, or taking IH35 in recent years has seen the many new additions.  The energy of resurgence is palpable in the light of the near 5 year recession that spared no county or state.  But did you know we're projected to have the greatest rate of industry and population growth in the next 10 years?  Can this mean the end to our financial woes is in sight?

      Brandon Luedtke of "The Daily Texan" reports in his July 11th article entitled
"Job creation, growth seat Austin atop Forbes’ boomtown list" that Austin's history of job creation and healthy population growth were the main factors in deciding the title. He goes on to interview an economic developer for the city, and found that the continued diversification of jobs since the late 80's (going from an education/government career base to a progressive information technologies hub) has helped propel Austin into a future-friendly job market.  

      One UT corporate communication and business major says people choose to stay in Austin after completing their formal education (possibly more-so than in other cities) because there are unique opportunities opening for people of all career interests.  Essentially, Austin is the New Frontier of the South.  

      This is nothing I haven't been sayin' since I arrived here from San Antonio 7 years ago.  Austin truly does have a niche for everybody.  And if you can't make it here...You're an ass!  And maybe you should move on.  Now a reporter from The Daily Texan is backing me up on this.  If you're planning on settling down here after college, buying property, or even starting a small business in Travis County (as I am), it's important to know where we stand as a city.  

    While it is kinda scary to think that cozy, "small-town feel" Austin will "BOOM" in our faces by 2020, and competition will rise (along with rent, taxes, parking prices) I think it's exciting to know that we have a secure footing as America's most promising region.  It would behoove any hopeful Austin "Lifer"to read this article.    

Back in the Swang of Thangs.

      Funny, just a year after taking US GOVT 2305, my Typology has changed from Libertarian to Post-Modern.  Does this mean I changed my political views drastically since last July?  Hmmmm.  Kinda.  I now follow some political arguments, and even care to vote!  Even locally.  As I struggle to juggle life, school, and work in this great state, my ignorance is waning, and I'm realizing (yes, at 30 years old) that I can make my own future, not only financially, but politically.

      I have a few projects in the works this year:  raising my GPA, paying off some loans, getting more fit, starting a small business and charity-based advertising firm, and the ultimate, near impossible goal: Getting My TX Driver's License back!  This will require paying off thousands in surcharges, appealing a DWI conviction, much time, money, influence and research.

      I'll be starting a local movement aimed at Taking Down the Driver "Responsibility" Surcharge Program; a horrible, financially debilitating, recurring tax implemented on certain Texas drivers for (sometimes) minor offenses.  Maybe, with a little shared knowledge and a lot of backing, You, my followers, can help...

Here's to a great semester!

-rzeker