Last night my show did its first live feed with an election special. Although there were some kinks in the production due to it being our first live show, I think things went pretty well. You can check out about half of last night's performance below.
Thanks to everyone who came out and supported us last night!
First off I am all about Wal-Mart and think Bobby James is a great advocate for Wal-Mart and with his charisma he can accomplish anything. I also enjoy watching your show from time to time, most of the time I find it humorous.
ReplyDeleteOn this last show (your live show) you started talking about the Texas budget and how Governor Perry and the Texas Legislature was planning on balancing the budget by cutting services. My question for you is how else would you balance the budget? When you don’t have enough money to pay the bills you are required to do you go and spend more money frivolously or do you cut some things to be sure you can cover what you are responsible for? I surly hope you don’t just go and pan handle or ask your parents for money.
As for the Texas deficit and cutting services, can you highlight the services that will be cut by the Texas Legislature in order to balance the budget? If the services being cut are school services as you hint towards most Texans are sure to disagree with that regardless of political party (even if necessary). However if the services being cut are free services for illegal immigrants or cutting welfare benefits for people that abuse the system; then I hope all reasonable people that want equality agree with those cuts.
The equality I am talking about is not the typical dividing point for liberal’s: sex, race, religion or sexual orientation (which we all should be treated equally). I am talking about equality where we all put in our fair share (*hint* flat tax percentage) and benefit equally from what we put in. If you don’t put in you don’t deserve anything in return.
Why shouldn’t someone be able to bust their hump to make a living and possibly become monetarily wealthy (or be born into wealth)? There is nothing unfair about that; the unfair thing is to expect that person to pay out more because they have more. Everyone should pay into the system equally, PERIOD. That’s equality. The rich shouldn’t be forced to feed and clothe the poor however as a man of faith I believe they have an individual responsibility to do so; but not forced by the government.
I want you to know I can relate to you… I live in California and go against the grain as a more conservative person in a land full of liberals as do you as a liberal person in Texas in a land full of conservatives (even though Houston is a pretty liberal city and Texas historically is a Democratic State). I’m not writing to change anyone but perhaps to actually give you something to think and talk about as most of your guests seem to have the same views as yourself.
**On a side note, check out Paul Burka’s article “Show me the Money” in Texas Monthly’s 2010 October issue. He breaks down what he would do to balance the budget and $5 billion comes from education. This was a very insightful and well thought out article. I’m not sure if you’ve ever read any of Paul’s work but in my opinion he is a pretty liberal writer.
Correction to my comment... the actual name of the article if you are curious is, "The Eighteen Billion Dollar Man" in October 2010.
ReplyDeleteHere is the link if you don’t have the magazine.
http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2010-10-01/feature3
Tim,
ReplyDeleteI very much appreciate your viewership and comments! Thanks for the support and please keep watching and commenting! Great stuff.
Let me start by saying my purpose of the program is to present a progressive direction in a light-hearted sometimes edgy way, using entertainment and humor as the medium to do this. Because of this we often break the traditional mold set by other liberal commentators, hence our position on Wal-Mart.
Now in regards to your questions about the budget. Please see this article which highlights much of what will be cut: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7270530.html
Education cash at risk
House Republican Caucus leader Larry Taylor, of Friendswood, said he already has told school superintendents in his district not to expect additional money the next two years.
"I think public education, just like everybody else, can look for innovation and find efficiencies. There are a lot of technology advances that they can use for education to save money just like industry has had to do," Taylor said. "I think we can get a better product with less money in some cases."
It typically takes an additional $1.5 billion to educate the estimated 170,000 students that are added to the public school enrollment every two years.
The Legislature's focus on budget cuts, including education, coincides with a campaign by Texas school boards to make education a priority. About 200 school boards already have passed the "make education a priority" resolution and more are joining each month.
Bobby Rigues, vice president of the Aledo ISD board of trustees and one of the campaign leaders, worries that issues such as redistricting will trump education.
"We are being told the issues of priority will be to balance the budget and to address redistricting - time will not allow the priority needed to address the broken system of school finance," Rigues said.
Education, Environmental protections, health and human services, etc. Will all experience cuts because of this budget shortfall. I can definitely talk about my ideas and my guests' ideas on how to balance the budget and I appreciate the suggestion. However, understand that Rick Perry ran on a record of fiscal conservatism. He's been anything but fiscally conservative. He turned down government funding for roads and schools, and then turned around and pointed the blame of his budget plight at the President. Unacceptable.
Example of his failed economic policies... here's one:
School board leaders across Texas are frustrated, she said, because students will be paying the price of the Legislature's 2006 decision to cut property taxes without raising enough cash to pay for the plan.
"Legislators now are telling school districts to expect to receive approximately $6 billion less from the state next year and the next," Lain said. "To paraphrase a recent commercial, even children know that it is wrong to buy something if you know that you won't have the money to pay for it."
I'll check out your article and maybe feature ont he show for discussion. Thanks again my friend!
-Matt