Save Yo Money

People have a hard time with savings money when then they have cash on them or money in their checking account. Marie Franklin in Boston has figured out how to save thousands of dollars by just doing a few simple things. This process could be an incentive for people to want to save their money, and how just saving 5 dollar bills can lead to thousands in your savings account. She started this when she got fives back as change and kept it in her purse, and she kept doing this until the end of the week when she saved 35 dollars. I think that most people could do this simple trick to save money, and they invest that money into a bigger company to make money off the market.

The best way to start this process is by “tucking away every 5-dollar bill”(NBC News) that you get back as change. Before you do this immediately, you must use cash in “your daily consumption” to get the cash to save. Therefore, you should add up all the small things you buy in a week that you could use to buy cash and withdrawal that money from your checking account. Marie withdrew about “100 dollars” each week and recommends about the same. She did things that most people do not like doing which is using a 20 to buy a 3-dollar item, but by doing this, she at least gets one five back in change to save. Once the fives become a “100 dollars,” she puts it into a “savings account” that in return earns her interest. Eventually, that 100 dollars turns into a 1000 dollars, in which, she “takes it out (of the savings account) and reinvest it” into a bigger company or something that earns more interest. This seems like a great easy way to save money.

Some people might not see the incentive to do this like I do, but I don’t see why not give it a chance. You can’t lose anything from saving money and earning more money off the money you put aside. Well, there could be some challenges to this for some people. Not everyone makes enough to be able to pull a lot cash to buy smaller things. I understand this reason, but any other reason than that to me is not valid. Think about this until this week the stock market and economy was booming and interest rates along with shares were rising, so now is in the time to save your money to invest in these companies. Waiting to do to this could be worse the thing because you are losing out on potentially thousands of dollars just sitting in your bank account.

No matter what you decide to do use your money wisely and try saving more money since now more than ever more people not saving money. Long term saving have plummeted in recent years in America. Their long-term effects of not saving money could hurt you if we were to go into another recession. A “persons consumption” (Economics Web Institute) usually directly relates to much they will they save, and the rich tend to save more than poor which I found interesting. Most importantly having some amount of money put in away in a savings account or in an investment came extremely useless in the long term in case of an emergency.

Your Money is Your Money

The Republicans in the Senate are pushing for a tax reform to lower federal income taxes, and most of them ran their election on this promise to lower taxes. Both Democrats and Republicans have their argument for why they should stay the same, be higher, or be lower. I am for lowering of the federal income taxes. Democrats complain about how the rich do not pay enough in taxes even though they 45% in taxes, but they pay less through tax write offs and loopholes. More people in the United States would pay taxes if we lowered taxes andchanged the tax bracket since right now 45 percent of Americans don’t pay their taxes.

Lowering taxes to get more people to pay them could allow the US to receive more tax money to help public education, the poor, and many other things that we rely on the government to provide for us. The way we could lower taxes without actually getting rid of the percentages we have now would be to add more brackets into the existing tax bracket. This would allow someone to only have to pay 15% instead of 25% in taxes when they barely make more than the 15% bracket maximum. The max for the 15% bracket is 37,950 for a single person. By doing this, more of the lower income people would be more inclined to pay taxes which means more money for the government. Also, by taking less of the people’s money, they could spend that money on other things like tutoring, private school, and other things to boost our economy, but if everybody in America paid taxes, then we wouldn’t need the crazy amount of private schools we have. We could fix multiple problems by doing something pretty simple.

The lower and middle class would really benefit from lower taxes since less of their income would go to taxes and more towards basic necessities. The lower income class would be able to improve their living conditions and health if they could keep more of their money. Also, the tax forms are so complicated and confusing that most people have to pay someone to do their taxes which means less money for those people. People from these two classes also refuse to pay taxes which is around 45% of Americans because they are displeased and that the government needs to provide more for them. That is ironic since the government needs money to provide for us. The people chose have control of their own money since they earned not the government, and they should not tell me how I should spend my money.

Changes to the tax bracket need to be made. Right now there are 7 brackets with 10% being the lowest and 39.60% being the highest. The other ones are 15, 25, 28, 33, and 35 percent.They need to add more brackets between 15 and 25 to make the gap between the two not as big and one between 10 and 15 at many around 12%. Adding more brackets could be mean the difference between living pay check to pay check for some families and more money for other things that they might need. Making the tax system more simplified could get more people to pay taxes since 59% of Americans think Congress needs to fix the tax system. Theses changes could help get America to the next level in countries that pay the majority of their taxes. This could also take away people relying the wealthy to make for everyone else lack of participation and that the wealthy don’t pay enough in taxes.

The lowering of taxes and adding more brackets to the tax could help America and Americans in general. There are many benefits to doing this, but it is only going to help America if everybody pays their taxes. More tax brackets are needed in order more Americans to pay taxes and allow the government to have more money to spend on education and everywhere they feel its necessary. Lower taxes and more brackets could help this country move to closer to a more well rounded country that takes care of the basic things that we rely on a government to provide for us.

http://www.ri.gop/lowering_taxes

 

Money Causing Hazy Elections

Photo Source: KCET

We are all aware of the massive deficit that spending habits and tax cuts has placed America in. The money that our President spent on his election in 2012 does not help his case in fixing our debt crisis. Through burning cash on his campaign, Obama spent nearly one billion dollars on his last election victory (NY Times).  Two billion total dollars were spent on an election while America spent 3.54 trillion and only received 2.45 trillion in 2011 (Budget Challenge). Though two billion dollars is less than one percent of a trillion, cutting these funds would do more than Obama has accomplished in spending cuts. The spendthrift qualities of a candidate cause me to question the already ambiguous character of a politician. The capitalistic approach of the American dream has tainted the democracy and morality of elections.

Since the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010, Political Action Committees have become a way for candidates to bank off of big money corporations. The case declared “government may not keep corporations or unions from spending money to support or denounce individual candidates in elections.” PACs are developed “for the purpose of raising and spending money to elect and defeat candidates”. These PACs raise tremendous amounts of money that allow the wealthy to support their favorite candidate and help him or her gain a competitive edge. Many have questioned the power of money; including Ezra Klein when he claims the committees give “the rich too much sway” (News Week). Although the donation of money has been protected under the First Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment can also argued as broken. In no way do the mega donations from the wealthy give the poor an equal right to express their opinion. Thus, elections are skewed to the preferences of only one group of people and are not necessarily democratic.

Photo Source: Cartoon Movement

Elections are no longer a competition of who has better leadership virtues, but rather who has more money. These prodigal habits seem necessary for victory considering 95% of House candidates who outspend their opponent win (Business Insider). However, the vulnerability of American voters allows campaigns to grow obsessed with outward appearance rather than inward character. At this point, morality of elections is at its ultimate low. Candidates now spend more time advertising themselves than actually creating a reliable plan. Once he or she is elected, there is not a well thought out plan that a representative can resort to. With money in elections, equivocation of politicians has hit its highest point and the running of the government has become even more unpredictable. Sen. Evan Bayh, a democratic Senator who has chosen to retire from politics, claims that candidates spend “90 percent of their time raising money, that’s time they’re not spending with constituents or with public policy experts” (News Week). The problem with money in elections is that the candidate who spends more time with his constituents and policy experts than his advertisement manager will not win the election. PACs cloud candidates who are morally true and exemplify those who are more publically involved.

Money in elections today has created an unfair balance for the rich candidate and voter. The burning of billions of dollars on elections while America is in debt yields an increasingly skewed playing field . An unlimited budget and a capitalistic economy do not add up to a leveled competition in today’s society. The inequitable advantage screams for change. As Americans, we must reduce susceptibility to advertisements and demand a policy that creates an equal, democratic, and ethical playing field in politics.

American Crossroads Leading the Way

In our government class we have supplemented our earning with the study of classical documents from the Declaration of Independence to Federalist #78.  The study of these documents that lay at the heart of America has given us the ability to gain an educational perspective when analyzing current events.  When we began our discussion of the election process we were taught the essential role that money plays in elections.  After our task was completed, we were asked if money is a corrupting influence or a vital form of political speech.  Then and now I believe that the distribution of money is a vital tool of political expression that the people have the right to.

Recently while glancing through the Financial times the headline “Super-pacs rack up cash for Republicans” caught my eye.  Upon further investigation I realized that this article explained how a Republican super-Pac (political action committee) known as American Crossroads has “the largest of the new campaign groups dominating US politics.”  American Crossroads has raised around $100 million dollars for the 2012 presidential elections and is expected to raise up to $200 million more to support the republican presidential candidate.  While this super-Pac is thriving others such as the most prosperous pro-Obama Pac, Priorities USA Action, are beginning to struggle.  The notion of a super-Pac is almost frowned upon by many Democratic supporters, making the support of such groups on the democratic side very low.

After the preliminary shock from seeing the quantity of money raised by such an organization I researched more on the subject.  American Crossroads is headed and CEO and President Steven J. Law who formerly served the United States Deputy Secretary of Labor under president George W. Bush.  This super-Pac holds strong to conservative views and is determined to see an Obama free white house after the 2012 election.  Though much criticism has been directed towards American Crossroads due to the undisclosed nature of many of their donations, Law claimed in an interview with CBS this was because some donors are “concerned about a culture of intimidation” not because of any illegal reasons.  American Crossroads has targeted democrats through the house and the senate but specifically President Obama.  Through the help of their funding they have been able to assemble ads focusing of the specific section of the population that were Obama voters in previous elections.  An example of these skillfully crafted video’s titled “Backward” explains the damage the Obama administration has done to this country and how this rewinding must stop.

With the support behind Romney and the Republican Party growing every day we are truly able to see the impact that these Republican super-Pacs have had.  Without these committees being able to gather funds from fellow supporters of a common cause our political system would be largely different and the people’s voice would be hushed.  With the backing of a strong organization such as American crossroads the Republican Party has a sizable chance of defeating Obama in the upcoming election.  Without the people’s ability to contribute to the Republican’s campaigning this chance would be gone.  As discussed in the Constitution the people have a right to a voice in the political process and in this modern age donations have become an easily accessible medium for this voice.

Negative money in Politics

The subject that I found most interesting this trimester in Government was how money affects the polls in America. Is it detrimental to the process or does it help the candidates overall? This is a good question because many people argue that it’s very difficult for the candidate that isn’t getting a lot of money flowing in to his campaign to win and share his ideas.

I’m going to first talk about how I think this is hurtful to the polls. First of all the negative effects of certain candidates getting a ton of money is that it doesn’t give the other running candidates ample opportunity to express their views to the public due to the fact that they just simply do not get much air time, interviews, etc. Companies are able to openly support a certain candidate of their choice meaning that huge fortune 500 companies could give huge sums of money helping their campaign trail advertisements because they cannot directly give them money for their campaign; which helps them hugely because with all that money they can easily get their name on more commercials, magazines, in the public eye more than their opponents .The Government stepped in and said that this was indeed constitutional due to freedom of speech; so the Government decided that companies could openly announce what candidate that they supported and give them large donations. They said “The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the government may not keep corporations from spending money to support or denounce individual candidates in elections.” (http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/01/citizens-united-v-fec-in-plain-english/)  this is awesome for candidates getting these huge sums of money, but for those not getting so much money flow it can hurt. If a candidate gets the backing of these huge companies it can sweep elections. The Government justices said they were concerned with these companies spending huge sums of money; their main argument was that companies are not necessarily people so they should not have the same freedom of speech as everyone else. Companies can indeed sway the public’s views and votes in my opinion.

They can use all that money for commercials and use propaganda on other candidates, which ultimately makes the public, think twice about the person that they are voting for.  Eugene Volokh is a professor of law and he was quoted saying “These corporations overtly editorialize for and against candidates, and also influence elections by choosing what to cover and how to cover it.” Meaning that yes these corporations can negatively effect the polls by giving certain candidates a lot of exposure of sabotaging the ones that they don’t agree with. (http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/how-corporate-money-will-reshape-politics/)  “the court decision means that voters will have more messages from more sources — including wealthy unions and wealthy corporations -– to supplement the messages they already get from wealthy media corporations, wealthy political parties, wealthy advocacy groups, and wealthy individuals, as well as from not-so-wealthy neighbors, bloggers, and others.”

So, overall all of this money from huge corporations is bad for the polls because it doesn’t give other people to positively speak their ideas in the mainstream where the public can have easy access to it. In my opinion only individuals should be able to give money to the candidate of their choice.

Support for Romney and His Money

In April president Obama Raised 43.6 million dollars for his campaign, which vastly out numbers the amount Romney raised for his campaign. One thing Romney did receive the former president’s approval and has endorsed which will change the way this election goes.

In our Government Class we’ve discussed the importance money in how successful someone is in the elections. Obama has superior amounts of money compared to Romney, but he may be gaining a surplus of money due to the endorsement by Bush.

Currently Obama is leading the race to the presidency by a large margin. Both George Bush and his wife Barbra currently support Romney. The more support he has from larger political face, the more he may be able to raise for his campaign. The more money he has the greater chance he has for beating out Obama and take over the presidency. It is said that if Romney could do so, he would be the richest man ever to live in the White House.

Being a reelection year for Obama, many will say that he can’t be beaten. Money is actually one of, if not the most, important factor in determining who will turn out successful. As of now Mitt Romney has raised a total of $86,631,381, in comparison to Obama who has raised a total of $191,671,860. Obama has not only doubled Romney’s number, but is also close to doubling his predicted vote.

With the help of Bush’s support, Romney could possibly sway all the swing voters and influence them that he is an accountable candidate. With the support of Bush’s followers he will have a greater opportunity to raise more money, giving him more of a shot of defeating Barack Obama, and become closer to him in his total earnings. With more money to spend he will have more advertisement options with more efficient techniques that will hopefully sway the undecided voters towards him if he would like to be president.

Money Changes the Government and Influences the People

Televisions, newspapers and the webs are being flooded by numerous campaign ads for the upcoming presidential election. I believe the media’s involvement in our daily lives influences each of us and can mold the way we think about current issues. The new campaign between Obama and Romney has began, and initiated a swarm of ads to be broadcasted all over media related sources.

An article recently published by The New York Times, Aggressive Ads for Obama, at the Ready, shows the public how the media’s role in the election process can influence the public and its affect on those who choose to use ads as a form to strengthen themselves and weaken their opponents. President Obama, as stated in the article, has decided to use $25 million to create advertisements. He has several attack ads prepared for his opponent, Mitt Romney, as well as ads that will promote him.

The article continues to give examples of Obama’s past ads that portrayed him as a strong leader and portrayed, 2008 Republican Candidate, John McCain “as out of touch and feeble.”

The day spent on Elections and Campaign ads has stuck with me and caused me to think the most out of all other topics studied in class. My views tend to center around the media because wherever I go, while on the way to school, listening to the radio, watching television, or leisurely surfing the web, I encounter at least on form, daily, of an ad promoting or criticizing a candidate. This class has opened my eyes to see what a ad really is. But, the ads are not the only thing that are important in the election, but the money behind the advertisements. We did not really go into the money behind certain areas of politics but simple covered the political influence on candidates money could bring. We did not take into account how that money could not only shape the way a candidate may think but how that money could be used to change the way the American public thinks. When we watch an ad we hardly ever pay attention to them but subconsciously we may catch certain words of interest and store that information within our minds. After viewing many campaign ads we could have potentially changed opinions on how we may think of the candidates we thought we supported. The fact that so much money is going into this area for political reasons seems ridiculous.

This election has currently spent $ 114.9 million (number may change) on advertisements all together, including democratic and republican ads. Only 28% of all the ads produced have been positive ads while 72% have been negative ads generally attacking an opponent.

Money influences the American public indirectly. It helps create and distribute the ads that are used to change our opinions. Monies role in government influences what politicians do but also the people who have voted them into offices.

Newt is in the Hole and out of the Race

Through out the past couple of weeks I have been going through our Government blog and I have seen many posts related to Money and its effects on elections.  I guess this came with good timing because after hearing about the news of Newt Gingrich suspending his campaign, I saw the connection.  This specific connection interested me  because it amazed me that an idea that we learned in Government class would still be present when I flipped on the TV when I got home.  Although there are many reason for Newt dropping out, like staying at a steady fourth place in the poles, the primary reason is his four million dollar campaign debt.  We did learn a lot about how money affects elections but I will reflect about how money affected the Newt Gingrich campaign for the Presidential race of 2012.

In class we discussed as a group whether or not we agree that money is a corrupting  factor  in elections currently.  In my opinion, I think that candidates should be limited to the amount of money they can spend on their campaign.  This is the only way to ensure that candidates are voted on because of their values and ideas rather than who has more money, which is not what being the President is about.  Currently the candidate who made the most money this past year is on his way to be the Republican candidate for the upcoming election (Mitt Rommney made 41.5 million dollars last year).  This shows how much of an impact money is on the outcome of an election.  Also, it will prevent candidates from getting in a great amount of debt like Newt Gingrich did.

Now, to relate this concept of how money is spent in elections to Newt’s campaign.  Obviously, the ideal campaign not only wins, but also manages to raise more money than they spend.  However, Newt Gingrich was successful on none of these levels.  On top on getting the fourth spot of the Republican Presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich has managed to be over four million dollars in debt.  The chart below is taken from the website Open Secrets, and it shows that Newt’s campaign could not raise enough to keep up with how much they were spending.  This is very significant because they managed to raise over twenty-two million dollars.  Clearly, Newt’s campaign did not manage their money, which helps return to starting argument, that campaigns should have cap in which they can spend so unsuccessful campaigns like Newt’s do have to struggle in debt.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate the true importance that money has on campaigns and how its can affect a great candidate like Newt Gingrich.  It is also necessary to recognize that money is not the only factor the Presidential candidates have to deal with during an election, however this current event allowed for a perfect example to exemplify how money can effect a candidates chances at becoming the President.

Money: Influential or Corruptive?

Money plays a vital role in the election process, and ever since the early days of the Republic, money has been a major influence on candidates and their campaigns. There are essentially two points of view regarding the influence of money; as a corrupting influence and as a form of political speech needed in elections. Many Americans believe money distorts the election, and gives some candidates an unfair advantage that goes past the election itself and into the policy making process, but i disagree. And according to political scientist Daniel Shay, it was a common practice to “treat” voters, such as George Washington for example, was said to have purchased a quart of rum, wine, beer, or hard cider for every voter in the district where he ran for the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1751. Since then, money has been used to fuel campaigns, in the form of paying for campaign ads, commercials, media ads, such as TV, radio, and newspaper, and sometimes even a newspaper completely.

By the late 1960’s, money had become critical for 4 main reasons: Decline of path organizations, more voters up for grabs, television, and campaign consultants. All 4 of these reasons changed the way political campaigns are run and are the reasons why money plays such a powerful role in today’s electoral system. These reasons led to efforts to control the flow of money in elections. In response to the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision, which ended with the court finding limits on corporate and union campaign spending unconstitutional, Heather K. Gerken (Professor of Law at Yale Law School), stated that, “Rather than trying to limit the power of money in politics, we should harness money’s power to fix politics.” So when answering the question of, is money a corrupting influence? I say no. I believe that money is not a corrupting influence in the election process, but that money is needed for a solid campaign to run smoothly.

A Race for Votes or a Race for resources?

An interesting thing that I have learned in government this trimester is how much work goes into a political race, but what caught my attention even more was how much time a candidate and his or her team spend on trying to accumulate resources.  I have learned that the major resources that candidates go for is money, advertisements, Internet traffic, endorsements, volunteers and support from notable people.  These resources will eventually win equate to votes in the election.  There are way too many people in the United States for a candidate to reach out to by him or herself and win their vote.  As technology improves more and more candidates are gaining more resources at their disposal.

All of these resources are all centered around Candidates getting their image and beliefs out to the public.  TV ads are very expensive but are also very effective because they can display all of their policies and have images to help sway voters.  Candidates also go for “free” advertisements on the Internet and by famous people or companies.  Even though the Internet is free candidates spend thousands on good-looking websites, but the free aspect comes from social media buzz.  Social media buzz can also be categorized as volunteers, because individuals create this by making facebook pages, amateur youtube videos and show support for their candidate on blogs.  I’ve come to learn that although it seems like these social media buzzes are random and spontaneous; they are actually carefully planned by candidates in order to get free advertising.  An example of this is when, “Mitt Romney stuck out his hand and challenged Rick Perry to a $10,000 bet at a Republican presidential debate Saturday night, prompting Perry to decline because he is not in the betting business.”  Romney did this because he knew that such an unorthodox thing to do at a debate would raise a lot of talk in the news and on the web.  His hope was to get people talking about how certain he is on his facts, but the majority of the Internet talk shifted towards how “snobby” it was of him to throw around such big amounts of money.  This is the gamble candidates take when they attempt to create free advertising through the Internet, but if successful it can have a huge payoff.

After the initial projects we did on political campaigning sparked my interest, we started on a bigger project of working on a mock campaign team.  In doing this I have learned the importance of appearance.  Our main strategy is to make everything as eye catching and unique as possible in order to stand out.  On a much smaller scale we are have the same though process as political candidates.  By making that $10,000 bet, weather it created negative or positive media for Mitt Romney, it allowed him to stand out.  Without his big gamble I would not have mentioned him in my post and he would not of received the free advertising on my behalf weather I support him or not.

Click here to keep track of who’s on top money wise