Global Climate Change

Nowadays, the impact of global climate change can be observed. Humans and wildlife are suffering the consequences of global warming. However, Trump’s administration does not believe in climate change and ignore what the scientists say. In my opinion, we should fight the global climate change because it will affect our future if it continues to happen.

President Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement in June 2017. According to the article from The Washington Post, President Trump believes that the Paris climate accord is a burden to the United States’ economy. He insisted that the number of jobs in the United States would increase after withdrawing from the agreement. Moreover, though the article from CNN, President Trump said that the United States is “the cleanest we have never been.” Trump does not believe the climate change that happens around the world and America. Trump tries to grow our economy which will benefit our country. However, he ignores global warming which is affecting our future.

I could not agree with him. We should fight global climate change. Climate change affects directly to human life and wildlife. There are a lot of data to prove that climate change is actually happening around us. The report from the World Meteorological Organization points out that the temperature, greenhouse gases, sea level, and sea ice melting have increased and likely to be higher in 2019 than 2018. Moreover, global warming can make some regions are hotter and dryer which can lead to drought and wildfires. In the United States and around the world, in the past years, there are floods, hurricanes, wildfires that linked to climate change. The report clarifies the influences of climate change through extreme weathers such as hurricane Florence, and Michael has damaged the economy and lives of many people in the United States. The transportation through the Rhine river has been disrupted in mid-October because of record low flows. Recently, the Camp Fire in California in November 2018 was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in over a century in the United States. We cannot say that those happening extreme weathers are coincidences. The climate system may change naturally by itself. However, it is also affected by human activities such as fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, land use, decomposition of wastes, etc. The climate change not only affects our lives right now, but it also leaves the consequences to our future and next generations.

In short, we should fight global climate change to save our planet together with other countries. We cannot grow the economy and ignore the safety for our future. The United States is one of the developed countries in the world, so we should take actions against climate change to slow it down and prevent severe changes to our planet.

The Concept of the Border Wall

After reading some of my classmate blogs, I found Julia’s blog on October 25, 2018, about border wall is interesting. I have given my own opinions about this issue in my blog stage five. I cannot agree with her more because Julia has shared the same idea with me by her well-organized and persuasive complementary. 

First of all, Julia introduced her argument about the wall between the United States and Mexico. She clearly stated that she opposed to that idea. Following her statement, Julia gave readers her logical reasoning for not building the wall from Beto’s mention of the 2018 record safety and security towards the border. If she can provide the readers with the details of the record, it will be a more persuasive argument. Through that point, we can figure out that the wall is not necessary for our country now. Later, she mentioned that Trump’s concept of building the wall leads to negative sequences such as showing the hate and racism. Julia also said that the wall separated the two countries and prevented people from seeking chances to have better lives. I think that the wall cannot completely prevent people to come to the United States. Trump’s idea is not totally bad because he wants to control the illegal immigrants, not all the immigrants. However, I disagree with his ideas of building the wall because it is not practical. The border wall is the idea to waste tons of money. 

In the article’s conclusion, Julia convinced me that we could take that amount of money to support our community services instead of building the unnecessary wall. In overall, I think Julia wrote an excellent commentary about this controversial issue with her organized and logical reasoning to support her opinions. 

IS IT WORTH TO BUILD THE WALL?

"Make American Great Again" became the slogan of Donald Trump for his presidential campaign. During the campaign, his controversial idea is that building a wall across Mexico - United States border to keep our country safe. I believe that Trump has his reasons to build the wall. People may like his ideas or not, but he is still working on it. In my opinion, we should not build the wall. It is not a practical idea for two reasons.

First of all, of course, it will cost American tons of money. The total length of the continental border is 1,989 miles. Trump said that we need to build only 1000 miles along the border because of “natural barriers” where we do not need a wall. How much actually do we have to pay to finish the wall? Trump’s estimated cost is varied. For example, in his speech in Dallas on September 14, 2015, Trump said: “Let’s say it cost $4 or $5 billion.” In the interview on MSNBC on February 9, 2016, he said: “The wall is probably $8 billion.” Moreover, he tweeted “The $20 billion Wall is “peanuts” compared to what Mexico makes from the U.S” on January 18, 2018. This amount of money is raising. How much of his words can we believe?  With that much money, we can invest that money in others things for our community such as education, jobs, healthcare rather than that wall.

Second, who is going to pay for the wall? American have to pay for it? Trump insisted that “a hundred percent” that Mexico would pay for the wall in one of his rallies. Does it make any sense? It is unclear how he would make Mexico pay for it. In his tweet on April 16, 2015, he wrote: “We must build a wall & deduct costs from Mexican foreign aid!” In the White House news conference on August 28, 2017, Trump announced: “It may be through reimbursement, but one way or the other, Mexico will pay for the wall.” Trump also said, “As an example, they can pay for it indirectly through Nafta” in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on January 11, 2018. Forcing Mexico to pay for the wall is unreasonable. How can we make others pay for our plan and our benefits?

Is the primary purpose of building the wall all for our border security? Trump’s priority is to keep our border in control which is good for our country. However, building the wall is not a good choice. The wall can decrease the number of illegal crossings, but it actually will not stop people to cross our border. They will find others way to accomplish what they want.  I do not know how well the wall works. However, I can see its negative consequences happening in our country. It raises the worry among people about racist. Immigration is not bad. Our hard workers are partly from the immigrants, and they actually help for our economy.

How are the GOP tax cuts working?

Citizens and residents in the United States pay federal taxes every year to help the government invest and provide services for the community. Filling taxes is compulsory in America. Is the tax rate affordable? Should we raise or low the tax rate? Trump’s administration has taken action on it. In December 2017, President Trump signed to put the GOP tax cuts into law. Of course, this bill is controversial among people.

The article “The federal budget deficit is soaring, and you can blame it all on Republican tax cuts” has been published on USA Today on October 16, 2018. This article is written by Stan Collender. He is a federal budgeting teacher at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and the founder of thebudgerguy.blog. Collender gives his opinions about the tax cuts after the report of the U.S Treasury on Monday, October 15, 2018. He opposed the new tax cuts because it made the deficit increase. He divided his article into two parts. First, he analyzes the deficit increasing and then criticizes Mnuchin and Mulvaney. Collender takes the attention of readers who care about their taxes and government’s spending. To persuade the readers, he pointed out the federal budget deficit was remarkably increasing by comparing it to the statistics of previous years. Through this comparison, the readers can clearly notice that the tax cuts help to lower the tax rate, but it is also expanding our debt. The reason why he opposes this bill because we are in a good economic time, how we can be in debt with a large amount compare to the last year. The readers can see that Collender is not only opposed the bill but also oppose the Republican by defending the Democrats when he criticizes Mnuchin and Mulvaney. Overall, Collender has made a good argument because it has informed the readers how the deficit changes through a lot of real numbers. 

However, there are some points that he guesses to make the argument instead of the logical evidence. For example, at the beginning of the argument, he said that "the U.S Treasury officially reported something." I was confused about this point, that “something” is unclear. Moreover, he mentioned later that he “heard the scuttlebutt from budget insiders” about Republican leaders. This evidence does not entirely persuade the readers because it is a rumor. Except for those two, I think this is a good argument because Collender expresses his strong opinions about the tax cut bills with many pieces of evidence. The tax cut bill is controversial, but now we have to follow it. This bill has just been in effect for one year. We should give it some more time, and later we can have more shreds of evidence about how the tax cut bill affects our federal budget deficit.

Can we believe in Kavanaugh?

President Trump’s nomination for the Supreme Court becomes a controversy catching American’s attention these days. Does Kavanaugh have enough qualifications for replacing Justice Anthony Kennedy at the Supreme Court? Who is more believable, Kavanaugh or Ford-one of his accusers? To answer for those questions, the article “For the good of us all, Brett Kavanaugh should step aside” has been published on CNN on October 1, 2018. This article is written by Ana Navarro. She is a Republican strategist and CNN political commentary. Navarro expressed her point of views about the nominee. She made an argument on why she thinks Kavanaugh is not a good choice for a high-level position in the Supreme Court. Navarro directs readers who are interested in this issue to support her ideas. To do that, Navarro gave the readers a lot of reasons and pieces of evidence that she knew about Kavanaugh and Professor Ford to persuade the readers to oppose Kavanaugh’s seat on the Supreme Court. Navarro pointed out that she did not oppose Kavanaugh at first, but now she has changed her minds because of accusations surrounding the nominee. She argued that Kavanaugh could not be a good nominee for the Supreme Court because this position has to have higher standards. Navarro relied on the information that she collected from Kavanaugh and Ford’s backgrounds, from their school friends, and from what was happening in the hearing to argue that she believed in Professor Ford and Kavanaugh should not be an appointment for the Supreme Court. Overall, Navarro gave the readers her logical reasons for each of her arguments. However, there are some points I think Navarro is slightly subjective. For example, she said that Kavanaugh lied little things in the hearing. So, what are those and how can she know that he was lying? However, in my point of views, the argument successfully convinces me because of her reasonable explanations. She clearly argued that she did not oppose Kavanaugh in his career, and even compassionate to his family, but she did not support his position in the Supreme Court because of a lot of things going on surrounding his personal life which is unqualified for a Justice in the Supreme Court. This argument reminds the readers that the position in the Supreme Court is the highest court in the federal judiciary, and is not like any lower level court. Navarro mentioned that whoever is appointed to this position, he or she has to serve lifetime tenure and cannot be fired. Therefore, the nominee has to meet high qualifications to serve in that position. The argument can make Kavanaugh have more oppositions, but with Navarro's logical reasonings, this argument is fair to say that Kavanaugh should withdraw from this process “for the good of us all.”

Refugee Admissions

The national security has been a critical issue in the United States recently. This issue has become a controversial concern because Trump Administration is trying to limit population admitted to the United States. Following this matter, the CNN published an article named "Refugee levels are surging worldwide. Trump is slashing the number the US will let in." on Tuesday, September 18, 2018. Written by Zachary Cohen and Elise Labot, this article will take readers attention if they concern about immigration policy. This article gives the readers the latest report from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's announcement on Monday, September 17 about the number of refugees allowed into the United States in next year will be 30,000 which is the lowest level in more than 38 years since 1980.
The article also addresses that the administration capped the number of 45,000 refugees for this year. This restriction is helping our national security or just support the goal to limit the overall number of immigrants into the United States of the administration. The United States is turning their back on people who need help to settle, or this restriction will secure our border and terrorism. Therefore, this announcement may face controversies among people.

Hello everyone!