Big Budget Dilemma

Recent developments in the United States over the budget have sparked up serious debate on what’s best for the economy. The US economy has been undergoing some serious recessions over the last decades, most recently in 2008. Three years later, statistics will tell that the economy has emerged from recession, but citizens don’t feel so sure. Just recently the debate was focused on the whether the 2012 budget should have an higher debt ceiling or cut some expenses.


The federal budget is divided into two categories: mandatory and discretionary spending. The mandatory spending is the portion of the budget that has to be spent because it was allocated by law. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. This budget does not require annual approval by congress because it’s statutory –in other words, congress had already approved it in a law. Discretionary spending is what the president submits for approval every year. This part of the budget contains monies for federal bureaucracy: defense, agriculture, homeland security etc…

The great chiasm in congress was created over the possibility to balance the budget to get rid of the deficit. The choices were to either raise the debt ceiling or cut spending. Cutting spending means that they would reduce expenses from all the categories to balance the budget. Raising the debt ceiling would meant that, in order to meet US’ obligations, money had to be borrowed from somewhere –social security or China are the traditional choices.

Cutting expenses seems like it’s the healthiest choice as it involves managing the actual resources, or live within the means. It would however, make people angry as a lot of people would lose their jobs, lose federal benefits.

Raising the debt ceiling would inject new capital into the economy to make it more efficient without having to compromise any jobs or commitments that the US already has. It will eventually create problems as those loans will have to be paid at some point thus digressing to an endless cycle of borrowing to get it paid off. It’s almost like paying a credit card with another credit card.

Sometimes decisions have to be made. Politicians struggle with this kinds of dilemmas often and it is hard to please everyone. So I then ask, what is the best decision? Well I will answer, depends on what you do, who you are, who employs you. Or in other words, whose ox is being gored?

Does the LDS Church have to take a stand to immigration?

Does the LDS Church have to take a stand to immigration?

The major premise of the article is whether or not the LDS Church has an obligation of take an official stand on immigration. Some argue that it is just fair that if the church took an active role in Prop 8 few years ago in California; they equally have to be actively engaged in immigration policy.

I will propose that the LDS Church DOES NOT have that obligation. There are major differences between immigration policy and Prop 8. For once, immigration policy is a purely political issue. The church has in many instances advice to the saints of this era to remain in their home countries. This should be a very clear clue that the church does not approve of all the immigrants –legal or illegal- that choose to come to the United States.

Proposition 8 in the other hand, is a purely moral issue. It defeats all that is natural and proper in LDS doctrine. The stand of the church on Prop 8 went beyond any political partisan and went straight to the point: the LDS Church opposes homosexuality.

I believe that some members of the church in Utah specially want to feel the warm hand of their church patting them on their back and say “it’s ok, don’t worry;” when the truth is that, the church does not completely support them or their actions. I am not trying to belittle their efforts to push the government to pass an immigration reform; I am just trying to tell them that they ought to do it alone, with no church support.

Mexico Misunderstood

I have been fed up lately with a lot of comments about the situation of Mexico. I think that it is sad that quite a few people are suffering. They claim that it’s because of the government. I have to agree with that statement but a total difference sense.
If you go watch a movie halfway through it, and realize that they are fighting, your first reaction will be to have sympathy for the one who has been beaten up the worst, or the looser for all intents and purposes. However, you don’t know what happened before and the reason of the fight.
Likewise, when you contemplate the situation down in Mexico, the first reaction you will have is that there is chaos; the government can’t control the country. But if you look closely, you will realize that it is because of the courage of the government to step up and try to deter drug traffic that Mexico is in virtual chaos.
For many years now, Mexico has been an important supplier for illicit drugs to the United States. The US is the largest consumer of cocaine in the world. It is mainly imported from Mexico and Colombia. With a large demand like that, how do people suppose drug traffickers would react against a deterrence action by the government?
We need to admit that both Mexico and the US have shared liability to drug problem. They say that it is mainly corruption in Mexico that allows this to happen. But I ask: how can they not admit that there is corruption in the US in that matter as well? After all, they are the largest consumers of drugs in the world, and how come nobody is stopping them inside these borders?
Obama has openly offered help to Mexico in this new War on Drugs enterprise. How can Mexico compete to an army of cartels when they are been supplied with weapons by the US? Back in 1998 the CIA created a sister agency in Mexico. The CIA handed ID’s to top-level drug traffickers in Mexico giving them a virtual “license to traffic.” So now one wonders, what are the United States true colors? They have the DEA to control illegal drugs, while the secret CIA encourages drug traffickers on the side. But I suppose that is no corruption.
These are just a few points to ponder before we point down when there is a lot to work for here too.