Going off of Heather's feedback, yet again, she has a great point. Maybe Votec schools should be available to every age! If someone were to loose their job at an older age, it would be important to offer them another marketable skill. What kind of rules should there be regarding who is applicable, then?
First: I think that everyone who is interested in furthering their education should have one free chance to attend a program for a marketable skill, such as their CNA. However if later down the road, they decide that their career path is not for them, they should have to pay some amount of money to go through a second program.
Second: Obviously, there needs to be an application process helping those who need it most..

Maybe there should be two different branches of government sponsored Votecs.
My original idea was to address Votec for high school students in poverty who have no way of affording a college education. However, as many of you have expressed, there are so many people in poverty who could use the extra education, but are out of high school. With that being said, I don't think high school students and adults should fight for spots in the same program. Also, because of the age difference, there will be a difference in learning abilities and such.

So maybe I should look into making a high school votec, and sort of a "second chance" votec that focuses on those who have already been in the workforce and not succeeded or those who never made it in at all.

Last Project Post

I'm not sure if we had to do another project post or not. But here is one anyway.

I do believe I came up with a title that will fit in: Famili-Care.

I think this would be best because I am try to focus on child care to help with the family. I did some research and found out some information about Head-Start/Youth-in-Need. I will be sharing this in class tomorrow.

Now that I have this information I need to find a way to improve the funding they get now. Of course the way to get money is through taxing people more. One thing that I don't find fair is taxing those who can not have the service of these programs.

The first thing that needs to happen is that new locations need to be added, current locations need to be evaulated and fixed, taxes need to be raised locally in those areas, and there needs to be a better system or one at all the evaultes these locations yearly.

Doing this will create new jobs on many levels, help parents be able to have good child care, children will be feed at least two healthy meals a day, and education will be started earlier in lives of children who may have a troubled background.

-Heather

Funding

Funding tends to be the greatest problem for drug rehabilitation centers. However, I believe the best way to combat these problems would be to allow a certain percentage of those client's income who reside in the facility to subsidize the cost of the facility. For programs that run approximately 90 days, I believe this is the norm. However, programs that essentially run only 1 month have major issues with providing services, and although some healthcare covers treatment additional expenses are accrued. So, I believe 30-day programs should utilize the same process and therefore, reduce the government costs of some of the programs. However, this isn't to say that government would provide less funding, I just believe that this would be an outlet in which governmental funding can aid in other neccessities of the program besides just treatment alone.

Just so you all know, there are members of the House and Senate who are working on proposals that at least some of you would find acceptable.  The Progressive Caucus of the US House has a budget proposal called The Budget For All.  http://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/Executive%20Summary%20FINAL.pdf

Jobs and Unemployment 4

This post's solution is probably the best solution out there that the American government can use to get rid of poverty and unemployment once and for all.

Private sector is such a huge employer of a big portion of the American work force, therefore, if the unemployment rate is high, that also means the private sectors have stopped hiring new workers or they are laying off workers, considerably.

The approach to this is simple, the government needs to meet with the private sectors and discuss how they can work together to make them hire workers or stop laying them off.

One of the policies that can be changed is to stop giving the unemployment benefit money to unemployed people and give that money to the companies or corporations that will hire the unemployed people. 

By giving money to these companies to hire the people who got laid off, it will increase the productivity rate of an economy, but also it will considerably reduce the rate of fraud caused by people who secretly work, but yet claim to be unemployed just so they can receive the unemployment benefits.

There will not be any doubt that, unemployment will be significantly reduced by this technique and as a result the economic growth rate will rise too.

More solutions to come, y'all.

I have to admit, I am a little bit stuck. I want to figure out a way to not drastically cut funding from richer schools, but bring the poorer school closer to their level. I don't think it would be beneficial to even the playing field by simply redistributing the wealth, I think the taxes need to go up, especially for those who make more, and then slight budgeting cuts to the wealthier schools. I want to enable the poorer schools to be able to afford the same textbooks and teachers and technology as the wealthier schools. I think those three are the most prevalent needs right now. I am totally and completely open to suggestions, I'm kind of grasping at straws at how to actually go about working this program up.

After much thought I have come up with the basic outline of my AmeriCaid Health Care System.

1. All Americans will have affordable access to health care, from the richest to the poorest.
2. This will be achieved through public-private partnerships as well as a single payer system.  By this I mean that the federal government will raise taxes to pay for a new health care system, and some of the tax burden will be alleviated through private donations and funding.
3. There will be an initial block grant (of an undetermined amount at this time) to pay for the following measures.
4. In order to assure everyone has access to health care the government will install new clinics in the first 100 most critical "heath deserts" across the country.
5. In order to assure everyone can reach these new clinics, and already existing clinics and hospitals there will be transit services to and from the clinics and hospitals.  Not ambulance rides in case of an emergency, but a clinic car that will come and get you for a simple check up to having strep throat. 
6. I have yet to figure out how to convince doctors to take a pay cut in order to make the costs of this program more feasible. 

I think what I have outlined here will help, but it can't be my final solution.  There are still some bugs that I need to work out.  Mostly with private insurance and privately owned hospitals and clinics. 

To further my project, I think there should be rules regarding who can use the program and age limits.
There should be an avaliability to students and young adults up to age 30. (subject to change)  Some people get a late start in life and it is important for these programs to be avilable to them.
If someone would like to enter the program, butis older than said age limit, there should be credientials to determine their eligibility.

Project Post 4

I don't really know what to do from this point. In the last post I made statements about the many points that I wanted to focus on. I still don't have a name for the overall thing.

I guess you could say that I am just stuck were I am. If anyone has any advice that would be great! Otherwise I just need to write down the list that I have made and figure out how to put it in words. I don't really know what else I need to do and bring to class for next week.

-Heather

Ideas on how to increase the living wage

We mentioned in class the extremely outdated ways in which our government determines what is an acceptable minimum wage in America.  It was mentioned that for a short rule of thumb, take the average amount spent on food and triple it, which in today's culture just doesn't work.  No one spends a third of their money on food, more like between a fourth and a sixth.  I wouldn't automatically institute this as a new minimum wage, since that could prove disastrous to businesses.  What I would do instead is to perhaps institute a law that makes it mandatory that any corporation in the United States currently paying only the minimum wage to its employees must provide the option to unionize (outside of Right to Work states, of course).  Secondly, I would institute a departmental entity on the state level that would reconfigure the COLA adjustment in that state on a bi-annual basis, making changes accordingly.  This particular institution would be placed on every state, not just the ones free to unionize.  One other thing I thought about would be to add a section to the job training sector of AmeriCares that would, given the type of certificate the person holds, give the person information on companies that allow unionization, and maybe even take care of enrolling the person, relieving them of having to be educated on the subject.  Companies nowadays, as we discussed, sometimes manipulate their employees by not letting them know they are entitled to certain benefits.  A section of AmeriCares, which I would call the WBA, or Workers' Benefits Administration, would fight those companies in Right to Work states that prevent employees from being defended.  It could be a sector embedded in the judicial system, having an entire law-making and practicing infrastructure behind it to ensure its authority.

Okay, ideas about my final project.

First, I have decided that embarking on writing about the entirety of my envisioned AmeriCaid is simply going to be too much for me to handle, so I'm gong to center in and focus on providing access to affordable health care for all Americans.  I think that accomplishing that goal will be more than enough to keep me busy formulating for a while, and if I should discover that I am struck with brilliance about any of my other envisioned areas, I will write about them as well.

Transitional living

       Transitional living services provide much needed help to those who find themselves without shelter after leaving rehabilitation houses. However, recovery is still a necessity, so I would like to suggest a renovation of practices concerning transitional living services. I would like to provide transitional living homes with mandated outpatient services around the clock from morning to noon. As a way to boost attendance for these services I would mandate that clients attend at least two of the sessions a day. As an incentive for attending the services, I would use positive reinforcement as a way to encourage clients to maintain a free lifestyle while away from the facility. However, I would stipulate a maximum residence period. Clients are only allowed a period of only two years of residence before they must venture out into independent living after receiving the necessary tools to do so.

Project

Heather asked an excellent question about what I would want to do with Votec programs. I think now, they offer great programs with a variety of skills available to be learned. For example, at the votec school I attended there were programs for graphic design, printing, automobiles, welding, nurses assistant, etc. That is quite a bit of jobs. It is probably unrealistic to want tons of different classes available  because this is a high-cost idea. I think that maybe it would be good for the governor should figure out what jobs are most needed in that said state. Skills sometimes are enough when those jobs are in need.

The English System...

I did a little research into England's school system, originally looking for how the government sets up schools and how they are paid for, but stumbled across an article on their testing and became more engrossed in that. I was wondering if I should go back to focusing more on creating equal schooling or continue on this tangent of testing, or can I focus on both?

Heather brought up an extremely good point in her question on my previous post. I think that with a test reform, it will better equip teachers to fully comprehend the mastery and retention students have of the material learned that year, so they can better know whether the student should proceed with their schooling or be held back a year. (I attempted to respond on the previous post, but my phone wouldn't let me publish it so I answered it on here!)

Jobs and Unemployment 3

 

Another good solution that the government can do to reduce unemployment rate is to set good policies that will help lower taxes for companies and corporations that higher a considerably big portion of the American work force.

By lowering taxes, these companies and corporation will not out source jobs overseas where they can find lower tax rates for their operations and cheap workers too.

The government needs to recognize the impact and the importance of big companies decisions like these. Companies such as GM, Apple, Micro-soft or Ford are considerably big enough to present significant impacts on the economy due to out sourcing jobs and other major decisions that these companies can make and will result into a huge economic flow change.

One more solution that the government can make is reduce strict laws that binds others companies from other countries to operate in America. Having a good number of foreign countries companies will increase jobs options for our American workers, increase domestic business competition and will result into high quality of the products that are produced in our country.

More solutions on the way fellas...

The Newer Deal

"We should have learned a lesson from the New Deal and put 2 million people to work in twenty-first-century versions of the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration (59)."  I just had to start with this because I firmly believe that the New Deal, had it not been for the discriminating nature of it, would've been flawless.  I came up with an idea that would work as a pseudo-alphabet soup plan.  I'm calling it the HSRA, the Historical Site Restoration Administration, which would work in congruence with the National Register of Historic Places.  Its main goal would be to rehabilitate historic structures across the U.S.  Utilizing construction, interior design and landscaping skills, this association could put many people who either have degrees or certificates in these professions, or those who are being trained in these professions to work.  What do you all think?

Project Post 3

Okay. I don't really know what to do from this point. I have my idea. I don't have a name.

1. I want to increase the number of Head Starts/Youth in Need in the United States.
2. I want to increase aid to families who don't have Head Starts in the area to be able to send children to day care.
3. PAT, Parents as Teachers funding needs to be increased. (Emily, if you want to cover this you so can!)
4. Calling in abuse for children doesn't need to be a three strike thing, if it is reported then it needs to be invesgated and stronger action needs to be taken.

These are the main things that I want to address.

What do you guys think?

-Heather

Jobs and Unemployment

There are many solutions that both the government and the society would collectively decide to do to reduce unemployment rate.

One of them is creating government projects that will require hiring people. These projects can be in form of road construction, bridge repair programs or public schools renovation projects. All these projects will create more jobs for people who mostly need jobs but at the same time it will help improve our infrastructural systems. I personally do not feel comfortable driving on an old bridge worrying whether i will be safe, while there is a good number of unemployed construction workers waiting to be hired to do something.

I will keep posting more solutions as new posts come up.

Thank you

Another idea, though much more contraversial

After talking about unions today, I considered a new option for increasing jobs.  What if we give unions a little more slack?  Perhaps set a ceiling on the amount unions can charge for dues, or something to that effect?  It's just that in my mind, and from the information provided in Massey's book, one thing that most successful industrialized nations seem to have in common is a significantly unionized manufacturing sector.  Giving more power to the employee would allow them to bargain for better wages.  This, in turn, may not be increasing jobs, but it is increasing the amount we currently have that offer wages one can live on, which is a start.

Rehabilitation Centers

I find that the major problem is the focus of rehabilitation centers. With my years working at a detox facility the common theme and problem is the revolving door. It is a reoccurring theme present in drug rehabilitation centers, in which clients promise to make changes in their use of drugs and alcohol, however, a couple months or less the client returns worse off than before. However, I would like to put stipulations on reforming rehabilitation centers in which clients who refuse after care services are only allotted three visits to detox centers. If each visit results in the client not seeking after care treatment or preventative programs they will not be allowed to seek treatment again. Although this may seem harsh, it will hopefully solve the problem of funding by giving others a chance of overcoming their addiction. Currently new clients are turned away because of the lack of funding which undoubtedly been used of previous clients again and again. The overflow of clients and little funds can destroy any possible future funds for mental health services for drug and alcohol addiction. So I believe this to be a possible way of solving this problem.