Texas Blog Critique

   I just read a blog by Charles Kuffner entitled “Who Doesn’t Like Parks?”  The blog is addressing the use of $166 million in bonds to go toward parks and the fact that the state Republican Party is against it.  The authors’ intended audience is Houston residents that have children or like to go to parks themselves to exercise or ride bikes.  Kuffner has been living in Houston for 10 years and is a grad student from Rice.  His blog “Off the Kuff” is Texas’ longest running political blog. 

   Kuffners’ main argument is that he doesn't understand why the Republican Party would not want to use that money to go towards something like the up keep of parks or putting in new trails.  He makes great points like the fact that taxes are not being raised in order to get this money, it is coming from a bond that isn't being used for anything else at the moment.  One point he makes is that “there’s never been a better time to float bonds, with interest rates at historically low levels.” He even mentions the economic benefits of having parks and bike trails because it attracts businesses to the city.

   The only thing I feel like Kuffner could have done better would have been to show some numbers.  Instead of making just claims like “parks and bike trails are key to attracting businesses,” show the readers some hard evidence of these claims.  Maybe bring in numbers of businesses that are surrounded by parks and bike trails versus the numbers of companies that are not.  Overall I feel he had a fair and legit argument. I agree, don’t Republicans ride bikes too? 

On the Statesman website, there was an editorial titled “Texans Deserve Relief from Prison Health Care Costs” that was written by the Editorial Board addressing the issue of how much tax payers in Texas are paying yearly for the sick and elderly inmates of the state. The authors intended audience is all Texas tax payers who are tired of being punished by taxes while these inmates are being punished as well. It is reported that tax payers spent $1.9 million in 2011 on the top 10 most medically expensive inmates in Texas. In a way the editorial is trying to convince the audience that these inmates are not likely to be of any harm because of their age or medical condition, but what kind of message does that send out to other inmates?  That it’s ok once you are too old or sick because we will send you off to spend your last few years locked down in a nursing home? Even then we will still have to pay a portion of their health care with help from the federal government.  The author does point out that if it is a serious offender the inmate will have to wait until they only have a few months left to live before they can get a waiver for early release.  I don’t think that will be a good overall message to send out.  There is plenty of evidence that something needs to be done but I don’t think we have come up with the solution.