USF Writing Community Server

As the election draws ever nearer, the amount of advertising for and against all the candidates increases ever more. Looking at these advertisments, most of which I notice in the infrequent television watching that I attempt, one thing becomes clearer and clearer. We live in an age of dishonesty. It is impossible to watch one of the Obama commercials attacking McCain, and vice versa, and not wonder about the validity of the statements tossed about. But those are to be expected by now as the presidential election process picks up twofold every four years. It is the advertisements paid for by the county level politicians that are really the most vicious. A picture of the candidate will be on the screen, and article clippings flying around with negative statements about the politics of the person or their personal lives. Then comes the fun part, paid for by the opposing candidate. This does not help me choose who I want to vote for, I hope they know. Really this gets me angry at them for degrading their opponent and themselves, to the point I would vote for their opponent if they were not doing the exact same thing. It is hard to be an informed voter when no candidates wish to put out their policies in clear sight but would rather bash their opponents. I vote for an amendment on reforming political advertising so that we do not have to strain our minds wading through all the nonsense,

Lately, the University's money sources have become a major topic for students and professors. Reading the daily scool newspaper, you can read that the school is undergoing cutbacks in every area, from the number of teachers employed to the budget of the school police. This is very worrying to me, as a student. The fact that a state funded University such as USF could be having so many problems related to their budgets actually scares me; where is the money going that I pay taxes to? I pay taxes as any lawful American does, and I wish that I could say safely that the tax revenue that we all pay goes to important things like federally funded schools, not to a politician's checkbook where he picks up the tab at a restaurant. Florida's public school systems are receiving budget cuts at every turn, and it worries me that the future of kindergardeners all the way up to graduate students are being shunted aside for another federal project that is aimed at a short term investment. Or the programs that the government of Florida actually endorses are flawed and are picked apart at every turn, such as the FCAT. My question for the state and country federal government systems is, why do you insist on shorting the public education system, where the future is based?