Old Shelter or New Shelter?

I found an editorial in the Austin American Statesman called "Block out the barking and do right by pets." This editorial is about a City Council fight and a lawsuit over the relocation of the city animal shelter. The Town Lake Animal Shelter is in bad condition, old and is prone to flooding. The new animal shelter will be built in East Austin and will be a larger shelter with better facilities and will include a dog park and walking trails. A $12 million bond issue was approved by Austin voters to pay for the new shelter as of last year. But a group called FixAustin believes that they should just repair the old shelter because moving the shelter will reduce the amount of adoptions and increase the number of animals put down. The new location in East Austin has a large amount of strays according to Austin statistics. If the old shelter were to be fixed and redone, it would be much more costly to fix it then to build the new one in East Austin.

In the editorial there was a good display of showing both sides of the story. It seemed as if there was more evidence about why they should build a new shelter and less about why they shouldn't. This might be because there is an overwhelming amount for it and much less evidence against it. I think the editorial should've talked about more organizations or groups that were opposed to the new shelter. There might have only been one group against it but it would have been better see another point of view to back up evidence to a higher degree. The editorial did a good job on showing how this problem will affect the people, animals, and our money. All of which are very important in todays society. The most obvious fault in this editorial is where it is mentioned that 40% of strays come from the east side of I-35 and 60% comes from the west side. That should make them want to build the shelter in West Austin to bring in more strays. In my opinion, if someone were to read that then they might think that the people writing in the editorial are mathematically challeneged or that there might be something else behind the relocation of the shelter that we don't know. In the end, this editorial does a good job of showing both sides of the story. In my opinion, there should be a new shelter becuase the current one is in bad shape but they might want to reconsider if they are so concerned about building the shelter close to where all the stray animals are.

Click here on the title to read the editorial Block out barking and do right by pets

Should There be Tax Breaks on Tickets?

The editorial I read was called “Tax Break on Tickets? No, thanks.” It was about how there is an amendment to the federal tax code that allows a tax deduction for donations made to UT to buy tickets. The amendment was written in the mid 1980s by the late Austin Rep., Jake Pickle, who was a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and a UT alumnus. A couple years later the tax break was given to all universities but the deduction was lowered to 80 percent. It is completely insane to see that the athletic department at UT spends $210,000 on each athlete. The total amount spent on athletics annually by UT is over $100 million which is over a $50 million increase in the past six years. All of the money that is going to the athletic department alone is just appalling. Although I can see the argument here about how the money should be going into education, it seems a little biased in my opinion. There are surely plenty of people out there that think this is just fine because all they care about is watching sports. The editorial seems to be one sided and doesn't give another point of view and if someone were to disagree about the tax break money.

The Editorial Board did a good job of proposing the problem with the tax breaks but don't really give a good solution. All it says in there is that donations for season tickets shouldn't be tax deductible and that the money should be going towards educating students. The editorial gives good information about the problem at hand but doesn't talk much about how to fix the problem. It seems as if the editorial is more like a complaint and not so much of a problem that people should be aware of. The end of the editorial was left open ended when it said two Austin representatives didn't even reply to questions about a repeal of the tax break. I guess the Editorial Board just wanted people to become aware of this topic and that's it. Because the only feedback this editorial got was a slash back at the newspaper about how Texas newspapers are exempt from the state sales tax. In the end, the problem is no one wants to pay taxes and the people that don't just make others mad. I would say this editorial did a good job of convincing me that there should not be tax breaks on tickets. Even if I do like UT sports, I still think that the money should be distributed between the sports department and towards education.

You can read the editorial at the Austin American Statesman.