My View of Texas

Texans are proud of being Texans. I often hear people say, I am a Texan rather than I am an American. Texas has a very unique history, from an independent Spanish country to a state of United States, and then declared its independence with a bloody price，and finally became part of the United States again. No matter where it belongs to, it has always been able to keep its own taste and political character. Texas’ constitution is very similar to the original constitution of United States – small government.

The government mainly focuses on economic growth, and does not involve in social issues very much. There are not as much funds, to education and health care from states as other states do. It believes the growth of economy will put people in better financial situation in order to control one’s own life and problems, and it believes you could choose to be a winner or a failure. This has made Texas government economically liberal and socially conservative. However, in my personal opinion, this is transforming. More and more people from other states, such as California are moving to Texas. More and more cross border uneducated immigrants are flooding in the state. Different political views have been brought to the state, the ideology distribution yet to be changed. Higher demanding for public benefit is contradicting Texas’ “small government” philosophy. As we all know, Texas does not have income tax, therefore the state government’s funds for public benefits are limited. What do we want and what should the government do? Do we want bigger government to collect a big chuck out of our hard labor on top of federal tax to supply us more in return like socialism or communism, or do we want a small government to do the minimum and let us to take care of ourselves? Just like President Obama’s healthcare plan, do we support it or post against it? Which side would win really depends on the voters that reside in Texas. As so far, I do like to support small government and the less the government involve the better it is. I like to have the freedom to decide what I can and can’t do, but everything comes in good and bad.

 Austin, the capital of Texas, is the opposite of Texas. It is more liberal. Government controls nature resource and giving back the profit back to society by building parks and forming agencies that would benefits local people in many ways; however government can charge whatever they would like to. Unlike other Texas’ cities, enterprise controls nature’s resources. Yes, the competition brings the cost down, but where are all the profits? Another down side of being economically liberal eventually would give corporations too much power and the government would one day be controlled by them. The best example is toll ways. Who are we paying and what are we paying for and how long we are going to pay for these roads.

Here are some social issues that exist in either liberal or conservative governments. In Austin, it is illegal to smoke inside of any building. In my personal opinion, shouldn’t this decision be left to the owner of the building, regardless the ownership belongs to an individual or an organization?  State wise, shouldn’t gay marriage be recognized and whether smoking marijuana or abusing any drugs be a personal choice?  I guess my point here is no government is perfect and absolute. Knowing what we want and participate in anything that we could. People, who can vote, please vote with well considered decision.

The existence of government is necessary, but too big of government will not survive. We all wish for the perfect government when we can't even describe what that would be. We can only hope and try to make the government which we are ruled under would find its balance between capitalism and socialism. Too much of either one will not work for long term.