The Growing Government

While Donald J. Trump claims that George F. Will is "one of the most overrated political pundits... [who] made many bad calls", I checked him out to be a reliable source. George is a Pulitzer Prize winner, he received his Ph.D. from Princeton and has been writing for The Washington Post since 1974. On February 24th, he published "Big government sneakily gets bigger"- questioning how federal spending has quintupled since 1960, while the federal civilian workforce has grown ever so slightly. He wrote this article from a conservative viewpoint, directed towards anyone who is against "big government". George wants the reader to be aware that spending is camouflaged, and not knowing what the people's tax dollars are actually being spent on. He used statistics to support his claims, from sources such as Brookings. George complained about a third of the government dividends going to nonprofits, like Planned Parenthood. As he stated, "Many Americans are rhetorically conservative but behaviorally liberal", he believes spending on federal agencies needs to be reduced, as it's wasteful.

For being an opinion writing, I had a difficult time understanding what George's opinion actually was. It was almost entirely numbers and facts, so I really had to annotate the text in order to find his main point. While I am able to understand that the government is indeed growing, I am left thinking, isn't that obvious? With the population and economy growing, I would hope to have more people running our government. What I don't want to see is money being cut from federal agencies, which protect our citizens and country. My main issue with this article is that with everything going on right now, this is what George writes about. The federal government has been on the rise since the 90s, and this is old news.

U.S. Military Leasing Space in Trump Tower

On Tuesday, February 7, 2017, The Washington Post published an article titled "Department of Defense looks to rent space in Trump Tower". While Donald Trump is now living in the White House, Melania Trump and their son, Barron, are currently residing in the Trump Tower. Department of Defense is seeking a limited amount of leased space, in the building, to provide protection and support for the president and his family. A leasing agent has appraised a floor in the Tower for around $1.5 million a year.

This article is worth a read, as it raises ethical concerns- a deal that could potentially benefit the president's business interests from taxpayers dollars. Protecting the president is certainly a top priority; however, providing convenience of his lush penthouse, at the cost of citizens is at question.