Lola Akinsola C-Span Benchmark Amendment XVI

Works Cited:

Honan, Mat. "The Government's Gadget Habit Has Cost You Hundreds of Millions." Gizmodo, the Gadget Guide. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. <http://gizmodo.com/5812233/the-governments-gadget-habit-has-cost-you-hundreds-of-millions>.

Andrews, Edmund L. "Tax Cuts Offer Most for Very Rich, Study Says - New York Times." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 29 Jan. 2012. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/washington/08tax.html>.

"The First Income Tax." Civil War Trust: Saving America's Civil War Battlefields. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. <http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/warfare-and-logistics/logistics/tax.html>.

"Presidental Address." C-Span Video. C-Span. Web. <http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/165970-1>.

"Salmon P. Chase." NNDB. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. <http://www.nndb.com/people/808/000031715/salmon-p-chase.jpg>.

"Lincoln." History Place. History Place. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. <History Place>.

"Army Representatives." Ontario County Fair. Ontario County Fair. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. <http://www.ontariocountyfair.org/pix/2004%20updates/Army%20Representatives.jpg>.

"IPad." Venture Beat. Venture Beat. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. <http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/ipad-3.jpg>.

I've always wanted to know what exactly it was that made the government take taxes out of people's incomes. At first I thought it was just a random way to get money because they had no other way of getting it. Money doesn't just come out of nowhere...unless you print it and somehow avoid inflation. Now that I've done this benchmark, I've learned what started taxes.
What I liked about this project was learning the history of how taxes started. I liked this because, like I said before, I've always wanted to know how taxes came to be. What I didn't like however, was how difficult it was putting the video together. I'm not good with iMovie (as long as I've had it) so I had to start my entire project over due to technical difficulties. What I also found challenging was not making myself sound sarcastic. I didn't want to seem mean while I was talking about the way the government spends our money. I do think I did an okay job at talking about them however. I still think I could've done better though.
The most interesting fact that I have investigated was the gadgets they bought with our money and compared that to the things that need to be done that haven't been done on roads and what not. I thought they just didn't have the money, not knowing that the money that was supposed to go to the road work was going to iPads and useless 30GB Zunes.
I just think I need to be more creative all together. I wanted to make it all pretty and stuff but I didn't know how to go about it without causing a distraction to the information being provided and the point I was trying to get across. Since this was so, I made the most boring video ever in my opinion. 
I ran into trouble mostly with my vocal recordings. I was having trouble with the noise in the background, and it kept cutting off and ding other weird stuff so I had to start from scratch because it would've been too messy trying to fix all of that. However, what went well with this project, in my opinion, was finding information about the 16th amendment and information about the taxes that are being spent and the taxes that have been spent in the past few years during both Obama and Bush's administration. What also went well was the information I got from some oft he people I had interviewed. They said some things I didn't even know about.
If you had it to do over, what would you change about your decisions or your process?
Of course, if I had to do this whole project over I would make sure it's done on time! I would also take more time to make it interesting and not just a project. I would take the time out to make sure what I'm saying doesn't sound mean or anything because I don't want to sound mean talking about the government and submitting it to a competition (even though I really should).
Like I said earlier, I've learned how taxes came to be, when they came to be, how are taxes are being spent now, and what are taxes aren't being spent on. I've learned a little bit more than I had expected to. I've also learned how to work the new adjustments that have been made to Garageband. It took a while, but I got it now.