Slashdot Mirror

And you are again raising as fact the assertion that California pays more to the feds than gets back. If you don't cherry-pick federal spending but take all federal outlays instead, you will find California is not a net donor.

Since that's contrary to every stat I've ever read, I'm going to just say [citation needed].

http://www.calinst.org/pubs/balance2003.htm provides a pretty thorough breakdown of how those numbers are calculated. I'm not seeing anything wrong with the methodology.

The wide difference in wealth is *not* the cause of the safety problems on the border. Rampant narco-wars in Mexico, and some blatantly boneheaded ideas from Congress on border security are the cause.

There were serious problems with rampant corruption and lawbreaking in Mexico (particularly along the border) long before the drug wars happened. That's just the latest aggravating factor.

"In 2003, Californians sent $50 billion more to Washington in federal taxes than the state received in federal expenditures. Representing a slight increase from levels that have held steady for three preceding years, the Golden State’s imbalance set a new record for any state, surpassing the previous mark (set also by California, in 2000 and 2001) of $48 billion."

http://www.calinst.org/pubs/balance2003.htm

Maybe if that weren't the case, California wouldn't be so broke right now.

The report then goes on to explain how this is due to Californians making significantly more on average than people in other states, and at the same time being significantly younger (and hence requiring less Social Security and Medicare spending.) So, its not like the government is unfairly avoiding spending money there or something.

I've recently read on another forum that California is also hampered by a large negative balance of payment between it and the federal government

"Last year, Californians sent nearly $20 billion more to Washington in federal taxes than the state received back in federal spending. The state’s 1998 deficit of $19.4 billion marked the largest such imbalance for any single state in the history of the nation, eclipsing the previous record of $14.3 billion, set also by California in 1997"

So it seems California is bankrolling the federal level even while going bankrupt itself.

"In 2003, Californians sent $50 billion more to Washington in federal taxes than the state received in federal expenditures. Representing a slight increase from levels that have held steady for three preceding years, the Golden State’s imbalance set a new record for any state, surpassing the previous mark (set also by California, in 2000 and 2001) of $48 billion."

http://www.calinst.org/pubs/balance2003.htm

Maybe if that weren't the case, California wouldn't be so broke right now.

not be left bleeding dry of funds as the Federal Gov redistributes to failing programs in other states (I'm looking at you California!)

Except California pays more in federal taxes than it gets back. In 2003 California paid "$50 billion more to Washington in federal taxes than the state received in federal expenditures." California bankrolls other states.

Falcon

This is what happens when you have nanny state liberals in office.

Let California be a lesson to the remaining 49 on how *NOT* to run a state.

Did you forget to back that up with some compelling statistics you're saving for later? Let's compare housing values in silicon valley vs. detroit to see if you're right.

That's just a comparison of the desirability of living in those places. No, it's more accurate to compare state government fiscal responsibility between California and Ohio. The fact that the economy in California continues to be able to support ruinously idiotic government that continually spends more than it takes in is part of what keeps the idiots in charge, in charge. If California were a marginal rust-belt state, it's residents would have thrown those morons in the legislature out long ago.

That's sort of a silly comparison. If California were a rust-belt state then it would receive more in federal spending than it pays and there would be no problem. California pays the federal government $50 billion per year more than the benefits it receives. If California wasn't subsidizing the unsuccessful economies of those rust-belt states with its very successful economy (a gross state product equivalent to the GDP of Italy), there would be no problem whatsoever. Complain all you want about the idiots in charge in California, but at the end of the day if it weren't for California, many of the governments of the States in the US would be bankrupt.

This is not really true. California got into its current state partially because large numbers of illegal immigrants who are not counted as part of the state's population as far as any federally funded program is concerned. As a result, California gets back substantially less federal spending compared to the Federal tax revenue it generates.

1. In fiscal year 2002, California's net fiscal outflow to the federal government increased for the eighth consecutive year, with the state's taxpayers sending more in taxes to Washington than were received back in federal government expenditures in the state.

The Tax Foundation skews the numbers -- the larger taxpayer a state is, with California by far the largest Federal taxpayer, the more the numbers are out of whack with reality. If you aren't that good with numbers, ask someone to explain it to you.

http://www.calinst.org/pubs/balrpt02.htm here's a much better explanation of why CA doesn't get 100% of their Federal Tax dollars back (because they have fewer than average Senior Citizens), but it also shows if you look at the real numbers (you've got to have the ability to do addition and division, you can do that, can't you?), that in 2002 CA residents paid $256BN in Federal Tax dollars, and got back $230BN. That works out to 90 cents on the dollar, far from what the Tax Federation's 'executive summary' selected excerpt shows as 81 cents on the dollar.

As anyone with a sliver of cognitive ability knows, the way you come up with the numbers is much more important than any selected excerpts.

Furthermore, to be unaware of the famous paradox that Republican states get the most benefit from Democrat-linked "big government" programs... actually, I suppose that's the typical reality-aversion of the American electorate.

More Crap served up by someone who reads an 'Executive Summary', but fails to understand the underlying report. The 2002 Tax Year marked the first time in a decade that California received a share of Federal Grant programs that was smaller than their share of US population. CA is home to approx. 12.5% of the US population, yet even in 2002, CA received 25% of the $4 billion federal urbanized area transit formula grants, 22.7% of the Fed expenditures for TANF's (Temp Assistance for Needy Families), 14.5% of the $8.2 billion Title I Education for the Disadvantaged program. For the period from '92 thru '01, CA got more than a fair share of these 'Democrat-linked "big government" programs'.

You're reality averted, and your ignorance is still showing.

'failed to deter "submarining" ("Submarine" patents are cases where an erstwhile inventor fails to prosecute an application filed with the PTO until such time as another entity has begun to develop the technology. The applicant then prosecutes the previously filed patent and sues the later party for infringement.)"

That was a test flight in 1999.

They'er considering deploying a lot of these.

As I said, I'm pretty sure they are already routinely flying over U.S. airspace. I'll ask a friend of mine, he's a qualified GH pilot (teleoperated takeoffs and landings). I'm not sure of the size of the total fleet but I did run across this interesting link. A relevant portion:

"The bill includes $129 million for procurement of 3 Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and $42 million to accelerate development of a Navy Global Hawk variant (Broad Area Maritime Surveillance). The Global Hawk is largely built in California and Beale Air Force Base in Northern California serves as a primary hub of Global Hawk activity. The bill also includes $131 million for procurement of 22 Predator UAVs, an addition of $26 million over the Administration's budget request."

Emphasis mine. :-)

Also, that is three more Global Hawks included in the 2002 budget alone.

Ah... the web has a long memory, even though I do not. He's been consistent, at least (or at most).

[4/2/98] http://www.calinst.org/bulletins/bull 512i.htm
he suggested that the U.S. should expand copyrights to match the extended copyrights of European nations; continue its fight against worldwide piracy; and, expand intellectual property right protection by enacting the WIPO copyright treaties agreed to in Geneva in 1996 (see article below). He also stressed the necessity of other countries enacting and enforcing similar penalties for copyright infringements

[04/03/1997]http://www.star.so.swt.edu/97/04/ 03/040397n3.html
As a war pilot, scholar, White House special assistant, movie industry leader and author, Valenti has worn many hats throughout his career
...
He received his bachelor's degree in business from the University of Houston in 1946 and his M.B.A. from Harvard University in 1948. In 1952 Valenti co-founded Weekley and Valenti, the advertising/political consulting agency, which was in charge of coordinating the media during President John Kennedy's and Vice President Lyndon Johnson's visit to Texas in 1963
...
Valenti was in the motorcade in Dallas when Kennedy was assassinated, and within one hour of the shooting was hired as the special assistant to newly inaugurated President Johnson
...

[Mar. 14, 1997]http://www.mediacentral.com/Magazines/MediaDa ily/OldArchives/199703/1997031405.html
"Sen. Lieberman believes if you say 'V, S and L,' nirvana has arrived," Valenti said, adding that such a content rating "winds up lumping The Three Stooges in the same category as "Natural Born Killers." However, Valenti on Feb. 27 told a Senate committee hearing that he was not opposed to some changes in the system. "I've changed my mind," he said at the hearing. "I'm not inflexible."

[1992-1997(?)]http://iitf.doc.gov/members/valenti. html
Apparently, he was on "The President's Information Infrastructure Task Force." This site has not been updated in a while: "Use Netscape 1.1, IE 2.0, or CyberDog in 8 bit color" Cyberdog? Heh.

[1-28-98]http://www.twsu.edu/~news/insi de/1-28-98/forum1.html
Valenti will explore the relationships among free speech, censorship and personal responsibility in "Lights, Camera, Rhetoric! Who has control of television and movie violence?" on Monday, Feb. 9, at 7:30 p.m. in the Metropolitan Complex
No stranger to controversy, Valenti's first movie content battle came just weeks after becoming president of the MPAA in 1966 with "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and its frank language. Other controversies followed, along with a Supreme Court decision that stated cities had the power to prevent the exposure of children to books and films which could not be denied to adults.
Those events led Valenti to announce in 1968 a new voluntary movie rating system, which has been revised occasionally to reflect changes in the movie audience.
In 1996, Valenti helped create a similar, and controversial, rating system for television.

[July 16, 1998]http://www.internetnews.com/i wlive/summer98/key4.html
Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association Of America, took on the persona of a fire-breathing, circuit-riding preacher as he talked about digital copyright protection to the afternoon keynote audience today at Summer Internet World.
...
"The only way to protect works [of intellectual property] and to guarantee their future is to employ technology to protect them whenever they go on the Internet," he pronounced. "If Congress confers legal status on any machine whose mission is to commit copyright burglary, we're in trouble."
Valenti's jeremiad was inspired by proposed U.S. legislation being revised later the same afternoon in Washington. The bill would implement an international treaty--the World Intellectual Property Organization treaty, signed by more than 80 countries in October 1996--extending copyright protections to digital works, such as digitized movies, software, and the contents of Web sites. Each country must pass enabling legislation for the treaty if its existing laws don't already cover the treaty's provisions.
In its original version the U.S. bill would have criminalized the manufacture of any device that could be used to circumvent copyright--for example, software to decrypt an encrypted movie--but this provision has been opposed by hardware and software makers who don't want to be responsible for every possible use to which their products could be put. They have proposed criminalizing the act of copyright violation rather than the manufacture of the equipment, but the motion picture industry and recording industries oppose this strategy as being too difficult to enforce.
"We don't want to ban VCRs," Valenti said. "The only folks who have cause for concern are the makers of black boxes, which are nothing more than stealing machines." The film industry fears unleashing the ability to copy movies on DVD, since such technology could produce unlimited copies with no degradation in quality, removing any intrinsic incentive to purchase a commercial DVD rather than a pirated one.
Valenti cut his remarks short so that he could fly to Washington to attend congressional meeting involving the WIPO legislation, saying that when he accepted the invitation to speak several months ago, he didn't know the bill would be revised the same day.
Valenti wasn't exactly preaching to the converted, however. In a panel discussion put together to fill the rest of his speaking time, speakers pointed out that the Motion Picture Association of America's approach to the WIPO legislation could make it a criminal offense to commit such everyday acts as setting a Web browser to refuse cookies, if they were being used as part of a copyright protection scheme. Moreover, even manufacturing a browser that is able to refuse cookies would become a crime.
"Jack doesn't want these laws to be so sweeping, but Washington doesn't always get it right," said Jason Catlett, founder of Junkbusters, a company dedicated to stopping the spread of Internet junk mail.
"I run a Web site, and I think that people who violate copyrights should all go to hell, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions," said David Fiedler, editor of the Mecklermedia site Webdeveloper.com. "This legislation might make your computer illegal because if programmed correctly it could be used to circumvent copyright." He also pointed out that the Motion Picture Association of America had in fact sought to ban VCRs and video rental when they were first introduced.

[December 12, 1996]http://www.cme.org/press2.html
"The age-based system that Valenti's group is proposing is inadequate and will not be helpful to parents," explained Kathryn Montgomery, CME President. "The ratings group has chosen to ignore the recommendations of academic experts, parents, child advocacy groups, and professional organizations to develop a usable ratings system that can work with the V-chip," Montgomery added. "Instead, they have purposely devised a system that will not tell parents whether a program contains violence, sex, or offensive language."

[April 25, 1966]http://www. resignation.com/historicaldocs/letters/04251966_va lenti.html
The economic commitments to my growing family cause me to regretfully submit my resignation as Special Assistant to the President, effective May 15.
(reply:) Dear Jack:
It has been a very long day.

[Tuesday, 19 May, 1998]http://www.chl.ca/Cannes98/may19_pirac y.html
CANNES, France -- The film industry is making progress in its war against piracy, but digital copying is posing a new and "cancerous problem," the head of the U.S. film association said Tuesday.
Recent raids, including the seizure of 8 million videos in Hong Kong, show progress is being made against pirates who cost the U.S. industry up to $5 billion a year, said Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America.
...
"In digital, the 1,000th copy is pure and pristine as the first copy. So digital presents a cancerous problem," Valenti said.
His trade group is spending about $50 million annually to fight piracy, including employing ex-FBI agents to bolster other countries' efforts.
"What we're trying to do in China is get market access," he said. Hollywood is limited to 10 films a year in the world's most populous nation.
Valenti said he'll try again with a trip in the fall.
The carrot for the Chinese?
"We'd like to invest with Chinese partners in state-of-the-art cinema," he said. "We are looking forward to a partnership relationship with China."

[September 28, 1995]http://ww w.economicclub.org/Pages/archive-old/abstracts/arc h-valenti0.htm
Currently, a good many public officials have certified that the so-called "popular culture"-defined as movies, television, and musical recordings-is the prime villain in what they perceive to be the clanging of the last ding-dong of doom for this society, the source bed of much of our ills. TV is a powerful medium, but there are deadly combustibles in the community, more noxious than any movie or TV program, and violence has been on the decline in movies and television for the past decade. A restoration of the homely" standards by which ordinary Americans have so long and through so much turmoil sustained their values, maintained their families, and guarded their country--not rating systems and censorship--is the only means for solving American social ills.

[02/07/96]http://www.house.gov/judiciary/461.htm
But what we do know is this binary numbers future is coming. It will have large impact, as well as both sublime and dislocating effect, on millions of Americans. It is the mandate of the Congress to peer beyond the veil, to make sensible and required judgments about how to make absolutely sure that America's grandest trade asset, its intellectual property, is protected in an era of technology so magical it verges on fantasy.
...
This committee knows full well the broad global sweep of American intellectual property which in 1994 produced over $45 billion in international sales, and is that rarity, a producer of surplus balance of trade, a phrase seldom heard in the corridors of the Congress. These creative works are the jewels in America's trade crown. To protect these delicate products in cyberspace is of transcendent importance. For if you cannot protect what you own, you own nothing.

[03/26/99]http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/14 _1/199903/t4151392.htm
President Kim Dae-jung yesterday told visiting U.S. commerce secretary that Korea will maintain the controversial screen quota system which limits imports of foreign movies into Korea, in defiance of U.S. demands for film market liberalization.
...
He made the remark as Jack Valenti, head of the American Film Producers Association, suggested that Seoul scrap the system, saying Korea is the only Asian country which maintains a quota.