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That's awesome. Now if only they'd get around to dealing with the massive backlog of DNA evidence instead of trying to ensnare even more people. I mean, I know they're working on it but when we're not seeing anything indicating that the curve is bending downward even with grants to state and local governments, it seems we should focus harder on that first.

Yes, illegal immigration costs money. Provably so. I guess if you think otherwise, you'll willingly let anyone who desires to move in with you for free, you can feed, clothe, educate, protect, and provide healthcare for them, and their services as an occasional maid or cook would more than offset the costs?

Do you have a citation for your numbers? The only GAO info I could find with numbers was this: https://www.gao.gov/products/G...

And that doesn't say $40bn or >$1T.

But in any case, on-shore wind is already profitable without subsidy. Solar is cheaper than nuclear with both subsidised in the UK.

Of course, these tunnels are blatant violations of all tunnel safety regulations: They don't comply with railroad tunnel safety requirements, highway tunnel safety requirements, or even the most lax of mine safety requirements.

There are no Federal train tunnel safety requirements whatsoever. The Federal Railroad Administration "determined that regulating bridge or tunnel structural conditions or requiring inspections would not be cost-effective to FRA when considering the cost of implementation and enforcement."[Page 22] What little Federal oversight of railroad bridges and tunnels exists happens only as part of track inspection, and there is no Federal standard to which those inspectors work.[Page 23]

There are no Federal highway tunnel safety requirements either. The only thing that exists are preliminary recommendations from the NTSB and a committee to conduct research about the possibility of issuing guidelines from a group of state departments of transportation representatives, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials T-20 Tunnels committee. Neither of those existed before the ceiling collapse in the I-90 connector tunnel in Boston in 2006.

What voluntary, industry association guidelines exist are intended to deal with designs where internal combustion engines are allowed to operate inside them and, in the case of highways, where every vehicle uses its own independent steering to navigate the tunnel. Neither is the case in a Boring Company tunnel. Boring Company tunnels are effectively subway tunnels. The New York City subway system tunnels are just 18 feet high at the center, less at the edges. Boring Company tunnels are 14 feet high. You're telling me that 4 foot difference is the difference between life and death? I call bullshit. Whether or not you can walk out of a 14 foot tunnel in the event of a fire depends entirely on the ventilation system and fire safety systems in the tunnel. There is no public information whatsoever about what those systems may be in Boring Company tunnels, so no conclusion is possible at this time.

Stop blathering about things you know nothing about.

There, fixed the headline for ya'll: "Crime is Costing Humanity Trillions". The amount of effort and materials we have to put into locks, fences, safes, etc. is mind-boggling. And, in addition to those expenses, the law-enforcement efforts — in the US alone — are estimated as $280 billion per year.

Remember this, when someone tries to romanticize criminals (such as with "Godfather").

So where's that money going?

Where is the money going? Have you been able to get any details? I realize it would take a bit of time investment, but have you contacted any city/county government accounting/financial department and asked? Or written an elected official and see if they could shed some light?

If your city is large enough, you may have a convenient GAO-like non-profit that could supply you with the details.

I've not been bothered enough by my tax deductions to do research myself, but if I actually made useful amounts of money and felt that the taxes were being squandered I would look into it a bit (or at least think really hard about doing so.)

It's a myth that you can solve problems in education by just giving schools more money. It's not the amount of money that schools have, it's how they spend the money they have.

Spending more money doesn't improve quality.
https://www.americanexperiment...

Schools actually spend more on minority students than white students
https://www.brookings.edu/blog...

The GAO has something to say:
https://www.gao.gov/products/G...

Even NPR came to the conclusion that simply adding more money doesn't neccasarily help:
https://www.npr.org/sections/e...

"Money alone does not guarantee success any more than a lack of it guarantees failure. Paul Reville, the former Massachusetts education secretary, says not all districts there were able to translate funding increases into academic gains. Often, the difference was how they spent the extra money."

Most of climate research is overlapping with other research that we want to continue, such as historic climate reconstruction, weather modelling, and earth observation.

All of it only deemed necessary because of the fears of the Global Warming, err, Climate Change. Should these fears subside, the funding will go back to, say, the levels of the 1993, the bubble will deflate and 75% of the people involved in climate science today will have to look for new jobs...

why is the current Trump administration not telling these scientists to produce the results they want?

Because conflict of interest is more subtle than that... Trump is not relevant here — as I say, if they conclude, climate-fears are overblown, they'll lose their jobs Trump or not...

#blacklivesmatter is responsible for a dozen or more police officer deaths.

In the US, the right-wing kills more cops than any other group:

https://www.pastemagazine.com/...

And here's the actual report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that the above article is based on, in case you'd like to see it:

https://www.gao.gov/assets/690...

I mean, just in the past few weeks there have been at least two cases of right-wing jackoffs killing cops

http://www.newsweek.com/colora...

And more cases of alt-reich nazis murdering people:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/u...

And right-wing pepe terrorism:

https://www.redstate.com/smoos...

Here is a link to a GAO report which specifies the 50 year period. From the Highlights:

PAEA required USPS to prefund its future retiree health benefits as part of comprehensive postal reform by establishing the PSRHBF along with an initial target period to fund the unfunded liability in 50 years.

It explicitly states on page 7 of the full report

Contrary to statements made by some employee groups and other stakeholders, PAEA did not require USPS to prefund 75 years of retiree health benefits over a 10-year period. Rather, pursuant to OPM’s methodology, such payments would be projected to fund the liability over a period in excess of 50 years, from 2007 through 2056 and beyond (with rolling 15-year amortization periods after 2041). However, the payments required by PAEA were significantly “frontloaded,” with the fixed payment amounts in the first 10 years exceeding what actuarially determined amounts would have been using a 50-year amortization schedule.

And I never claimed that the Republicans didn't try to block course changes to the PAEA afterwards. I said, accurately, that the NALC later lied about the Republicans having forced the original PAEA down their throat, in a bid for sympathy. It's ironic that you're accusing me of reading right-wing websites (though that's the sort of thing I'd expect rabid partisans on either side to say). The only link I gave was to a copy of an NALC web page, which I doubt you looked at. Reading something into the other person's statements that they never actually said is a sign of being partisan. Try working on that.

Our demand for party balloons, helium filled disks and Goodyear blimps will never run out right? So after US stocks run out what then? Could fusion power possibly make helium a renewable resource?

Betteridge's Law strikes again!

No.

In 2013 world electricity production was 23,322TWh, but lets allow for power production growth and assume 100,000TWh. How much helium would be produced if all of that was produced by D+T fusion? One watt-hour is 2.25*10^22 eV, so 10^17 Wh is 2.25*10^39 eV. D+T fusion produces 17.6 MeV per helium atom. Assume an overall conversion efficiency of 25%, so that we get one helium atom for each 4.4 MeV of electricity produced. So we get 2.25*10^39/4.4*10^6 = 5.1*10^32 helium atoms a year. This is 8.47*10^8 moles. Meanwhile the world currently uses 150 million cubic meters of helium a year which is 6.7*10^9 moles, so this extremely high fusion production level will only satisfy 12.6% of current world demand.

Our demand for party balloons, helium filled disks and Goodyear blimps will never run out right? So after US stocks run out what then? Could fusion power possibly make helium a renewable resource?

... for Americans anyway.

Congress has passed Biometric Exit bills at least nine times. In each, it has been clear: This is a program meant for foreign nationals. In fact, when President Trump issued an executive order in January on Biometric Exit, it was actually reissued to clarify that it didn't apply to American citizens.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/fut...

Hiring free market, limited government judges.

But only 2 judges have been confirmed, and 15 more have been nominated even though there are 132 federal judicial vacancies.

Relaxing burdensome regulations - coal mine opening (and no the coal is not used for heating or electricity but for the production of steel)

But a lot of those regulations were issued in late December, so he's just revoking regulations that weren't in place very long anyway.

Pushing for (instead of against) the Keystone Pipeline

Sure, I'll grant you that.

Pushing for (instead of against) fracking

Pushing for (instead of against) off-shore drilling

I'm not sure there's actually much of a difference from Obama's policies. For instance, environmental groups were upset that the Obama administration approved 1500 offshore drilling and fracking applications from 2010 to October 2014 and oil production boomed under Obama.

Getting out of the TPP

That's different than what Obama pushed for, but Bernie Sanders, and eventually Hillary Clinton, both came out against the TPP. I'll grant you that it is a change in policy from the previous administration, though.

Getting out of the Paris Treaty

Yes, I agree that he did do that.

And, as you mentioned, increased funding and activity on illegal immigration.

But even that's a mixed bag. ICE arrests were up, but deportations were down during the first 100 days of Trump's presidency compared to the previous year.

But back to the subject of the article. The closure of federal data centers started before the Trump administration, and it seems as though he's now trying to take credit for it.

Not to mention that he's gotten no major legislation through. So I really do believe he's not very effective.

Based on our random sample of 1,000 criminal aliens, we estimate that our study population of about 249,000 criminal aliens were arrested about 1.7 million times, averaging about 7 arrests per criminal alien, slightly lower than the 8 arrests per criminal alien we reported in 2005.23 They were arrested for a total of about 2.9 million offenses, averaging about 12 offenses per criminal alien, slightly lower than the 13 offenses per criminal alien we reported in 2005.

The study then shows a figure that over half of said criminal aliens were arrested in CA. So if CA has a criminal alien problem, and the cost of incarcerating them is paid for by the federal government, then there would be an incentive by local leaders to keep costs high.

I see $37 billion in Federal funds in 2014 alone; that does not include State spending (California alone is close to a billion dollars). It's not capitalist, in that it's Government spending, but it definitely is big money and some who claim capitalist backgrounds (for example, Elon Musk/Tesla) love to suck up those dollars from the Government. More of a fascist inter-twining of business and Government...

Incorrect, the Energy Star program has cost more than 350 million since 2009. Leaving out the Energy Star consumer rebates totaling 239 million isn't being honest. https://www.gao.gov/assets/590... Took me a while to find an actual budget and what they have spent, for some reason it is missing from the 'OMG Trump' articles.

GAO submitted a few non-existant products to test the EnergyStar program. Some notable results:

Gas-Powered Alarm Clock: Product description indicated the clock is the size of a small generator and is powered by gasoline.

Product was approved by Energy Star without a review of the company Web site or questions of the claimed efficiencies.

I'd buy one of these. :D

GAO submitted a few non-existant products to test the EnergyStar program. Some notable results:

Gas-Powered Alarm Clock:
Product description indicated the clock is the size of a small generator and is powered by gasoline.

Product was approved by Energy Star without a review of the company Web site or questions of the claimed efficiencies.

Geothermal Heat Pump:
Energy use data reported was more efficient than any product listed as certified on the Energy Star Web site at the time of submission.

High-energy efficiency data was not questioned by Energy Star.

Product is eligible for federal tax credits and state rebate programs.

Computer Monitor

Product was approved by Energy Star within 30 minutes of submission.

Private firms contacted GAO’s fictitious firm to purchase products based on participation in the Energy Star program.

Refrigerator:

Self-certified product was submitted, qualified, and listed on the Energy Star Web site within 24 hours.

Product is eligible for federal tax credits and state rebates.

common measuring stick

Here is your valuable program certifying a gasoline powered alarm clock as compliant.

It's a pencil whipping operation. Nothing of value is being lost here. The 'ceritification' is just a bit of red tape everyone has to go through to sell to certain customers, leech federal grants and other stuff. The red tape employs a bunch of lawyers and adds another hurdle for anyone that might try to compete with GE et al. This is precisely the crap that Trump was elected to kill.

In each year from 2006 to 2012, at least two-thirds of all active corporations had no federal income tax liability. Larger corporations were more likely to owe tax. Among large corporations (generally those with at least $10 million in assets) less than half—42.3 percent—paid no federal income tax in 2012. Of those large corporations whose financial statements reported a profit, 19.5 percent paid no federal income tax that year.

There is no credit to give to Trumjp... he hasn't done a damn thing that would change ANYTHING related to this. He's a nothing more than a lying sack of shit politician who mere months ago was slamming jobs reports for being phony, yet now they're wonderful and all because of him. BULLSHIT. Anyone who believes that should do the world a favor and kill themselves because they're that fucking stupid.

Is the climate warming or not?

I have stated again and again: yes, it is. Really, repeatedly asking this question must get tired even for an acolyte of left wing propaganda strategies.

if you can't post links....

OK, I get it, you lack even elementary web search skills. http://www.gao.gov/key_issues/...

(I wouldn't expect funding to stay at those levels. Enjoy.)

please answer the other question that refutes your claims.

Well, no. I suggest you go back through the thread, identify what my (single) claim actually was, and then you'll see that it is not inconsistent with actually accepting that AGW is happening.

In any case, thanks for this finger exercise in responding to your little Alinsky party games with the truth; I'm not very good at it yet, but every opportunity helps.

The Government Accountability Office sounds similar to what you are referring to.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress. Often called the "congressional watchdog," GAO investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars. The head of GAO, the Comptroller General of the United States, is appointed to a 15-year term by the President from a slate of candidates Congress proposes. Gene L. Dodaro became the eighth Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on December 22, 2010, when he was confirmed by the United States Senate. He was nominated by President Obama in September of 2010 from a list of candidates selected by a bipartisan, bicameral congressional commission. He had been serving as Acting Comptroller General since March of 2008.

marginal

There's the word. And it's true that's what on paper, but thanks to loopholes, subsidies, breaks, etc. the effective tax rate averages about 22% (2008-2012):

Among large corporations (generally those with at least $10 million in assets) less than half—42.3 percent—paid no federal income tax in 2012. Of those large corporations whose financial statements reported a profit, 19.5 percent paid no federal income tax that year. [...] For tax years 2008 to 2012, profitable large U.S. corporations paid, on average, U.S. federal income taxes amounting to about 14 percent of the pretax net income that they reported in their financial statements (for those entities included in their tax returns).

When foreign and state and local income taxes are included, the average ETR [corporate effective tax rates] across all of those years increases to just over 22 percent. GAO also computed ETRs that combine large profitable corporations and those large corporations with current year losses, which pay little if any actual tax. Over tax years 2008 to 2012, all large corporations—profitable and those that reported current year losses—paid 25.9 percent of their pretax net income in U.S. federal income taxes, and 40.1 percent when foreign and state and local taxes are included.

You could have at least done a quick google to find the answer to your last question. Here's the answer for just the U.S.
http://www.gao.gov/key_issues/...

Also look at http://www.gao.gov/assets/320/314517.pdf, a GAO report regarding the fact that "Restricted agency oversight and statutory changes weaken protections for U.S. workers"

You have to assume benevolence as a default

That certainly is a good rule — indeed, a very "Thanksgivingly" one.

And yet, there are certain signs and indicators, which give justified grounds for suspicion in the case of Climate Science.

One such is a conflict of interest. A scientist coming to a conclusion, that global warming is not a big deal, risks his very livelihood — the rest of us will politely thank him for his past work and eliminate funding for more of it. America's spending on climate research, for example, has about tripled since 1993 — is it unreasonable to suspect, that the vast body of people may be at least partially concerned about their careers and mortgages? Would they not frown on and denounce anyone breaking ranks, regardless of whether he is correct or not?

We dismiss judges and jurors because of the conflict of interest — and we are right. But a replacement juror unrelated to suspect is easy to find, whereas finding an independent group of scientists in the era of government paying for 100% of research is impossible...

The above is why we can — should! — question their collective sincerity. But what about their competence? Try as you might to find an actual scientific prediction made by these folks, that turned out to be true, and you'll fail...

Few people realize this, despite me posting this challenge on Slashdot every once in a while. Try it yourself. A valid citation would include a pair of links, one to prediction, the other — to its confirmation:

1. The prediction must be publicly made — you'll need to include a link to it.
2. A separate link should point at the confirmation of the predicted events happening or values achieved (within, say, 20% of the predicted).
3. The prediction and the confirmation publications must be a few years or more apart — predicting tomorrow's weather does not count.
4. The prediction needs to be marginally useful — claiming, it will get either colder or hotter next year is not acceptable

Could you come up with two or three such citations? Don't you think, after spending tens of billions of dollars on it, we are entitled to expect some such results from climate scientists? And, if they can not come up with anything, begin suspecting their competence and sincerity?

Add to that the growing calls by these scientists (not just their hangers-on) to criminalize skepticism, and our suspicion ought to develop into a full blown alarm!

There is a GAO report covering legacy US Government systems. It has somewhat more detail.
http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/...

It has this to say about the nuke system:

The Strategic Automated Command and Control System is the Department of Defense’s (Defense) dedicated high-speed data transmission, processing, and display system. The system coordinates the operational functions of the United States’ nuclear forces, such as intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear bombers, and tanker support aircrafts, among others. For those in the nuclear command area, the system’s primary function is to send and receive emergency action messages to nuclear forces.
According to Defense officials, the system is made up of technologies and equipment that are at the end of their useful lives. For example, the system is still running on an IBM Series/1 Computer, which is a 1970s computing system, and written in assembly language code. It also uses 8-inch floppy disks, which are a 1970s-era storage device; and assembly programming code typically used in mainframes. Replacement parts for the system are difficult to find because they are now obsolete.

and regarding the IRS system:

The Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS), Individual Master File (IMF) is the authoritative data source for individual taxpayer accounts. Within IMF, accounts are updated, taxes are assessed, and refunds are generated as required during each tax filing period. Virtually all IRS information system applications and processes depend on output, directly or indirectly, from this data source.
IMF was written in an outdated assembly language code and operates on a 2010 IBM z196/2817-m32 mainframe. This has resulted in difficulty delivering technical capabilities addressing identify theft and refund fraud, among other things. In addition, there is a risk of inaccuracies and system failures due to complexity of managing dozens of systems synchronizing individual taxpayer data across multiple data files and databases, limitations in meeting normal financial requirements and security controls, and keeping pace with modern financial institutions.

Social Security is NOT fine. It has been known for some time that by the 2040's SS won't be solvent. Here is the GAO (Government Accountability Office) report on it.

After AF447 and then again after MH370, the people who deal with stuff for a living have been discussing this. Well, not this kinda lame proposal, but the problem that it is trying to solve.

Here is a GAO report on the topic.

As far as the "fossil fuel" wasted on the search, a) as noted elsewhere, you want to search for survivors (JAL123, a 747, crashed into the side of a mountain and there were 4 survivors) and b) even if you know exactly where the plane went down, the fuel used to search is small compared to the fuel spent on recovery.

Here's the actual Government Accounting Office report, if you want to read it instead of a Slashdot story about a news story about the report.

Yeah, that turned out to be a myth. I'm sure some pranks happened, but relatively little, compared to the normal and routine wear and tear in offices.

Well, except not: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02360.pdf

Damage, theft, vandalism, and pranks occurred in the White House
complex during the 2001 presidential transition. Incidents such as the
removal of keys from computer keyboards; the theft of various items; the
leaving of certain voice mail messages, signs, and written messages; and
the placing of glue on desk drawers clearly were intentional acts. However,
it was unknown whether other observations, such as broken furniture,
were the result of intentional acts, when and how they occurred, or who
may have been responsible for them.

PRT is a wonderful boondoggle for privileged middle-class snobs like you.

Privileged? I was born poor as shit, I was raised by a single parent... I'm a more-or-less white male, born in the first world, and who learned to read as a child... and that's pretty much the end. That's not inconsiderable, but calling me "privileged" like I'm unusually so is beyond ridiculous.

However, when it comes to cost-efficient, sensible urban transportation that actually helps people who need public transit, buses are the right choice.

You know, that's funny. Really, really funny. Because I grew up using buses, because my mother refused to own a car, in fact as far as I know she still can't drive at all. And I know personally how many hours of your day that consumes. I regularly had to spend an hour or even two on a bus to get to some shitty minimum wage job... and then just as much time to get back. Since most front doors are multiple blocks away from a bus stop, they are shit in inclement weather; you bundle up to get to the bus, then you overheat in the bus, then you get off again and have to walk some more. PRT can reasonably get closer to destinations than the bus.

Of course, they are cheap and unglamorous, so people like you don't support them.

I've been poor as fuck, mustard sandwiches and all that shit. I've ridden the bus. The bus is shit. That it is better than walking is not an endorsement.

Buses also don't need massive federal spending.

Bullshit, and also, bull fucking shit.

Let me rephrase: they're ineffective at finding weapons in any way attempted by TSA. The sort practiced by CBP is aimed at discovering drugs, immigration, and smuggling — not weapons. TSA isn't allowed to do that, though that is in fact the main thing that their attempts (e.g. BDO/SPOT) result in. (Source: 2011 TSA validation study on SPOT, which I have from FOIA but haven't yet released; also GAO's public study of SPOT.)

Whether El Al's version is effective is debatable, but in any case irrelevant, because it would neither be practicable nor constitutional in the US.

But this sort of thing happens at the State and Federal level as well.

http://it.slashdot.org/story/1...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.gao.gov/products/GA...

Just to name a few....

Re "Why is this news? I'm all for efficiency, but savings that small are not worth it in a budget that freaking large"
Go back over the years of getting:
"That year, about $280 million worth of satellite capability was bought outside the DISA process. If the GAO is correct, then the military could have gotten that same service for about $45 million less."
Back to 1990? 2000? 2010? The decades add up. The billions of $ needed to just to buy into the private sector can be very expensive.
The linked "DOD Needs Additional Information to Improve Procurements" at http://www.gao.gov/products/GA... had a "Full Report" pdf
http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/... has :
"DISA also estimated that if DOD used a capital lease or purchase of a single band satellite based on commercially available technology, the department could avoid
costs of about $4.5 billion over 15 years compared to the current baseline.
This was the lowest cost alternative identified by the analysis."

Re "Why is this news? I'm all for efficiency, but savings that small are not worth it in a budget that freaking large"
Go back over the years of getting:
"That year, about $280 million worth of satellite capability was bought outside the DISA process. If the GAO is correct, then the military could have gotten that same service for about $45 million less."
Back to 1990? 2000? 2010? The decades add up. The billions of $ needed to just to buy into the private sector can be very expensive.
The linked "DOD Needs Additional Information to Improve Procurements" at http://www.gao.gov/products/GA... had a "Full Report" pdf
http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/... has :
"DISA also estimated that if DOD used a capital lease or purchase of a single band satellite based on commercially available technology, the department could avoid
costs of about $4.5 billion over 15 years compared to the current baseline.
This was the lowest cost alternative identified by the analysis."

Clearly you don't read GAO's reports: they have an entire section dedicated to all the problems in the Federal government including F-35 or defense acquisition as a whole. Unfortunately, the people who they report to, Congress, doesn't seem to really pay attention to what they publish unless it aligns with their scapegoat of the day.

Clearly you don't read GAO's reports: they have an entire section dedicated to all the problems in the Federal government including F-35 or defense acquisition as a whole. Unfortunately, the people who they report to, Congress, doesn't seem to really pay attention to what they publish unless it aligns with their scapegoat of the day.

Clearly you don't read GAO's reports: they have an entire section dedicated to all the problems in the Federal government including F-35 or defense acquisition as a whole. Unfortunately, the people who they report to, Congress, doesn't seem to really pay attention to what they publish unless it aligns with their scapegoat of the day.

Yep, it does. Other sources quote from (officially) 166,000 gallons per treatment (GAO) to one or two MILLION gallons per treatment (EPA estimates). This over nearly thirty thousand wells across the United States, that's a fuckload of water being taken and pumped five miles into the ground. In the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, 86% of fresh water extracted is used in hydraulic fracturing [citation: Fry et. al].

I would love to see your evidence of this as the GAO would be out of a job if they left that much waste.

Also, if you have evidence of this level of corruption, there is a reporting phone number. I believe they give you a cut of the recovered moneys for every factual report.

http://www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fr...

So, if you have any evidence of this level of waste, I suggest you report it. You could be a very wealthy person.

Really? That's your example of something comparable to Roscosmos embezzling 10% of its annual budget? Operation Lightning Strike which turned out to be a big entrapment op that spent years trying to convince non-key players to commit crimes that they never would have otherwise, and a link that's anything but an endictment of NASA?

Yeah, I mean, take a look at NASA, it always had such a proud and distinguished record...

Oh, wait...

Seriously though: whether in Russia or in the USA, such an important agency, in charge of a large budget, is bound to generate fraud and shady dealings. At least, the Russian government is doing something about it.

It needs to be a forumula that is based on miles driven AND weight of the car... unless Oregon actually believes that a Civic and a Big Rig cause the same amount of long term damage to a road.

But they they would either have to charge a semi a lot, or not collect anything from the Civic, in order for it to actually be based on how much road damage the vehicle causes. According to this GAO study: http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/1... a semi causes 9,600 times the road damage of a car. The article says the tax is 1.5 cents per mile. That means if the Civic is getting charged 1.5 cents per mile, then a semi should be charged $144 per mile. Or, if the semi were charged 1.5 cents per mile, then the Civic would be charged .00015625 cents per mile, and thus would have to be driven 3,200 miles in order to get to half a cent which could then be rounded up and charged a full cent.

In reality, this "fee" is just a workaround for people whining about raising the gas tax. Just raise the fucking gas tax. If it makes you feel better, call it the "fuel usage fe.e" Either way it's largely a subsidy for truck transportation.

Semis create 80x the road wear compared to cars, not thousands.

Actually he was correct. The actual number based on US Dept of Transportation reports is 9600x for a semi compared to a passenger car - source.

The GAO is Congress's research arm, they were asked to analyze the effectiveness of the FAA's role in assessing cybersecurity risks and they did as requested. This is a role the GAO has played for at least my entire lifetime (born in 1978). In fact this articles says that the research function started to expand in 1967 when Congress asked the GAO to research the effectiveness of the newly enacted anti-poverty programs.

Recent federal GAO report: $106 BILLION dollars spend on "climate change" research by 2010. Four years ago. [Lonny Eachus, 2014-10-14]

... $106 BILLION (GAO rpt.) by 2010 for AGW was wasted. ... [Lonny Eachus, 2014-11-02]

... according to a recent GAO report, our own government spent $106 Billion dollars on "climate change" research, and that was by 2010, 4 years ago. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-11-20]

A recent GAO report said that $106 BILLION was spent by the US government through 2010 on global warming research. If you figure that was through the end of 2010, that was still 4 years ago, so the number is now much larger. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-01-30]

US GAO report last year said govt spent $106 BILLION on climate change research by 2010. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-03-07]

... According to the GAO, $106 billion was spent by US government on climate research by 2010. Five years later, that figure is no doubt by now much higher. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-21]

I've already pointed out that research is different from propaganda, but I'd have better luck educating my coffee table about that. So let's focus on a more tangible question.

I clicked on the actual report Jane referenced above, and clicked on Accessible Text to view the full report. There is no reference to $106 billion in that report. If there were, it would be easy for Jane/Lonny Eachus to quote it. Instead, Jane tells us to "begin by totaling up the annual expenditures as shown in the GAO report."

However, totaling up the annual expenditures in the GAO report's "Funding Category: Total;" sums to: $80.529 billion.

Not $106 billion. Where did Jane/Lonny Eachus get that total from?

Recent federal GAO report: $106 BILLION dollars spend on "climate change" research by 2010. Four years ago. [Lonny Eachus, 2014-10-14]

... $106 BILLION (GAO rpt.) by 2010 for AGW was wasted. ... [Lonny Eachus, 2014-11-02]

... according to a recent GAO report, our own government spent $106 Billion dollars on "climate change" research, and that was by 2010, 4 years ago. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-11-20]

A recent GAO report said that $106 BILLION was spent by the US government through 2010 on global warming research. If you figure that was through the end of 2010, that was still 4 years ago, so the number is now much larger. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-01-30]

US GAO report last year said govt spent $106 BILLION on climate change research by 2010. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-03-07]

... According to the GAO, $106 billion was spent by US government on climate research by 2010. Five years later, that figure is no doubt by now much higher. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-21]

I've already pointed out that research is different from propaganda, but I'd have better luck educating my coffee table about that. So let's focus on a more tangible question.

I clicked on the actual report Jane referenced above, and clicked on Accessible Text to view the full report. There is no reference to $106 billion in that report. If there were, it would be easy for Jane/Lonny Eachus to quote it. Instead, Jane tells us to "begin by totaling up the annual expenditures as shown in the GAO report."

However, totaling up the annual expenditures in the GAO report's "Funding Category: Total;" sums to: $80.529 billion.

Not $106 billion. Where did Jane/Lonny Eachus get that total from?

Okay, I have looked up the GAO report: link

I am not weeping.