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Actually, it's to keep Lake Mead from draining so low: https://www.governing.com/topi...

Which, of course, punishes the farmers the most. But, they were the ones that want to grow things in a desert.

I dispute your finding
http://www.governing.com/week-...

and
https://rockinst.org/wp-conten...

with the data to support it from
https://www.govinfo.gov/conten...

NY and NJ pay a lot of taxes and don't get it all back.
and Politifact California, can't find your reference, cite your source

In many jurisdictions in the US, including California, hydro is not considered renewable.

Sad but true... Hydro is not a renewable resource, and there is an active movement to tear down dams and replace them with wind turbines.

The Kansas public education budget is $4.9 billion. It works out to almost exactly $10,000 per student, with about 39% of that going to instructor salary, 12% to instructor benefits.

With 41,243 teachers, that works out to an average (mean) salary of $46,300 plus $13,800 in benefits.

This compares to a statewide average (mean) income of $43,953. Searching through those labor stats for "education" confirms that the mean for most teaching jobs is right around the $45k mark.

If your claim that teachers have to work second or third jobs just to get by is true, that would mean more than half of Kansas citizens have to work second or third jobs just to get by.

They can't be taken away just because you are a bad employee.

Not true. In some states if you are convicted of certain crimes related to your job or or crimes done while on the job, your pension is taken away.

The USA will never complete another nuclear reactor for landbased power.

Very likely true. The last attempt was in South Carolina, which halted construction last year after spending $9 billion.

Nuclear is dead in America until there are some radically new designs. Maybe thorium, maybe fusion. But no more pressurized uranium reactors will be built.

But nuclear is still moving forward in China and India. China has 13 nuclear power plants under construction.

For many governments, hydro is not renewable and is not considered green. Sad but true!

Believe it or not, some governments don't consider hydro a renewable.

Just a reminder that Republicans are fighting every initiative to require paper ballots in the US. Even in the rare red state where a paper ballot initiative has been put forth by a Republican lawmaker, the state party has fought it and they only passed with the full support of Democrats.

http://humphreyonthehill.tnjou...

https://www.cnet.com/news/repu...

http://www.governing.com/topic...

has a projected budget that averages out to about $37,400 per student.

I know there are considerations like property upkeep, and administration, but holy moly, why not just bus them to a nearby community college at that rate?

I'm not sure where you live, but your numbers seem to be wildly off.

The average is close to $11k, with the highest state at $21k.

I didn't finish my minor in math, but 957 Million and 27K students is pretty much larger than 11K per student...

I mean, after all, they have a 51% graduation rate.

Someone has got be getting rich from this...

has a projected budget that averages out to about $37,400 per student.

I know there are considerations like property upkeep, and administration, but holy moly, why not just bus them to a nearby community college at that rate?

I'm not sure where you live, but your numbers seem to be wildly off.

The average is close to $11k, with the highest state at $21k.

Bullshit. Mega, epic bullshit. Texas is the #1 State with guns stolen from owners.

http://www.governing.com/gov-data/stolen-guns-lost-firearms-by-state-data.html

http://www.dentonrc.com/news/state/2017/12/23/agents-seek-guns-stolen-harvey-100-weapons-taken-houston-stores-storm

http://www.kxan.com/news/crime/more-than-2-dozen-guns-stolen-from-copperas-cove-pawn-shop/994805063

https://www.chron.com/news/item/Stolen-Guns-Database-11252.php

We have a lot of crazies here in the US, including many in Government who do not consider hydro as a renewable resource. Yes, water falling from the sky, tumbling down mountains, and flowing in rivers is NOT a renewable resource per a large segment of the "eco-centric" folks in the US. When you start off with that kind of position, it makes anything rational essentially impossible to achieve.

Many red states are the ones with the most military installations

California has more active duty military (184,540 in 2017) than any other state including Texas (#2 at 164,234) and Virginia (#3 at 115,280).

Total expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools in the United States in 2013â"14 amounted to $634 billion, or $12,509 per public school student enrolled in the fall (in constant 2015â"16 dollars).

(Discrepancy with the OECD stats is due to being from different years, and the OECD stats including post-secondary non-tertiary education, while the NCES stats are for only K-12).

Spending per student has about doubled in inflation-adjusted dollars over the last 40 years. and tripled since the 1960s. It peaked around 2007, and the people trying to get even more money put into education have been abusing that by using 2007 as the start of their spending graphs.

Where is all the money going? I don't have time to find it again, but the Education Department's own stats are contradictory. If you take the amount of spending it lists in teacher non-salary benefits, and divide it by the number of teachers they give, it ends up something like $50k/yr per teacher. What's going on is the number of non-teaching administrators has exploded since 1970, far outpacing the growth in number of students. These administrators have been hiding it by shifting some of their salary expenses into those of teachers in the stats. Every time education receives a spending increase, the administrators sop up most of it and let only a trickle get through to teachers. Every time education receives a spending cut, these administrators pass it all on directly to the teachers and students, while protecting their own jobs and salaries. As a result, the teachers are constantly complaining of not having enough money despite the huge increases in education spending over the decades.

So much money has been added to gov education over the decades from the gov and private sector in the USA.

The amount per student in some city and states should have produced amazing results if a lack of spending in the past was the only problem.

What the hell are you talking about? In my state, total per-pupil funding is about $7000-$8000/yr, and has barely been keeping pace with inflation. For reference, daycare for one kid costs about $2000 PER MONTH here - what the schools get is a pittance by comparison. And keep in mind that daycare can be done by college students and stay-at-home moms, while teachers must have a bachelor's degree, minimum, and often have an advanced degree. Many of those are STEM degrees, worth quite a bit in industry.

The schools haven't been adequately funded for decades, and things are only getting worse.

You must be in a low cost of living state: see this.

The comparison to daycare is also bizarre. Daycare, you may be surprised to learn, lasts all day, and doesn't take random days, weeks, and MONTHS off.

The State of California does not consider hydro as a renewable resource:

California, the second-largest U.S. hydroelectric producer, set goals for renewable energy sources in 2002 and 2011... But the state set a limit on the inclusion of hydropower. It allows utilities to count only the hydropower produced by smaller hydropower projects—those capable of producing 30 megawatts or less—toward the renewable mandate.

Yep, only tiny hydro installs (typically private, on private land - good luck getting a permit to make your own hydro plant and flood some land deemed valuable to someone) count. The big hydro we have installed in California - about 99% of all of it - is NOT renewable per the State. So yeah - no hydro for us!

Large hydro plants typically come with huge amounts of environmental destruction - while today it would be unthinkable to flood Yosemite valley to use as a source of water and electricity, Hetch Hetchy Valley is said to rival Yosemite in beauty, yet it was flooded 100 years to to build O’Shaughnessy Dam.

Smaller hydro projects can be built with less (or no) environmental destruction.

California, the second-largest U.S. hydroelectric producer, set goals for renewable energy sources in 2002 and 2011... But the state set a limit on the inclusion of hydropower. It allows utilities to count only the hydropower produced by smaller hydropower projects—those capable of producing 30 megawatts or less—toward the renewable mandate.

Yep, only tiny hydro installs (typically private, on private land - good luck getting a permit to make your own hydro plant and flood some land deemed valuable to someone) count. The big hydro we have installed in California - about 99% of all of it - is NOT renewable per the State. So yeah - no hydro for us!

Almost all jobs in NH pay a bit above minimum wage and for health benefits you need to use the ACA

Horseshit

Crime is crime. Artificial categorizations like federal versus state versus local are irrelevant. All of those sum together to give the crime that will be experienced in a given area. Any area with a large number of illegal aliens will inherently have a higher crime rate until those illegal aliens are deported and prevented from returning, because they're perpetually in a state of committing crime by being in the country illegally.

Of course you are free to slice statistics anyway you want on /., but when people talk about crime rate, they are generally talking about UCR (FBI uniform crime reporting) where they do not count the crime of immigration violation in the statistics.

Similarly, there doesn't seem to be any correlation with the standard measurement of crime rate and the immigrant population (documented or undocumented).
[citation offered] http://www.governing.com/gov-d...

Besides crime rate doesn't count the continual state of committing a crime as more than one crime (the denominator rate is per capita/unit time). Even under your "crime-is-a-crime" measurement technique, one parking ticket every year and a continuous immigration violation would both count as one crime in the numerator and be divided by the population to add to the annual crime rate that year so it probably wouldn't move the needle much anyhow...

Maybe California is using its much higher debt per capita to create the illusion of less poverty and wealth? I mean, you can live high on the hog on credit cards, but if you continuously spend more than you bring in - eventually that plan falls apart. And scholastically, Texas and California are essentially tied.

NOTE: I say this as a resident of California (Ventura, CA area). Beautiful place to live, but the State Government is seriously messed up (for example, firearm policy; much more liberal Washington State is shall issue and permissive about firearms and enjoys 1/3rd the gun murder rate as much more restrictive California), the State finances are in a shambles (it's all smoke and mirrors - hey, we have a $1 trillion shortfall in pension funding, which works out to about $30,000 per CA resident), and the State has ZERO plan on how to complete the "high speed" rail (I use quotes because it is nothing like HS rail in the rest of the world, being just over 160 kph) through the Tehachapi mountains - effectively cutting it off from LA. Thankfully I've economically relocated out of CA, so it's not too bad for me...

Nice pigeon-holing.

*Some* Republicans are conservatives. Some are Progressives. Some are Republican in name only (RINO) and vote with the Democrats often.

Some Democrats are conservatives. Some are Progressives. Some are Communists, some Socialists. Some are Fascists and wear masks, carry weapons, and dress in black while rioting and violently attacking others that do not share their opinions.

What, only black? Not red? Camo? You know, like Cliven Bundy.

Up until just a few short years ago, the Democrats kept a former KKK leader in office, Robert Byrd, as a long-time Senator until he died in 2010. That's right, the Democrats had a Senator who served for decades who was a former KKK leader. Not 'member'. Leader.

You know, it's funny how people who rail about Byrd never mention two things. First, they never mention that Byrd expressly and explicitly repudiated the racist KKK (some go so far as to claim he never did), and Second, they never mention how the beloved Strom Thurmond was belovingly embraced into the GOP, and served pretty much the same time as Byrd.

Can you explain it?

Coincidently, speaking of civil rights and minorities, Democrats (and the KKK) fully support Planned Parenthood is and always has been, to slow the birthrates of 'undesirables' like blacks, the poor, the mentally challenged, and other minorities.

Oh no, because Margaret Sanger didn't want women to be burdened with no choice except to give birth time after time, she's not only anti-black, she's anti-Semitic. A self-hating Jew. You tell others to google her? You should look beyond the nonsense you've found on the pages of right-wing propagandists. She was actually brought into Harlem by the NAACP and the leaders of that community, after they saw the effects of her work in Jewish areas. In reality, it's the KKK that opposed Planned Parenthood, and their adherents in the White Power Quiverfull movement that want to breed themselves into dominance like some sort of infectious virus.

But sure buddy, it's conservatives and Republicans who are racist, etc etc, blah blah blah. Yep. Uh-huh. o_0

Yup. Let's see, there's the wonderful Steve King. There's that state Senator in Florida. There's Reagan's history of Dogwhistling, and there's Trump's rampant birtherism. Not to mention his Mexican Wall, Muslim ban, and inability to remember who David Duke is.

Sorry dude, but it's a telling sign when it's a Republican opposing the removal of monuments to white supremacy.

1. Actually, the racists in Alabama almost closed the DMV. Kinda hard to go when they try to shut it down.

2. Nope, you don't care about voter fraud, you just used it to pass a voting discrimination act targeted at minorities. Sorry pisspot, you got caught and nobody believes you. Bing "Running the Idiot Tailors out of Town"

Lots of Governmental types do not consider hydro as a green energy source. Not sure if Ontario/Canada falls into that group, but at least in the US (California in particular) hydro is not always a green energy source.

http://www.npr.org/2015/03/30/...

If you're murdered in America, there's a 1 in 3 chance that the police won't identify your killer.

To use the FBI's terminology, the national "clearance rate" for homicide today is 64.1 percent. Fifty years ago, it was more than 90 percent.

And that's worse than it sounds, because "clearance" doesn't equal conviction: It's just the term that police use to describe cases that end with an arrest, or in which a culprit is otherwise identified without the possibility of arrest — if the suspect has died, for example.

That's just murder, but it was easy to find.

Then I found this:

http://www.governing.com/topic...

Data recorded in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program show just how widely clearance rates vary across larger police departments. Of the 100 cities reporting the most murders in 2013, 11 cleared less than a quarter of their cases. Meanwhile, eight departments registered clearance rates of 90 percent or more. The national murder clearance rate was 64 percent for 2013.

It probably varies widely by crime as well.

"I am an economist."

Not trying to be insulting, but... the odds of you being right are about the same as a coin flip...

https://www.scientificamerican...
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/21...
http://www.governing.com/topic...

Keep reading. Let us know when you get to 14

The Fourteenth applies to discrimination by governments, which I already said should remain illegal (sadly, it currently is not). I'm talking about that by private entities.

If you insist on the 14th being applicable to corporations, then it must apply to individuals too. A girl rejecting four Black suitors, but then going out with an Asian one would have to explain the statistics and prove herself not racist. Will you accept such laws too, or do you think, that would be a ridiculous overreach?

But, of course, the 14th Amendment is not applicable to corporations, otherwise there would've been no need for the laws cited in the write-up...

See e.g. here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and here: http://www.governing.com/gov-d...

Some states don't require background checks {see http://www.governing.com/gov-d...

It's clear that gun shows are venues that concentrate and facilitate non-dealer gun sales. Therefore (despite nitpicking that doesn't affect the essence of the issue) the net effect of gun shows really is to facilitate gun sales that bypass background checks. That alone makes them eligible for police scrutiny.

Therefore it's reasonable for e.g. the FBI to trace people who attend such shows.

I agree that there are mental health issues that won't cause a red flag in a NICS check. I believe this should be reviewed more carefully. It's not as if the existing oversights mean that it's the way things should be.

See e.g. here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and here: http://www.governing.com/gov-d...

Some states don't require background checks {see http://www.governing.com/gov-d...

It's clear that gun shows are venues that concentrate and facilitate non-dealer gun sales. Therefore (despite nitpicking that doesn't affect the essence of the issue) the net effect of gun shows really is to facilitate gun sales that bypass background checks. That alone makes them eligible for police scrutiny.

Therefore it's reasonable for e.g. the FBI to trace people who attend such shows.

I agree that there are mental health issues that won't cause a red flag in a NICS check. I believe this should be reviewed more carefully. It's not as if the existing oversights mean that it's the way things should be.

He's probably a blathering moron, but probably one who works for a Government agency. After all "in general, hydropower is not even considered a renewable energy in most states or, for the most part, by the federal government". Yes, liquid falling from the sky, collecting in valleys and lakes, and tumbling down rivers is not a renewable resource.

No way Baton Rouge has anything like 50k cops.

Correct. A quick trip to governing.com reveals that Baton Rouge Police employ just 832 people, 728 of which are officers.

Hydro is not considered renewable by everyone: "hydropower doesn’t count toward utilities’ renewable energy mandates in most states". Insane, but that's how many States and Governments see it.

> if robots are cheaper manufacturing can be brought back home now?

It has been happening for the last few years. More and more manufacturing is coming back to the USA for exactly that reason, but for the same reason there aren't any manufacturing JOBS coming back:

http://www.governing.com/gov-i... "Manufacturing Is Coming Back. Factory Jobs Aren’t."

Unfortunately, many States do not consider hydro as a renewable resource. Even though it is by far and away the greatest source of renewable power we have...

This has been known for a while. In the 80's Kansas City ended up spending $2 billion in school funding over roughly a decade after a court ruling from a federal judge to improve their schools and it did nothing to improve education attainment despite having the highest spending per pupil in the nation. Education isn't something you can throw money at to fix. If you're trying to make a fundamentally flawed system work, additional funding won't achieve anything.

Hydropower doesn't even count as renewable energy in USA..

http://www.governing.com/topic...

"Several large dams block migrating fish from reaching their spawning grounds. Dam reservoirs impact flows, temperatures and silt loads of rivers and streams. Over the years, these factors have drastically reduced fish populations. At one time, the Klamath River in Oregon and California had salmon runs in the millions. The construction of four dams along the river reduced the fish runs to a fraction of that."

"That’s why hydropower doesn’t count toward utilities’ renewable energy mandates in most states—that, and the fact that there is already so much hydro out there"

You know you're on Slashdot when the left wing liberal hippies post stuff to the firehouse that appears to be nice and liberal, while actually thinking about it deeper means killing all the fish in our oceans, rivers, and lakes. You also know when you are on slashdot when you get a bunch of people upvote all the comments that encourage damaging the environment in massive scale, because it seemed liberal and right at the time... you know you are on slashdot when you see people downvoting anyone who criticizes this damage to the environment as "a moron" and "a troll". Because left wing liberal hippie slashdotters can't distinguish what's actually good for the environment, and what isn't. Go out and buy a Tesla car - it'll save the environment! No, wait, let's think about this carefully.

http://www.governing.com/topic... "Several large dams block migrating fish from reaching their spawning grounds. Dam reservoirs impact flows, temperatures and silt loads of rivers and streams. Over the years, these factors have drastically reduced fish populations. At one time, the Klamath River in Oregon and California had salmon runs in the millions. The construction of four dams along the river reduced the fish runs to a fraction of that."

http://www.governing.com/gov-d...

...

If those damn democrats did not keep cutting funding for education programs and other entitlements..... oh wait, it's the other guys that did that.

Don't let actual facts get in your way...

police injury rates are _much_ higher than most work. According to Governing Magazine they're only surpassed by nursing care, and I can easily believe that.

That is not what your citation says:

Occupations recording the highest injury and illness rates include nursing and residential care facilities, police and fire personnel.

Note the weasel word "including" - there is no inherent ranking there, not even to say that the listed occupations are even at the top. The fact that they don't mention construction, which accounts for 20% of all workplace fatalities, more than any other occupation, suggests that site is being sneaky to promote their own agenda.

I don't really care about the numbers, but if you do, I recommend putting in the effort to analyze the BLS data yourself. I couldn't find an easy summary with less than 2 minutes of googling so I gave up.

Police can't normally walk away from the scene, and they are compelled to attend in the first place. That does not mean I support this law, but police injury rates are _much_ higher than most work. According to http://www.governing.com/gov-d..., they're only surpassed by nursing care, and I can easily believe that.

" let educational professionals decide how best to invest that money"

That's a bad idea if there ever was one. The quality of schools in the US has been steadily declining ever since the federal government started sticking its nose in. More and more bureaucracy, regulations and administration. Less and less effective teaching.

You know, if federal control of schools were any good at all, the schools in Washington D.C. would shine. Instead, despite their huge budget (second highest in the country), D.C> schools are the worst in the country.

Send all of the "educational professionals" to flip hamburgers. Return schools to state and local control. Hire teachers who hold degrees in the subjects, instead of in education (this might be important). Some places will be disasters (but they already are). Others will finally be able to do something about fixing their schools. Without all the federal regulation, it'll probably cost a lot less, too...

it's not in tfa, so from another source: "Hawaii, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin currently tax Internet access under ITFA's 1998 grandfather clause. Tennessee, Washington, and New Hampshire are permitted to collect Internet access taxes but do not currently do so." source: http://www.governing.com/news/... just in case anyone else was curious.

About the same time the ridiculous mandate was placed on the USPS to forward fund all their employees' benefits for the next 50 years

Why is that a 'ridiculous mandate'? Do you feel like bailing out those generous pension promises in a few decades when the USPS can't pay the bill? Like we've done with so many private sector corporations that have failed to meet their pension and healthcare obligations?

The mandate is very painful for USPS but it's a comparatively short term pain that should solve a long term problem. Frankly I wish we could do a similar thing with the ticking time bomb in certain States, though at the end of the day it's entirely up to them, since Uncle Sam has precious little power to compel change at the State level.

Your claim is not 100% true.

The states of Oregon and New Hampshire in the United States do not collect sales tax.

NOW it's "nuff said", bitch.

And to further drive the point, New Hampshire manages to keep the streetlights on and the fire departments funded, while California (and a number of other governments) are going down in flames.

This despite California having one of the highest tax rates in the US ($3,266 per person per year, ranked 11th) compared to NH ($1,760 per person per year, ranked 42nd). (source)*

Before we debate whether the court's decision seems equitable or "reasonable" for the purpose, let's stop and consider whether the basic premise - that the state needs the money - is valid.

Consider a hypothetical situation where the state was completely funded by some other means. I don't know what that would be, but let's suppose the state has investments that return a profit or something. If the state didn't want to expand, didn't need to increase services, and didn't need more money... in that situation, does this tax seem equitable or reasonable? What function does it have, and is the benefit of that function worth the cost of compliance?

We have a clear-cut case of a state that is fiscally prudent and well-managed without excessive taxation.

Before we allow the states to apply the brakes to internet commerce, shouldn't we first consider what the state will do with the money?

(*) NH taxes are about 50% of California, but spends proportionally much more than 50% per person. California is simply inefficient at making use of taxes.

Your claim is not 100% true.

The states of Oregon and New Hampshire in the United States do not collect sales tax.

NOW it's "nuff said", bitch.

And to further drive the point, New Hampshire manages to keep the streetlights on and the fire departments funded, while California (and a number of other governments) are going down in flames.

This despite California having one of the highest tax rates in the US ($3,266 per person per year, ranked 11th) compared to NH ($1,760 per person per year, ranked 42nd). (source)*

Before we debate whether the court's decision seems equitable or "reasonable" for the purpose, let's stop and consider whether the basic premise - that the state needs the money - is valid.

Consider a hypothetical situation where the state was completely funded by some other means. I don't know what that would be, but let's suppose the state has investments that return a profit or something. If the state didn't want to expand, didn't need to increase services, and didn't need more money... in that situation, does this tax seem equitable or reasonable? What function does it have, and is the benefit of that function worth the cost of compliance?

We have a clear-cut case of a state that is fiscally prudent and well-managed without excessive taxation.

Before we allow the states to apply the brakes to internet commerce, shouldn't we first consider what the state will do with the money?

(*) NH taxes are about 50% of California, but spends proportionally much more than 50% per person. California is simply inefficient at making use of taxes.

Roger that:

• The Specter of Bankruptcy Haunts California
• Detroit’s Bankrupt. Is California Next?
• California Bankrupt
• Bankrupt San Bernardino in showdown with California pension fund over arrears
• Bankrupt Cities, Municipalities List and Map

As soon as you're done reviewing that information, plus what you can find with a simple Google query, kindly go fuck yourself.

how come these plants aren't being constructed where the waste is generated?

This is exactly what the city of Amsterdam decided to do for themselves, to the extent they can now look to import garbage at a profit. Let me tell you no one, I mean no one seriously overbuilds their infrastructure like the Dutch. I swear, they are an advanced society America could learn from. Not just in this example, but their health care too, (must we need to 'invent' everything ourselves? Can't America look to, and learn from others?).

Others have tried and failed, and is anyone paying attention to the highly compressed Dutch society, for example as I have previously cited how they fuel Amsterdam's electricity?

Actually, I just remembered that the financing of the Amsterdam Arena (sports stadium) was so incredibly successful, as in built on-time, on or under budget (can't recall precisely but it was very impressive!), etc. that project has earned a lot of study abroad.

Actually, Illinois is not the most corrupt per capita. Recent surveys have put North Dakota or Louisiana at the top.