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"The YouCut Citizen Review will look at grants issued by the National Science Foundation and identify those that you consider wasteful"

We are launching an experiment - the first YouCut Citizen Review of a government agency. Together, we will identify wasteful spending that should be cut and begin to hold agencies accountable for how they are spending your money.

First, we will take a look at the National Science Foundation (NSF) - Congress created the NSF in 1950 to promote the progress of science. For this purpose, NSF makes more than 10,000 new grant awards annually, many of these grants fund worthy research in the hard sciences.

From http://republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut/Review.htm

First, we will take a look at the National Science Foundation (NSF) - Congress created the NSF in 1950 to promote the progress of science. For this purpose, NSF makes more than 10,000 new grant awards annually, many of these grants fund worthy research in the hard sciences. Recently, however NSF has funded some more questionable projects - $750,000 to develop computer models to analyze the on-field contributions of soccer players and $1.2 million to model the sound of objects breaking for use by the video game industry. Help us identify grants that are wasteful or that you don't think are a good use of taxpayer dollars.

http://republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut/Review.htm

Since the blog linked in the summary is down, here is the link to the site itself: http://republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut/ I might be missing something but I don't see anything about the National Science Foundation, never mind being the "first target". The first chosen cut was something called "New Non-Reformed Welfare Program"

The average US constituency is massive , at around 700,000 people. This is much larger than originally envisioned when the country was founded, and guarantees that the little guy is drowned out. From Thirty-Thousand.org:

The framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights intended that the total population of Congressional districts never exceed 50 to 60 thousand. Currently, the average population size of the districts is nearly 700,000 and, consequently, the principle of proportionally equitable representation has been abandoned.

Such large constituencies as we see now in the US are also much larger than in other representative democracies. The Isle of Wight is an interesting comparison:

With a single Member of Parliament and 132,731 permanent residents in 2001, it is also the most populous parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom.

While not widely known, the first article of the original twelve proposed for the Bill of Rights laid out the size of congressional constituencies, as an attempt to avoid that the dilution of individual votes seen in the modern US. From the US House of Representatives website:

Article the first

After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.

James Madison himself talked about how larger constituencies tend to favor those with land and property (i.e., the rich). He was writing about the justification for having larger constituencies and longer terms for the Senate than for the House, but his description of the basic political mechanics is sound. From page 155 of The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates by Ralph Ketcham:

Large districts are manifestly favorable to the election of persons of general respectability, and of probable attachment to the rights of property, over competitors depending on the personal solicitations practicable on a contracted theater.

I.e., large districts are more impersonal, favor the rich, and are less representative. This is precisely what we have in the US. I do not expect any real progress until this gross imbalance is corrected -- and frankly I suspect changing my citizenship would be much more productive for me personally.

Cheers,

There has been several GOP health care bills over the years. They all pretty much boil down to the same things though. This latest incarnation is somewhat of an extra with placing high risk patients on the state pools and prodding them to assist in the coverage fees.

In fact, I was under the impression they were trying to limit obmacare to that but the dems wouldn't let them be involved in the open and transparent government. You know, like Nancy said, we won't know what's in the bill until after we vote for it. Anyways, they prepared their own bill which has been available in summery form at their road map page since sometime last year. Here is a sample of their 1993-4 bill in full context.

In both examples, they provided for pre-exisitng conditions quite well.

Tell them that you support Wikileaks and that you want answers about what the cables reveal the US Goverment is doing. That what the US is doing against Wikileaks in response to this is wrong and unAmerican. The response by the US Government is embarrassing.. it confirms that we really do all of these backhanded actions that the cables say.

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Obama advanced Elizabeth Warren for the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and she has railed against this problem for years: "Today, the big banks churn out page after page of incomprehensible fine print to obscure the cost and risks of checking accounts, credit cards, mortgages and other financial products. The result is that consumers can't make direct product comparisons, markets aren't competitive, and costs are higher."

It's not hard to see the tie between confusopoly and the mortgage meltdown that wrecked the economy, either - and here I include not only under-educated sub-prime borrowers, but bankers creating and selling complex derivatives that were not well understood by ratings agencies, regulators, nor even the bankers themselves.

However, Republicans slammed the bill creating the CFPB as "a government takeover of the economy. The President and Democrats today gave financial regulators the power to create years worth of financial uncertainty, which will only lead to more struggling businesses and fewer jobs." Just as with the Credit Card Reform Act of 2009.

Hey, me too, and seriously, if you do this: write to your favorite congresscritter(s) to let them/him/her know. The House and Senate Transportation committees are good places to send a note if you don't want to write to your own congressional reps. (The Senate committee already hauled Pistole in last week for a grilling. Hopefully they will keep on top of him.) Consider cc'ing the TSA, White House, and the Air Transport Association (airline trade group). Other good organizations to write to might be the ACLU, We Won't Fly, and Fly With Dignity.

Opting out altogether is great, but not if no one knows about it. If you let organizations like this know, you'll get included in the numbers.

Too bad the Air Marshal program is useless. The entire air marshal program makes about 4 arrests a year.

More air marshals are arrested than there are arrests made by Air Marshals.

http://duncan.house.gov/2009/06/22062009.shtml

Hatch and Bennett are the two US Senators from Utah, while Bishop represents Utah's 1st District (most of northern Utah) and Matheson represents Utah's 2nd District (most of Southern and Southeastern Utah), the latter two in the US House of Representatives. (The western portion of Utah forms the 3rd House District, represented by Jason Chaffetz. No word on why he didn't sign on with everyone else.)

Hatch and Bennett are the two US Senators from Utah, while Bishop represents Utah's 1st District (most of northern Utah) and Matheson represents Utah's 2nd District (most of Southern and Southeastern Utah), the latter two in the US House of Representatives. (The western portion of Utah forms the 3rd House District, represented by Jason Chaffetz. No word on why he didn't sign on with everyone else.)

Hatch and Bennett are the two US Senators from Utah, while Bishop represents Utah's 1st District (most of northern Utah) and Matheson represents Utah's 2nd District (most of Southern and Southeastern Utah), the latter two in the US House of Representatives. (The western portion of Utah forms the 3rd House District, represented by Jason Chaffetz. No word on why he didn't sign on with everyone else.)

True, "Year of our Lord" does not constitute "replete with references to God". That'd be a stretch. However, the U.S. Constitution wouldn't exist if the Declaration of Independence hadn't been successful. That document does mention God, and even more frightening, it mentions a "Creator" quite explicitly.

And, I'm just curious, how is it that there could be an Office of the Chaplain for the U.S. House of Representatives. I hope you didn't miss the Jummah (at the Capitol) or the Torah study (in the Senate Office building) this week. And what's worse, prayer has been a fixture of congress since the Continental Congress first gathered.

The bill says the government agency in charge of enforcement designates exactly which companies are covered, puts forth the requirements for security for that company, approves or disapproves the specific security plan the company submits to meet those criteria, can audit the implementation of the plan, and can fine the business $100,000 per day per incident of noncompliance. That's what the word "guidelines" means here.

Under the bill, the DHS would have the authority to tell you how to operate your network and the authority to issue you a sizable civil fine for failing to meet their criteria without a finding against you in court. What's more is that the they get to decide who is under their own control.

I love the idea, but question whether these national boycott days actually do anything. People tried it for gasoline, walmart, etc.

Instead, how about telling your representative in Congress how much you hate the idea of scanning under the clothes? They are the only people who have power over this stuff. Just send them a quick email using the form: http://www.house.gov/writerep/

It turns out that both the House of Representatives and the Senate provide convenient web forms that let you think you're contacting your Congresscritters.

FTFY. Unless there's a Paypal donation button on the form, you might as well just redirect it to /dev/null.

Yeah, something like this.

This really has gone too far. TSA should be eliminated. Let the airlines and airports provide security - they, at least, have no interest in intimidating and humiliating their customers.

I'm not the type to write Congresscritters, but it can do no harm. A bit of Googling... It turns out that both the House of Representatives and the Senate provide convenient web forms that let you contact your Congresscritters.

Even if you are not normally political, please consider taking the time to send a message. It takes no more time than posting on /.

It was about 3:1 Dems in favor, Republicans slightly more against than for.

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll681.xml

Is the roll call vote for the final House TARP bill from 2008.

You do realize that it is the Executive branch is the one that writes the budget, not Congress? (Congress still has to approve it, of course).

Actually, I did not know that. I try not to know things that are not true...

From the Constitution:

No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.

...appropriations made by law... Who writes law? According to Schoolhouse Rock, Congress writes law.

Here is a pdf file at a .gov site. The first sentence is:

When Congress writes the Federal budget each year, we rely on a range of technical rules and conventions – called budget “concepts” – that were designed to give us a table and consistent playing field for the policy decisions we make.

Read that first part? When CONGRESS writes the budget.

What does Wikipedia have to say? (I'll bold the key words for you)

The Budget of the United States Government is the President's proposal to the U.S. Congress which recommends funding levels for the next fiscal year, beginning October 1. Congressional decisions are governed by rules and legislation regarding the federal budget process. Budget committees set spending limits for the House and Senate committees and for Appropriations subcommittees, which then approve individual appropriations bills to allocate funding to various federal programs.

After Congress approves an appropriations bill, it is sent to the President, who may sign it into law, or may veto it. A vetoed bill is sent back to Congress, which can pass it into law with a two-thirds majority in each chamber. Congress may also combine all or some appropriations bills into an omnibus reconciliation bill. In addition, the president may request and the Congress may pass supplemental appropriations bills or emergency supplemental appropriations bills.

In other words, the Presidential Budget is merely a suggestion that congress can take or leave. What you'll find is that when the same party controls both branches, executive and legislative, the president's budget is merely rubber stamped by congress and passed back. When the power is split between the parties, congress ignores the president's proposal and simply sends him their own version. When it gets fun is when one party controls the house and another controls the senate and the WH, much like when Newt's Republicans took over the House while the Senate was held by Democrats and Clinton was in the White House. That's when government gets shut down. ...
But I don't want to give you a government lesson. You can go back to Jr High for this lesson.

The point of the first poster is that the phrase "Separation of Church and State" by Thomas Jefferson had nothing to do with keeping the church out of the state until 1947 when the Supreme Court re-interpreted the meaning of it. The phrase and concept previous to this meant that the state could not tell the church what to do or believe, nor that there was any established state denomination. The whole concept came about as the state in many causes would outlaw a specific denomination and only allow worship in a specific, state sanctioned, denomination.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States#Jefferson.2C_Madison.2C_and_the_.22wall_of_separation.22

To understand why this was so important you have to look back before the Constitution to the Colonies, most of which had an established state religion, and in some cases, the Dutch colony of New Netherland (New York) had even outlawed anything other than the Dutch Reformed Church and imprisoned people (Quakers).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States#Colonial_support_for_separation

This is so clearly seen in the fact that there is a Chaplin for both the Senate and the Congress, even to this day.
http://www.senate.gov/reference/office/chaplain.htm
http://chaplain.house.gov/

The Senate Chaplin page sums it up:
"Throughout the years, the United States Senate has honored the historic separation of Church and State, but not the separation of God and State."

The house is trying to "require notice to and consent of an individual prior to the collection and disclosure of certain personal information relating to that individual." and "To foster transparency about the commercial use of personal information, provide consumers with meaningful choice about the collection, use, and disclosure of such information, and for other purposes.
The FTC is pushing a browser-based do-not-track mechanism similar to the do-not-call list
Followed by numerous non-government codes of ethics and various advertising regulations.

As nice and helpful these moves may seem for us users, think of the current advertising market on the internet and wide array of user information practices that keep web companies on top of the market. The economic blow of these bills may be too much to actually push them through.

The house is trying to "require notice to and consent of an individual prior to the collection and disclosure of certain personal information relating to that individual." and "To foster transparency about the commercial use of personal information, provide consumers with meaningful choice about the collection, use, and disclosure of such information, and for other purposes.
The FTC is pushing a browser-based do-not-track mechanism similar to the do-not-call list
Followed by numerous non-government codes of ethics and various advertising regulations.

As nice and helpful these moves may seem for us users, think of the current advertising market on the internet and wide array of user information practices that keep web companies on top of the market. The economic blow of these bills may be too much to actually push them through.

Use of antibiotics has actually gone up in Denmark. ... Finally, your opinions are not sufficient to refute the evidence I've seen with my own eyes, been shown by other researchers in the field, or have read in the official reports

Since you're obviously too lazy to actually read the actual reports and scientific papers, here is the pertinent extract from the US Congressional summary:

http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100712/Briefing.Memo.Health.2010.7.14.pdf

Denmark, the world’s largest exporter of pork, has taken some of the most aggressive steps in the world in limiting antibiotic use in food-producing animals and in collecting data to evaluate the effects of those steps. From the beginning of 1995 to the end of 1999, the Danish government and Danish animal producers effectively ended the use of antimicrobials for routine prophylaxis (disease-prevention) and growth promotion and took additional steps to discourage unnecessary antimicrobial uses. 15 This resulted in a significant reduction in total quantity of antimicrobials used in food-producing animals, although the reduction was not uniform across all classes of antimicrobials. 16 Overall, the total amount of antimicrobials given to food-producing animals in 2001 was less than half that given in 1994, and the time period during which these animals were exposed to antimicrobials was significantly reduced. 17 Usage has increased somewhat since 2001, but in 2008 was still only 60% of 1994 levels. 18

In summary, [the WHO report] found that Denmark’s termination of growth promoter use:

* Did not affect the levels of the major human pathogens in chickens or pigs

* Reduced the rates of antibiotic resistance in one class of bacteria known as enterococci, noting that this thereby reduced the pool of antibiotic resistance genes that might otherwise be transferred to food-borne pathogens (enterococci ordinarily are not themselves food-borne pathogens).

* Was associated with both increases and decreases in rates of antimicrobial resistance in different food-borne pathogens (noting that the growth-promoting antimicrobials generally are not effective against these organisms, and so terminating their use would not be expected to have a direct effect on rates of resistance in these organisms).

* Did not result in adverse economic effects on chicken producers and had only an approximately 1% adverse economic impact on pig producers, primarily because of decreased weight gain and increased mortality in recently-weaned pigs.

If you actually read some of the other papers on the subject, you'll find that overall, antibiotics may actually increase costs slightly, rather than decrease them. Also, Denmark is the largest pig exporter in the world, so their decision was for a product that is much more economically vital to their economy than meat is to ours. Furthermore, experiments in other countries have yielded pretty much the same results, which is why the EU has adopted this policy overall.

So, stop making things up and start getting the facts. There is no rational basis justifying the use of antibiotics for growth promotion in animals.

Yeah, ask Gabrielle Giffords what she thought of this and how she is spinning these layoffs. BTW, she is the current chair of the Space and Aeronautics sub-committee of the House Science Committee. In other words, she is the the chair of the very group that is responsible for the appropriations of the NASA budget. She was also the one who most voraciously fought the Obama administration on the President's plan for NASA and was most responsible for trying to keep Constellation.... joined by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-1st District Utah) and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) who supported her position much more than what

Seriously, this isn't an "R" vs. "D" problem. In this one case, it is the Obama administration itself that has been asking for these cuts.

Okay, I'll bite, I wonder how a certain political faction that starts with a 'D' will spin this one?

http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/file/NASACompromiseText.pdf

SEC. 1106. WORKFORCE STABILIZATION AND CRITICAL SKILLS PRESERVATION.
(a) LIMITATION.--Prior to receipt by the Congress of the strategy and implementation plan under section 1103(c), none of the funds authorized for use under this Act may be used to transfer the functions, missions, or activities, and associated civil service and contractor positions, from any NASA facility without authorization by the Congress to implement the proposed strategy.
(b) PRESERVATION OF SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES.--The Administrator shall preserve the critical skills and competencies in place at NASA Centers prior to enactment of this Act in order to facilitate timely implementation of the requirements of this Act and to minimize disruption to the workforce.
(c) PROHIBITION.--The Administrator may not implement any reduction-in-force or other involuntary separations of permanent, non-Senior-Executive-Service, civil servant employees any earlier than 6 months after the receipt of the study required under section 1102, except for cause on charges of misconduct, delinquency, or inefficiency.

Yet folks are still layed off after 2 days? I guess "may not implement any reduction-in-force" doesn't mean what it say, or maybe it doesn't apply to the current nasa administrator since he is above the law? What would (or could) the 'D's (or the 'R's for that matter) spin this obvious violation of the law?

Yeah, life is a bitch when you are in a recession and there's no money for your project. That's all there is in this story, nothing less, nothing more. Neither the 'D's or the 'R's care much about government employees or the money that they spend (for example, how about 'D's reducing the military staffing, don't members of the military spend money too and go on unemployment when they don't get a commission). Members of both parties mostly just care if the spendin' is in their state (or district), not what it is being spent on.

Remember dumping money in the private sector creates jobs too (which if you read the following part of the bill, you can see)...

SEC. 401. AFFIRMATION OF POLICY.
The Congress affirms the policy of--
(1) making use of United States commercially provided ISS cargo, crew transportation, and crew rescue services to the maximum extent practicable;
(2) prohibiting, to the extent practicable, any capability of the Space Launch System from competing with United States commercial providers that meet the requirements of this title for the provision of routine ISS crew and cargo transportation and rescue services; and
(3) facilitating, to the maximum extent practicable, the transfer of NASA-developed technologies to United States commercial orbital human space transportation companies in order to help promote the development of commercially provided ISS crew transportation and crew rescue services.

This government technology giveaway to (and prohibition to compete with) companies that are in certain states and districts seems to be a prime example of trying to replace public jobs with private jobs. Might work, might not, but either way some companies in some districts are going to get some free bucks $$$... Hopefully they'll create a job or two instead of shipping them overseas...

Social Security should not be included in the budget at all; it should have its own separate budget not tied to other Federal spending. I pay taxes specifically for Social Security, and they take those taxes and rather than using them to pay retirees as intended, they let the general fund "borrow" the cash interest-free, then bitch that it's not solvent.

As to "welfare", would you mind citing some sources, preferably from a web site with a .gov extension? I found this one which says $313b in 2002. Wikipedia says the federal budget was $2.2 trillion in 2002. So I have no idea where your "welfare is 57% of the federal budget" comes from.

Contact your representative. Ask them to clearly and concisely state their stance on ACTA. If it doesn't comply with your views. Vote. That. Fucker. Out. Tell your friends.

Keep doing it. If enough people continually push the douschers out of office, perhaps they will get the message. Send them welcoming letters. Make them feel the recession (thats supposedly over). In reality, businesses swept off all the excess cream and just went with lower quality, cheaper wages, and cut benefits, and offshoring and now they're profiting again! Yay! No more recession!

Or we can do nothing. Be apathetic, and let our rights continually be trampled on by these asshats. Can we bring some semblence of intellectual curiosity and creative initiative back to America, or piss it away?

If you at least vote, you have some say in the complaining process. And if you have never voted, perhaps now is the time to start. I know I will.

And what the fuck funny can you say about Henry Waxman?

How about just the fact that Henry Waxman looks a lot like a mouse? Just check out his face, it very much resembles a rodent: http://www.henrywaxman.house.gov/

Shouldn't we call him Henry CheeseMan or something like that? The resemblance always makes me laugh.

... and start filing complaints with these helpful people. Also start talking with the various Finance Committees.

I would recommend you read the actual source material before you make statements based on such easily verifiable facts. You're just making an ass out of yourself.

According to the law code, the "Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and Regulations" law does not apply to imported vehicles for "personal use" (i.e. high end foreign cars kept on private property or hauled to car shows) or to cars "at least 25 years old" (i.e. old-timey cars).

Here are some interesting sections for you to read:
CHAPTER 301, SUBCHAPTER III, Section 30142, subsection 5
CHAPTER 301, SUBCHAPTER III, Section 30142, subsection 9

I believe the FCC not enforcing its own policies addresses how NN is/will not working with the phone system. A law is only as good as who polices it.
One example: AT&T and Verizon and others were implicated in aiding the NSA wire tap in 2006 illegally but the FCC ignored it.

http://markey.house.gov/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1610&Itemid=125

If the FCC can't be trusted protecting their own phone system policies, getting them to police NN and not be swayed by politics and special interests is a dream. A great idea being handed over to a bad heavily lobbied and corrupt organization isn't going to help.

Besides the FCC simply being a bad cop to rely on - innovation will suffer. Land line phone companies have invested very little in innovation and their networks. Reduced demand and income (from people that WOULD pay more for tailored access) and loss of people that think they pay too much for minimum access and just canceled the service - means less money for re-investment in the network. Our phone system has little flexibility to adapt itself price-wise.

Imagine if ISPs were required to support only one dial-up speed initially; Or had no flexibility to price points of entry and no ability to have ISPs tailor non-neutral (paid) content to offset their costs to lower entry-level prices. (AOL, Compuserve, etc.)
One could attribute the radical Internet growth a decade ago to the lack of NN, not the need for it.

That might have been the case once but not anymore. Despite the legal monopoly status and no competition in its core letter delivery business the post office is far from being self sufficient and in the last three years is making huge losses which are set to get much worse.

You might wish to read its own most recent report http://oversight.house.gov/images/stories/Hearings/Committee_on_Oversight/2010/041510_Postal_Service/USPS-PG-Report-ActionPlanfortheFuture_March2010.pdf especially the accurately titled chapter Unsustainable Business Model. Even if all its goals are met it will be far from self sufficient: "However, even if it achieves the savings in its management plan, the Postal Service would still face an annual loss of $15 billion in 2020 and cumulative losses of $115 between now and then". The "action plan" doesn't amount to anything more than making few savings here and there while still not getting anywhere close to breaking even. Basically what the USPS itself is saying, with remarkable honesty, is that it is finished and it cannot do anything about it.

"Embrace, extend, extinguish.

Never forget. Microsoft has never helped open source. They have only contributed to their own version of it, which is very much unlike open source as it was defined 10+ years ago."

M$ loved bees, too. See where their satanic majesties' affection subsequently took the bees within a few years.

Actually the second amendment has two portions. It reads as:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

So we first have a part stating a well regulated militia is necessary for a free state. If you look into United Stats code you'll find the definition of a militia:

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

(b) The classes of the militia are - (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

So any male between the ages of 17 and 45 are legally part of the unorganized militia. This comes from the fact that in the beginning of this country there was no standing army as it was thought of as a threat to liberty. Our system here was akin to what Switzerland has to this day.

Going by only the first part, the preamble, of the amendment would still allow for every male between the ages of 17 and 45 to possess arms. But the second part of the amendment specifically states the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It doesn't say the right of a well regulated militia but specifically mentions the people. If you look at writings from our founding fathers you'll note that they believed in the right of every American to bear arms not just those in the militia.

I provided a link to a press release that references a non-partisan letter sent by the Joint Committee on Taxation. That press release happened to be from the Republican Ways and Means committee.

The evidence you ask for was linked in the article that you obviously didn't read:

The bill establishes tax requirements in:
SEC. 401. TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE.

You'll find fines and imprisonment in these sections:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sec_26_00007203----000-.html

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sec_26_00007201----000-.html

Since the above links aren't from official government sources - merely a prestigious law school, you can reference them against this official document:

http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/26C75.txt

And a letter from the Joint Committee on Taxation using Congressional Budget Office data:
http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/106xx/doc10691/hr3962SubsidiesRangelLtr.pdf

Yes, you can - peel the Obama sticker off of your Prius.

...is really just an extension to programs like medicaid.

...with jail-time and fines for non-participation and enforcement by the IRS.

From the press release:
The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years. ...
According to the Congressional Budget Office the lowest cost family non-group plan under the Speaker’s bill would cost $15,000 in 2016.

That's more than I pay now for my entire family. Somehow I doubt that I'll be able to get on the $15,000 plan and that plan certainly won't have the same benefits. Additionally, I doubt that the level of care I receive will be comparable to what I can get now.

I can appreciate apportioned taxes for Government services like military protection. I can appreciate excise taxes (like the gas tax) because I can opt out if I don't want to pay. This health care plan will require that I pay more for less, and that I pay for yours too.

I heard a joke that isn't particularly funny.

McDonalds introduces the Obama meal.
Order whatever you want and the guy behind you pays for it.

Support House Concurrent Resolution 298, "Expressing the sense of Congress that the videotaping or photographing of police engaged in potentially abusive activity in a public place should not be prosecuted in State or Federal courts." US citizens, click here to write your congressional representative.

This to cover up the fact that they'd been giving mortgages with no sound financial reasoning for most of a decade, and were holding a lot of worthless debt and mostly wanted to offload that onto someone else.

Well, maybe that's because the guy in charge of the Financial Services committee said nothing was wrong with subprime lending and resisted reform of Fannie and Freddie. Then he tried to rewrite history and claim that it was W who opposed reform all along. Naturally, Congress turned to this genius and his morally outstanding colleague to create the recently passed financial reform bill-- another 2,000+ page monstrosity of which we're just learning the horrors of now. Basically, the federal government will be able to liquidate whatever firms they deem a "systemic risk". That's enough to frighten anyone who owns a business-- or has a job, frankly.

Or you could require road crews to install non-proprietary conduit when they're already planning to dig up the road so that broadband providers aren't forced to share conduit with Comcast or dig up the streets to install their own.

Here's the bill.

Not that I expect you to accept any of this, as a recent story here has pointed out: the truth only makes some folks believe the lies more; ACORN has been fully exonerated. Just as with Sherrod, Breitbart and the right wing have orchestrated a campaign of lies and destroyed an innocent progressive institution that has done nothing but good in the world. It's disgusting how these underhanded and dishonest bullies actually get their way using the cheapest and dirtiest tactics. To the right wing, this is brutal, all out war, we are the enemy of all that is good and decent, and must be destroyed at any cost. It's sickening how far they will go, and terrifying that their tactics work. Just remember, you reap what you sow.

http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/CRS-ACORN091222.pdf

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/12/acorn_workers_cleared_of_illeg.html

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/11/acorn_got_no_direct_justice_de.html

An electrical engineering professor at SIU studied this a few months ago, and his findings were that the ECU did not, in fact, record correctly. He was able to recreate the problem, and recorded it with a laptop connected to the car's electronics, and while the laptop collected the data, the ECU did not.

Toyota proceeded to drag the man's work and reputation through the mud. I haven't heard any more about it, and can't remember the fellow's name. Anybody with a better memory than me here today, and perhaps a link?

I'm not familiar with this. Googling gave me a name --David W. Gilbert, and a 5 page PDF article.. A summary starts on the last paragraph of page 4.

More results are here indicating that Toyota did harass him.

For example the bousing bubble collapse (which put us in this present poor state) was caused by a 1997 regulation that required banks give loans to people, even if they were unable to pay it back.

Absolutely false. Typical of your single-track, shallow bullshit though.
First of all the CRA - Community Reinvestment Act was a 1977 regulation, not 1997. There weren't even any changes, regulatory or legislative, to the CRA in 1997.

Second the part about not being able to pay it back - the people who qualified for CRA loans were much better vetted than the people getting the subprime loans that were securitized and sold with misleading AAA ratings because CRA doesn't apply to those kinds of banks, only depository instutions, not wall-street banks. For example, most of the CRA loans were not the high-priced kinds indicative of poor credit risks. Furthermore, CRA loans only made up a small part of the market for loans during the bubble years -- more than 50% of subprime loans were granted by non-CRA institutions, another 25% were only partially CRA regulated, which means essentially no CRA loans, while only the remaining ~25% were from banks that were fully regulated by CRA - which means only some fraction their loans were CRA, i.e. only the ones from branches in poorer neighborhoods.

That's a failure CAUSED by regulation, rather than prevented

Totally false, as I have already spelled out, the high-risk loans were the ones subject to the least amount of regulation. CRA did not permit those No-Income, No-Job or Assets (NINJA) loans that have had nearly a 100% default rate, nor any of those other low-doc loans that have also had extremely high default rates.

I suggest you try blaming teh gays instead. There is less evidence to refute that.

I'm sure none of this will sink in and you will continue to repeat the bullshit that matches your preconceived bias. But at least anyone else reading along will understand just what a fucking looney you really are.

But then again, I suppose cyberpunk is more about a "dirty and gritty" than believable future.

.. Future, eh? You could make a tidy business today melting down nickels and pennies to increase their value, so why do hypothetical business models about defacing currency into bogroll interest you more than real life opportunities defacing currencies into shiny metals?

At least one congresscritter has proposed legislation to that effect.

"When consumers have choice they will be more effective than "regulation" ever will be. The problem is regulation almost always reduces chocie."

There will never be choice in the US regarding internet. At least, not until some insanely different technology is invented. Currently, it doesn't look like that is going to happen in our lifetimes.

Why?

It costs money. A lot of it. Running multiple identical cables to your door, just for the sake of competition, is not efficient nor practical, and it's not going to happen for good reason. Deregulation just means that the people who own the one or two cables that do exist are free to rape you for all you can reasonably give them, and give you as little as they want in return. We are ALREADY seeing this happen, so don't go claiming it is somehow not the case.

Is there problem regulation? Yes, there is. There is a lot wrong with giving out artificial monopolies to ISPs in places where none is needed to motivate installation of the wires, and I have horrible problems with the fact that it seems cities cannot give internet to their population without being sued by some private company. On the other hand, I'm sure you think that cities providing internet is evil, because it runs counter to "the free market..."

Get some perspective, though. A few pieces of bad regulation does not make the whole concept bad, nor does it make the alternative any better. Libertarians would love to believe that if the government didn't exist, everything would be great: sorry, no. The government you at least superficially elect, but monopolies you have no say in. You cannot vote with your feet if you have only one option. It has been proven time and again that when infrastructure is handed to private interests, with no public competition, bad things happen. 10 points to you if you can figure out why that's the case.

'Our energy sector is insanely regulated also. The BP oil spill wasn't caused because of deregulation but because the morons "we" elected to congress thought it was a good idea to artificially cap liability.'

And which party did you elect to do that? Oh, right, both the evil democrats and the free-market republicans. Gee, I wonder if they had any ulterior motive...

Or how about the current one, that is working against that?

Kevin Costner's machines were originally developed by the Idaho National Laboratory for nuclear fuel reprocessing.

http://www.house.gov/jec/publications/110/rr110-2.pdf

Russia and Canadian oil costs much more than OPEC oil and is harder to retrieve. OPEC dominates with cheap oil and by restricting their output inflates the price. OPEC could flood the market with cheap basically eliminating Russia, Canada and most other players but by restricting supply they make more money now and will continue to for the foreseeable future.

http://globalwarming.house.gov/spillcam this should make it obvious that the cap isn't working.

The results.

The author didn't state it elegantly, but he still made the point -- Chinese industrial espionage is very real, is here now, and it is state-sponsored. China views hacking not only as a fast-track to becoming an industrial superpower, but they view it as a method of becoming a military superpower, too. A good part of China's military buildup involves locating and training talented young people, as well as hiring the already established hacker-underground folk for military purposes. They figure (probably correctly) that they are nowhere near capable of competing with the US military on a technological front, but if they can shut down our command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) networks (not coincidentally, this is also why they developed the satellite-killing missile), then they have essentially shut us down, especially for any military response to an attack on Taiwan.

Here are just a few examples of the many, many already known about cases of Chinese espionage.
- The infamous Cox Report (regarding the PRC stealing our most advanced nuclear weapon designs)
- The well-known Google attacks
- A Boeing engineer was sentenced to 15 years for espionage, selling rocket technology to the PRC
- The FBI caught an American with very high security clearance and a Taiwanese-American selling classified information about weapon-sales to Taiwan to the PRC.
- The British MI5 released a report detailing all kinds of Chinese espionage. For example, high-profile UK businessmen have been approached by PRC spies with lavish gifts which include USB flash drives infected with trojans to steal information, and in 2008, an aide to Gordon Brown had his Blackberry stolen after a sexy Chinese woman approached him in Beijing -- a classic, almost too classic to be true, Soviet-style tactic. Other diplomats, too, have been sexually blackmailed by the PRC to divulge information.
- Here is a research paper by Northrop Grumman regarding China's cyber-warfare abilities, 88 pages filled with the stuff. Turn to page 67 for a "Timeline of Significant Chinese Related Cyber Events 1999-Present," let alone the details of the rest of the paper which shows the large effort by the PRC to improve their cyber-warfare and espionage abilities.

Here are some more excerpts:

MI5 Report

The MI5 report described how China’s computer hacking campaign had attacked British defense, energy, communications and manufacturing companies, as well as public relations companies and international law firms. The document explicitly warned British executives dealing with China against so-called honey trap methods in which it said the Chinese tried to cultivate personal relationships, “often using lavish hospitality and flattery,” either within China or abroad.

“Chinese intelligence services have also been known to exploit vulnerabilities such as sexual relationships and illegal activities to pressurize individuals to cooperate with them,” it warned. “Hotel rooms in major Chinese cities such as Beijing and Shanghai which have been frequented by foreigners are likely to be bugged. Hotel rooms have been searched while the occupants are out of the room.”