Slashdot Mirror
The U.S. Careens Over the Fiscal Cliff, Reaching Only Half of a Deal
New submitter Jetra wrote with word that the House of Representatives failed to vote on the "fiscal cliff" deal before midnight, technically sending the U.S. over the fiscal cliff. The White House and Senate, however, reached an agreement at the last minute to allow for some tax increases, and a House vote approving it is expected in the next day or two: "The agreement came together after negotiators cleared two final hurdles involving the estate tax and automatic spending cuts set to hit the Pentagon and other federal agencies later this week. Republicans gave ground on the spending cuts, known as the sequester, by agreeing to a two-month delay paid for in part with fresh tax revenue, a condition they had resisted. White House officials yielded to GOP wishes on how to handle estate taxes, aides said."
The battle over required spending cuts has predictably been delayed for another day, making the deal far from complete.
There is exactly 1 budget to be balanced, and that is the energy budget of the planet. All the rest is just accounting tricks.
And even the energy budget can be changed, depending on the willingness to invest in space infrastructure.
Also, yes, liberals, in the American sense, are more clever than everybody else. Because everyone who believes that somehow there is a value greater than individual human happyness obtained at the expense of the happyness of no other human (with no future discounting) is a dick, but is also an idiot because he is discounting his own happyness or that of his children friends or relatives. Discounting the happyness of unknown strangers present or future is also not nice, but also idiotic, because you are betting against other humans potentially helping you in return -- against all observable odds.
There is the case where you have no children, friend or relative, but then maximising the happyness of psychopaths seems a terrible idea.
In short "conservative" is just short hand for "I either did not think very deeply about it, or I am thinking wrong (aka I am incapable of seeing the point of view of a random stranger)".