While it's nice to imagine scientists always picking pertinent things to work on that will benefit humanity with their unlimited budget, you're also going to run into the Duke Nukem Forever scientists that assume that they have an infinite budget so they can continually scrap research, start over fresh and never get anywhere. You'll get the John Romero scientists who "have a new way guaranteed to pay off" that ultimately just suck funding away from other better ventures. You'll get the pet project scientists that want to do things like study belly button lint. You'll get engineers overdesigning things and never reaching completion because there's always one more thing to perfect or add.
At some point, you have to have a manager direct the spending. That's precisely what DARPA does. Just throwing money out there in the hopes that someone will do something positive with it isn't going to be anywhere near efficient since you'll have everyone coming out of the woodwork, especially the above types, to eat up the funding while real, viable research still gets ignored because the funding was wasted. That's not to say the NSF couldn't act as a director, just that there has to be limits... and they're harder to define outside the scope of the military, which has some pretty clear purposes for its existence, so it focuses primarily on them. The NSF has no such purpose in mind, just general science research, so it would be harder to direct. Does the NSF fund genetic research or renewable energy with this $10 million? $5 million to each won't be enough to get either project started, so they need to fund one or the other. They can't just allocate money infinitely.
Translated: The Republicans need to be like Democrats. They tried that last year, running the primary candidate who most closely resembles the Democrats. And he got fewer votes than GWB did in 2004.
The Republicans need to move farther to the right (the neo-cons aren't the far right, they're the authoritarian middle that will do anything domestically to promote their own power globally). Actually be the party of smaller government and with smaller government, promote more freedom.
I live in NY. I'm pretty hard pressed to find a Republican here that is actually like the conservative base of the national party. After Pataki's gubernatorial terms, I couldn't tell whether he was actually a Democrat or Republican. He raised taxes, raised spending, clamped down on gun rights, etc. Spitzer and now Paterson are raising taxes, raising spending and clamping down on gun rights. Cuomo before Pataki was all about raising taxes and raising spending. Yet, you think the solution is more Patakis and Spendinators for the GOP. All you will do is chase the base further out of the party. If the GOP goes that route, you might as well call them the Whigs and we'll see you with a new party in 2016 or 2020.
Wednesday, there were 250k or more working class people out there on a work day protesting high taxes AND high spending. I spoke here in Rochester and we did our best to focus the rally on the economic issues. Yeah, there were a few fringe people holding religious signs and whatnot, but at least 99% of the people there were there to voice their concerns over the way our government is going economically. There were people of every race, every income bracket, every age group and every party there. There is a huge groundswell brewing demanding fiscal responsibility. THAT is where the GOP needs to go and it stands in stark contrast to the moderate wing of the party (the wing that is glad to give you Medicare D, NCLB and TARP). It also happens to be where the "talk show crowd" happens to stand.
Me? I'm an atheist, I oppose abortion and amnesty for illegal aliens. I'm a Constitutionalist and think federal spending needs to be in line with the Constitution (services need to be provided at the state level, not the federal level). I oppose federal welfare, be it corporate or personal. I oppose free trade. I see economic freedom to be as important as any other freedom because you can't be free if you aren't free to control your wallet. I don't vote on any single issue, but rather a combination of issues... however, I can count the number of Democrats I've voted for in the last 14 years on one hand because most of them are on the wrong side of issues I care about.
I voted for Bush twice (lesser of two evils the second time but I actually believed in what he campaigned on the first time) but refused to vote for McCain last year because he's on the wrong side of too many issues (and I'm sick of voting for the lesser evil since it still promotes evil). If the GOP wants my vote back, they need to differentiate themselves from the Democrats, not solidify their position as Democrat-lite as you think they should. I want a party of a different coin, not simply the opposite side of the same coin. Based on my experience this week, there's a lot of people out there like me, some of whom have R, some D, some L, or some other and/or no party affiliation. The GOP will never find itself in power again so long as they don't re-establish an identity of their own.
If you want to every see how stupid partisan politics is, look at how the republicans viewed McCain before he won the primary. He was hated by a decent amount of the party. He wins the primary and suddenly becomes the new "Maverick Conservative!"
I'm one of those Republicans that hated McCain before he won the primary... I'm also one of those Republicans that voted third party because I refused to support McCain since I believed he was just as bad as Obama. I took a lot of heat from people on the right and independents that hated Obama for "voting Obama by voting third party." After the neo-cons destroyed any semblance of actual conservatism in the GOP, the last thing I wanted was another asshole waving my party's flag while taking us down the wrong path, destroying what little was left. We've taken enough blame for the last years, especially since most people seem to forget that the Democrats controlled Congress outright for the last two of those years and the Senate off and on for the majority of it.
I want a clean break and a return to the Constitutional principles that conservatives and libertarians believe in, not the moderate neocon agenda (and yes, the neo-cons are the moderates, born of an internationalist Democratic faction that broke away in the 50s... they'll gladly accept positions of the left (see Bush and McCain considering amnesty, Medicare D and McCain's work with Joe Lieberman and Ted Kennedy) or right (see free trade, tax cuts, gun ownership, etc) if they think it'll further their globalist agenda. It is those of us that want a smaller federal government that respects our freedom which are in the extreme position of the party).
You know you're out of tune with the country when your bastard member wins enough primaries to become your party's candidate.
McCain became the candidate due to the frontloading of open primaries in large states that let a lot of non-Republicans pick the Republican party candidate in combination with the actual Republicans being split between 5 different candidates (Rudy was fiscally conservative and a good choice on national security but was socially liberal, Fred Thompson was good overall but was largely apathetic, Mitt Romney was great economically but wavered on abortion, seemed too perfect and is Mormon, Mike Huckabee was good socially but was a tax and spend Republican, and Ron Paul was great domestically but horrible in foreign affairs, and John McCain was near universally hated by the base (to the point where he had to almost abandon his campaign before getting non-Republicans to vote for him in the early primaries)). Each of them were splitting the party vote, while McCain was picking up the outsiders to take the winner takes all primaries (creating a landslide victory by getting as little as 25-30% of the vote in some states).
Truth is, the Republicans got stuck with a candidate they didn't want and the GOP needs to fix their primary system if they don't want that to happen again in the future. Michael Steele is the wrong guy (hey look, we need a black guy too!) to lead the GOP and is only going to screw up the national party more over the next couple years. The guy can't even be consistent, constantly saying something stupid than apologizing, meanwhile all of the party's principles are for sale if getting rid of them will just bring in a few more independents while alienating the existing base in larger numbers on the assumption they won't go somewhere else (which is how the Republican Party was born... The Whigs ended up with a leader that compromised their party's ideals and within a couple election cycles, they were gone.
Rallying for constitutional rights is great, but your post is instead a rant against welfare state in general, and socialized healthcare in particular. Which, by the way, is perfectly fine in the framework of the original U.S. Constitution - provided that it implemented by the States, and not the federal government. By the tone of your post, however, you seem to have issues with the very idea of those things, and not with specific implementations as they exist today in the U.S.
If states or counties want to implement them, that's fine with me... but as things stand, they are implemented at the federal level completely in spite of the Constitution. The point of the federal government, at least the one of the United States, is to handle foreign and interstate affairs and to ensure a basic set of rights is protected. The federal government is too broad to provide anything more detailed than that because everything it does infringes on one group for the benefit of another. If NY wants to be a welfare state, good for NY... but I should be free to move to another state that doesn't want to be a welfare state while ensuring that I still have the basic protections provided for in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
And as someone that lives in NY, I can tell you that the state is run for the purposes of NYC and it's surrounding region at the expense of the rest of the state. Yes, NYC pays the state more money than it receives, but it controls all of the statewide offices and issues mandates to the rest of the state, which is largely rural and agricultural, against the wishes of those residents residents. NYC has largely been fine with that arrangement since, as the financial capital of the US and, arguably, the world, it remained immune to its own heavy hand. Now they're experiencing just a touch of what they've put Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and other communities around the state through, and only now do they want to do something (sadly, their something is to magnify the very things they've been doing to economically destroy the rest of the state).
So yes, I'm very much opposed to a distant government interfering in my life, especially the federal government. Since you don't live in the US, I'm assuming you're probably in Europe... how would you like some of the UK's insane big brother laws imposed across the entire EU? If the British approve of it, that's fine, but that doesn't mean it should be imposed on the French and Dutch.
Starting with Lincoln, the concept of States Rights began to erode and that was furthered by most of the Presidents since, most notably by FDR and the way he ran roughshod over the Constitution. The name of our country says it all, the United States of America. We are a bunch of states united into a country for a common purpose, not a country divided into regions called states for administrative ease.
THAT is my biggest problem. Today, the federal government overtaxes the people and then tells states what they have to do if they're going to get the money the federal government took from that state's citizens. You want federal highway dollars? You have to set your drinking age to 21 and require everyone to wear seatbelts. You want school lunch money? You have to implement NCLB regardless of what the kids' parents think. Instead of communities running themselves based on their local interests, the federal government tells them how they will be run... and if you complain, well, you're one voice out of about 685,000, so they'll listen to you real soon.
And that is why I refuse to support a federal welfare state... because you don't matter at all. You're a number to a bureaucrat that doesn't care whether you exist or not unless you are wealthy, powerful or well connected. The people that founded the United States knew that as well, which is precisely why the Constitution is an explicitly limited grant of power, specifically stating that any power not granting to it belongs to the people and states. Sadly, few people seem to know much about the Ninth and Tenth Amendments these days and even fewer have read the Federalist Papers.
See the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937. FDR kept trying to ram his legislation through and the SCOTUS kept ruling it Unconstitutional. FDR, along with his Democratic majority in Congress, threatened to keep adding justices to the Supreme Court until they would rule the way he wanted them to.
The threat was enough and the SCOTUS rolled over shortly thereafter, allowing a single party Congress/Executive to force Unconstitutional legislation through, unabated by the checks of the SCOTUS. Not long after, sitting Justices began to die and/or retire, Roosevelt added his toadies and, well, we've been stuck with the damage done to our country ever since (The Ponzi Social Security system and its impending collapse, Japanese internment, fiat currency, inflation and government debt, the Wagner Act, etc). Many of the abuses in government we see today stem from the decisions made back in the late 30s and early 40s...
Now we're seeing the threat of socialized medicine being forced onto us through subersive means, deliberately to avoid the process of debate set up in the Constitution, and I have no confidence that the SCOTUS will overturn it, especially not if one of the more constructionalist members should vacate the court for some reason and be replaced by someone more amenable to those types of policies. Lately, we've seen a rise in the court ignoring the Constitution and favoring international standards instead of our own. After 220ish years, the checks and balances are almost gone and the traitors in power on both sides have found out how to subvert the supreme law of the land...
Actually, if you listened to Limbaugh at all, you'll know that he can't stand McCain (and, in fact, has been publicly feuding with him for years)... and right up through the election, failed to fully endorse McCain, more or less endorsing voting "against Obama" instead. The whole reason why he created Operation Chaos to mess with the Democrats was because he was dissatisfied with the outcome of the Republican primary.
I'll grant you Hannity though... he was more than happy to carry McCain's water.
Very few people in the media, be it radio, television, print, or internet, gave a fair and honest assessment of the candidates. Simple fact is, the media is made up of people, people that have their own biases. At least Hannity and Limbaugh (and Olbermann, Maddow, etc) are honest about where they're coming from and don't try to pretend they're impartial, which is more than you can say for most of the stooges trying to tell us what to think.
slowed debt growth is still debt growth... and the explosion against GDP would have happened regardless of who was in the White House in 2001. There was no way to mediate the effects of the dotcom crash and 9/11 on the economy other than to let time take its course.
But Clinton's claim that the debt would have been eliminated within 10 years was a lie, even with the best of projections and if 9/11 never happened. It was political grandstanding, that's all. Every administration does it, just as Obama is fighting with the Congressional Budget Office over whether his budget will add $5 trillion or $9 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years... and yet, somehow, he's promising to cut the deficit in half of Bush's last one within 4 years despite what the projections actually look like based on his numbers as well as the CBO's (not to mention the $2 trillion deficit he's giving us for this year in addition to new/expanded entitlements that we'll be forced to pay for in perpetuity). It's just another lie that is blatantly obvious to anyone that is willing to dig deeper than a press release.
And just some food for thought, just the interest from Obama's stimulus plan(s) will cost as much to repay as the entirety of Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns under Bush cost...
Now is a good time to work toward a third party, while the Republican machine is down for repairs. There are a lot of moderate Republicans who are worried that Rush might really be the current head of the Party, and that the Dittoheads, Religious Reich, and the Neocon Fascists have damaged the Republican Party to the point where it would be better to start over than to try to surgically excise the corrupted parts and repair the damages.
A new party more moderate than the Libertarian hard core but based on the same principles of reason would attract a lot of interest from disenfranchised Republicans, who are legion. Do it right, and it would attract a fair number of Democrats, too.
Not for nothing, but the neo-con faction IS the moderate faction within the Republican Party... conservatives are for a reduced, near powerless federal government (though not to the point that libertarians advocate)... we are the extreme. It is the neo-con wing which is for bigger government (more international intervention, welfare (of a corporate nature), welfare (of a personal nature, see Medicare D), the War on Whatever, etc) Seriously, look up the history of the neo-con movement. They were pissed off Democrats that were upset that we weren't wielding our influence internationally and are completely amenable to selling out conservatism to achieve those goals.
I'm somewhat of a mix of conservative/libertarian/Constitutionalist who is completely dissatisfied with the Republican Party, who voted for a third party in this last election rather than vote for McCain (who is the epitome of a neo-con, willing to sell out any principle he claims to have to empower himself), led a tea party in New York to protest the ridiculus fiscal policies of our state and federal governments (and have another one planned for April 15th), etc. If the Republican Party doesn't want to honor its conservative base, that's fine... this Republican is ready for a third party and the GOP, with its neo-con masters, can go the way of the Whigs before it.
But make no mistake... the neo-cons aren't the extreme, the neo-cons are the result of straddling the middle trying to be everything to everyone in order to expand their own power. As a conservative, I want to eliminate about 75% of the federal government... THAT is the extreme. Neo-cons are perfectly willing to grow it, just at a slower pace than the left, they're basically just Democrat-lite. And before you say Democrats aren't international military interventionists, all I've got to say is Vietnam, Kosovo, Bosnia, etc were all policies of the left. They only make a stink when the "other" party does it.
A statement issued by the administration on December 28, 2000, ignoring that we were in a recession at the time, the dotcom bubble was collapsing, Enron was about to go down, 9/11 would happen 9 months later, etc.
The economy, and with it, the budget since it was based on projections that never happened in reality, would have been screwed up whether Clinton had served 4 terms instead of two. And the truth of the matter is, despite accounting tricks showing a surplus for the final years of the Clinton Administration with a Republican Congress, the national debt continued to increase the entire time he was in office.
The Census Bureau has been part of the (executive) Department of the Interior since 1902. Obama just made the head a larger post. I don't think the census has much affect upon the presidential race, since who lives where in states or even the number of people has little to do with electoral college votes right now. Rather, it has a lot to do with Congressional elections, so if you're arguing a conflict of interest I think you have it backwards.
The number of electors a state gets is based directly upon it's population (with the exception that no state can have fewer than 3). So, you give the states that heavily favor your party more electors by subtracting them away from states that don't favor you explicitly. If you're a Democrat, Texas, Florida, Arizona, etc all lose a couple votes while California, New York, Massachusetts, etc all gain a couple. If you're a Republican, Texas, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Georgia, etc gain a couple while New York, California, Massachussets, etc lose a couple.
Not only that, but the 2010 census, conducted by the Obama administration, will be what determines who gets the electors in his 2012 re-election campaign.
So yes, while it will affect Congress, it does have an effect on the Presidency too... and that is why it is important to keep it as independent as possible rather than allow it to be politicized in any way, either through manipulation from the White House or special interest groups (on either side) out on the street.
That being said, Obama is going to regret this next time he needs to get out the vote.
Or what, you're going to vote to be ass raped by the evil guy on the right? Why do you think people on the right didn't vote for Gore or Kerry? In 2000, we voted for Bush hoping he wouldn't give us the anal raping that we knew Gore would and in 2004, we voted to take what we were already getting rather than the likelihood of getting it worse from Kerry.
This last election, I voted third party... until we start voting for what we believe in rather than voting to keep the other guy out of office, we're going to continue to get raped.
What none of you realize is that we're currently in an incredibly massive DEflationary period. The money supply is shrinking by FORTY TRILLION DOLLARS. That's the derivatives market dying. It was all imaginary money from the beginning, but the economy treats fake dollars just like real dollars.
What is shrinking is virtual dollars... dollars that exist because demand increased value and stocks, commodities, etc became worth more tha the monetary base allows. The amount of those dollars fluctuates up and down since they don't actually exist. Instead of basing deflation on imaginary dollars, let's look at the actual price of goods...
Food is up, energy is up, housing is down (but property taxes are up and rent is unchanged). To compound that, interest is up as well, which is especially important since unemployment is up and people will need to borrow money to meet their day to day needs. The Federal Reserve has doubled the actual money supply (M0) in the last 6 months, which means real inflation is occuring whether you realize it or not. Further, the US is also growing its debt at an astronomical rate and the dollar is losing value on the international market as more foreign interests decide not to buy them since they believe they will weaken.
What we're looking at is a situation not unlike 1920s Germany... The government owes massive debts to foreign interests and we're going to trigger hyperinflation in an attempt to solve our internal stagnation while simultaneously making our debts worthless. If you think it can't happen here, study the Weimar Republic a bit more first...
You do realize that in certain (urban) areas, the vast majority of people can't afford houses with yards? Are you seriously proposing a society where the only places children have to play are (sneaking into) McDonald's play areas?
The premise of your original post was that only the government can provide "free" parks. I pointed out that there are privately owned parks which are also free, and that you're forced to pay for those "free" government parks whether or not you want them and regardless if you intend to use them.
The key difference is, we're all forced to pay for your park. Nobody is forced to pay for the park run by the generosity of another individiual. That's something the big government types like you don't grasp unless you're complaining about the government spending money on something YOU don't like, and only in that case, is the government being abusive. Any time you force people to pay for something they don't want against their will, you're being tyrannical. Government is a tool to protect our rights, not to force your beliefs and priorities onto someone else.
The essence of capitalism is that the owners of capital (that is, the rich) get paid just for owning the capital (being rich).
The rich don't make money for simply owning something, they make money for investing their asset. Land left undeveloped doens't make the owner money. In fact, if there are property taxes, undeveloped land COSTS them money, possibly even faster than the land appreciates.
Currently the US government is around 10 trillion in debt. But what if the US government could save up 30 trillion and what if the government could get a 10% real return on investment? That would be 3 trillion per year which would be enough to fund the entire federal government - no more federal income taxes.
The government's debt problem isn't in how much they tax, it's in how much they spend. We've been living beyond our means for decades, spending like drunken sailors in the best of times and doubling down with borrowed money like a gambler chasing lost money in the worst of times. Proposing even more spending and the government taking on more functions will only further drive us into the hole.
Sure... there's no such thing as free health care and IT isn't going to provide it either. You can bemoan the rich capitalists in the health care industry for making a profit by owning something, but that doesn't mean government would do any better nor that government is the only means which can provide the service.
Under the current state of things, I have the freedom to decide what type of coverage I want, who my doctor will be, etc. Under a government run system, there is a monopoly and that freedom is taken away for everyone but the most wealthy who can afford to buy a better system outside of the one mandated upon the little people. If government wants to take more than I'm willing to pay, I have no choice in the matter. It's nothing short of an abrogation of your freedoms.
Now, where does healthcare IT come into play? Government controlled ownership of the healthcare database infrastructure is a step toward government acquisition of the sector, and is a violation of my Fourth Amendment rights to be secure in my person and papers from an unreasonable search by the government. Government wants to set a standard for intercommunication between health care providers? I'm fine with that, though I think a better measure would be an independent standards body... Government wants to be the standard? That I have a problem with.
There's no such thing as a free park... somewhere, someone is paying for it even if they don't realize it. There's also no such thing as a free health care database, even if the government is running it, and there are huge implications that come along with that. Corporations may be uncaring, but the government, especially the federal government, is no different... and they have a long history of using the information they do control against people they don't like. At least with a private system, I can opt out or create my own insurance (through a HSA) of I'm not satisfied with the other options available to me... not so easy with Uncle Sam or I wouldn't be paying into Social Security right now even though I know it'll be bankrupt before I see a dime from it. Ditto for this "stimulus" package that our grandkids will be paying for because we're too greedy to take responsibility for our own actions. The idea that government spending money creates more jobs and more GDP is just the economic version of perpetual motion.
My understanding was that the play areas at fast food restaurants were only for paying customers: if you didn't buy food, technically you were trespassing on private property. But maybe I'm misinformed; do you have a link to the McDonalds website where they indicate that their play areas are available to the general public (who don't buy food)?
We had breakfast, so I did pay... but there wasn't anyone there demanding to see proof of payment to use them. In fact, in the hour that she spent playing on there, no staff came in to check to see if anyone had bought anything. In fact, there were people in there that didn't buy anything.
In McDonald's case, at least this one, the policy is to generate good will and hope that good will translates into increased sales... kinda like advertising, though without going out of their way to annoy you. Other big companies do similar things, like when you're walking through a Sam's Club, BJs, your supermarket, or whatever and they give you a free sample. It's a form of advertising to get you to buy their product. I've gotten the free samples without buying a thing. Yes, when I do buy something, a portion of that goes into providing those freebies, be it a piece of pizza or an hour of play time... but it happens because I choose to buy that item, not because the money was forcibly extracted from my wallet regardless of my willingness to pay.
You're kind of missing the point - which was that "capital" (in this case, the land itself) produces value.
Only so long as that capital is in demand. Raise property taxes too high and the value of the land is diminished. Further, property taxes actually mean that you no longer own the property, you are renting it from the state/county/town. Fail to pay your taxes and they will confiscate your property.
But let's look at your point that the actual play structures cost money. OK, fair enough, in a public park these play structures are paid for by tax payers.
But who pays for these structures at McDonalds? The play structures didn't just spring into existence out of thin air. The CEO of McDonalds didn't even build them as a hobby in his spare time. Oh, that's right, they are paid for as increased cost of the food at McDonalds.
People who bought food at McDonalds paid for the play area that your niece was playing in "for free". Did the people who bought food have a choice? Did McDonalds say "How would you like to pay extra for your burger so we can build a play area for some random guy's niece?" Hardly.
You do have the choice... you can opt to buy food at McDonalds, go across the street to Burger King, stop at the local family owned diner or cook your meal at home. Government removes that choice and forces you to pay against your will for things you absolutely would not support. Your only choices are to move to another government or to accept the repercussions (confiscation of property, jail time for tax evasion, etc).
The town citizenship voted against buying the land, developing it and building a park. The town board did it anyway at an even higher cost than what the taxpayers turned down. Our option to go somewhere else if we didn't want to pay for it (by voting it down and using the existing facillities or our own yards) was outright ignored.
When it comes to the Iraq war, I'd agree with you. If Bush's friends in the oil industry wanted the USA to invade Iraq they should have paid for it themselves. In fact, I'd like to see a law that, in the future, the US military will be funded exclusively with private donations.
So when the government does something YOU don't like, we should have the option. When the government does something I don't like, I have to accept it and say good job?
That's part of why we're supposed to have a weak federal government... because it is too broad of a brush and it is too easy to punish people via government
I took my kid to a public park the other day. We showed up, played on the play structures for while and left.
Would that have been possible if the land had been owned by a private corporation? Sort of. It's possible the corporation would have set up some kind of pay-to-play situation. Some of the cost would probably go to maintaining the play structures but some of the cost would also go the owners (or management) of the corporation as "profits".
The essence of capitalism is that some people get paid for doing work and other people get paid for owning "capital" - that's right, some people get paid for doing nothing other than being rich. So, who gets paid for owning the land the park is on? If the land is owned privately, then whoever owns the land gets paid for doing nothing other than owning the land. If the land is owned publicly then no one really gets paid, per se, but people who use the park don't have to pay some rich person for doing nothing other than owing the land.
I stopped at McDonalds with my niece a couple weeks ago... if you haven't heard of them, they're a huge multi-national corporation (and I happen to own no stock in them, so I have no ownership claim). Get this, they had a play area complete with slides, video games, etc and I didn't have to pay a thing for my neice to use it. There wasn't even an evil overlord there demanding that I buy some food to use it.
Private ownership doesn't mean you have to pay some evil capitalist to use their property. Some of those evil bastards may allow free usage to garner some good will or simply out of charity. The key is, they do it of their own free will without forcing anyone else to pay for it.
Contrast that to the government... Back about a decade ago, my town wanted to buy "the last undeveloped piece of land" on our lake. It went up for a referendum and the people of the town voted it down. The town board turned around and bought it anyway, at an even higher price, against the will of the people, and then promptly developed it, killing that whole notion of it being the only undeveloped piece of property on the lake and also contradicting the will of the people. Thousands of people that said no were forced to pay for something they didn't want and yet it only benefits a handful of people (they turned it into a half assed flower garden right next to another park four times its size and virtually nobody goes over there unless they're using it for a wedding). Oh, and the town board put in memorials dedicated to their friends and family (might not be a private residence, but I'd say the memorials are an exclusive benefit of the politicians).
You most certainly do have to pay for that park even if they don't charge an entrance fee. One way or another, depending on where you live, you pay a tax to finance that park. In my case, I paid $422 for my portion of that park that nobody wanted just to buy it... and then another $100 or so to develop it. And then there's another amount I pay every year to maintain it (I don't know the budget line on that off the top of my head, but we'll call it another $20 a year). How exactly is that free?
So which is the more equitable system for the little guy, being forced to pay for something they clearly didn't want (in conjunction with a majority of their neighbors) through government monopolization or being allowed to use something for free because of the generosity of a capitalist? Not all capitalists are so generous, but just because the government owns something doesn't mean you aren't paying for it... and you have virtually no choice in the matter, so I'd say the government isn't all that generous either. But at least with the capitalist, I have an actual choice in the matter.
That's just it... McCain IS consistent. He consistently does what he thinks will give him praise from the people he's currently seeking it from. He'll pander to the biases of people in the media when he wants their attention (like with campaign finance reform), to illegal immigrants if he's trying to get their votes (partnered with Ted Kennedy on a bill proposing amnesty and Social Security benefits), to panicked Americans when he wants their votes (rushing back to DC to push for the TARP bailout last September that people in his own party didn't want), to financial conservatives (doesn't request earmarks despite pushing for TARP), etc.
McCain holds no firm view on any issue, only on what he thinks will benefit him personally at the time. The guy loves being adored more than anything else. As a conservative/libertarian type, he was the one candidate going into the election cycle that I was absolutely firmly against voting for in a general election. He got 3 million fewer votes than GWB did in 2004 and a large amount of that loss wasn't necessarily disillusioned people thinking Obama was any better (because he doesn't even pretend to share any views with people like me), but because we already knew McCain was full of crap and, if elected, would turn his back on us like he's done so many times before. Bill Clinton could stick his finger in the wind and be everything to everybody. McCain tries to do the same and just pisses everyone off instead.
Why do you assume I even care about Israel, are you that much of an Israeli hater? Israel has virtually no affect on my life and whether or not we support them, there will be fighting in the Middle East as there has been for thousands of years. If it isn't the Muslims fighting the Jews, it's the Arabs fighting each other.
s far as major news goes, the possible ethnic clensing (because honestly, does it really look like anything else?) of the gaza strip seems like the most likely path to WW3, especially in the throes of a global economic collapse.
I've heard "that's going to start WW3" so many times that it's pretty safe to say nothing is going to start WW3 until someone actually wants to start WW3. WW3 was going to start under Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Reagan and GWB according to the people that think they're smarter than everyone else. It's almost as ridiculous as "this is the year of Linux on the desktop"
We were arguing about congress not being productive, right?
We were talking about Congress being in session and the news not covering the news in favor of the latest poptart scandal, but apparently, you think I'm busy bashing Gaza or Israel instead even though I deliberately avoided mentioning them precisely because you had already mentioned that it should be news.
But yes, it is a slow news season for the US media, which was my original point.
It's not a slow news season, the media simply refuses to cover the news in favor of tabloid crap because the media isn't in the business of disseminating news, they're in the business of drawing as many eyeballs as they can to sell ads to. The real news isn't as profitable as the celebtard crap, but that doesn't mean there isn't any real news.
Why yes, I can be sharp tounged to such an inflammatory post as yours.
Maybe rather than kneejerk and lash out, you should stop and think first... and there wasn't anything all that inflammatory in my post unless you consider being told that you're wrong (with examples) being inflammatory.
Uh, Congress already met to swear in the new members, count the Electoral College votes to declare who the next President will be, work on legislation (including a Sunday session on the 11th with a successful motion to bring an earmark laden omnibus bill to a vote) and is holding hearings on confirming Obama's top staff this week. I'd hardly call that out of session.
This is just "slow news season" filler crap to fill the airwaves while CNN, etc idle about.
There's also plenty of important news going on, including possible pay for play accusations against Hillary, Obama's Treasury Secretary nominee, Timothy Geithner, evading paying his own taxes and possibly hiring an illegal alien, the current economic news, the SCOTUS hearing a case about whether or not police have to stop interrogations after someone requests their lawyer, the Russians cutting off gas supplies to Europe, etc. Just because the news prefers to air Golden Globe speeches, discussing Ben Afflick's baby's name or blabbing on about American Idol doesn't mean that there isn't stuff to cover, it simply means people in the newsrooms are out to gossip since it draws readers/viewers/listeners better than the serious news does. I mean... Congress is out until the inauguration, right?
and let us not forget back in 1998 or so, when the state was set to pass its first on-time budget in almost 20 years... then Sheldon Silver and his cadre of NYC assemblymen blocked it, holding the state hostage until we would re-authorize rent control for NYC, costing the state tens of millions of dollars, throwing school budgets out of whack, etc in the process.
I'm sick of living in a state where one city controls millions of people that live outside it that the city residents could care less about. For years, NYC has decimated the economy of the rest of the state, not caring because it still had Wall Street to support NYC and Albany. Now that the financial sector has tanked, here they are again trying to suck out what little life is left upstate with 137 new taxes and tax increases while refusing to cut the budget (it's still a larger budget than last year).
Some of us are organizing to free upstate, seceding it from New York and creating a new state separate from the Albany-Hudson-NYC-Long Island corridor. Politically, demographically, and economically, the two halves of the state have nothing in common with each other. It's time that western NY establish representation for itself since no state-wide government officers have come from our region in decades. NY is controlled by three men, the Governor (gotta go back at least 80 years to find a Governor from outside the seat of power), the lifetime Leader of the Assembly (Sheldon Silver of NYC), and the Leader of the Senate (while it has changed, it hasn't been someone from outside the Albany-NYC region in decades).
Except, of course, we're going through another period where the governor has decided that the indian reservations are no longer sovereign and he wants them to charge taxes on non-indians buying from them. I believe he signed that into law again this past monday.
I look forward to the indians once again blocking the Thruway and have a half dozen tires they can have to burn. I hope they surround NYC and prevent any traffic in and out from the rest of the state to force them to think about it (NYC, of course, because all of the statewide office holders hail from there with the rest of the state excluded from input, so they need to be hit at home)
NY is near the top in state spending on education and near the middle of the pack on graduation rates, test scores, etc. I'd hardly call that "about the second best school system in the country."
Do we have some good state colleges in the SUNY system? You bet... but having good state colleges mean nothing when you have cities like Rochester with a 39% graduation rate.
Here's a comparison of graduation rates by state where NY comes in with a mediocre 87% and another study places NY at 16th in the country. Care to back up your assertion that we have one of the best school systems in the country?
I do. It reduces medical insurance costs for everyone in the long run
Except the governor is also proposing a tax increase on health insurance too (plus auto insurance, homeowners insurance, etc). Let's drive more people off of private insurance! That'll solve all of our problems.
NY is second in per capita expenditures in the country and nearly double that of California. I've watched the state rot around me for the past 30 years. NYC was relatively immune to it since it is the financial capital of the US, but the other 95% of the state has long suffered under these types of policies. Upstate and Western NY have had a fleeing population, increasing welfare rolls and businesses looking to relocate for decades because of our wasteful spending and burdensome taxation and regulation.
Squeezing even further will just force more activity out of the state, even if people choose to still live here. Fireworks are illegal in NY, but as soon as you cross the border to PA on 15, you'll see the fireworks store. Every summer, you see hundreds of people in my tiny town setting off fireworks. Just how do you think they got them? Almost all of the population of NY is within a 2 hour drive to another state. Buy stuff in sufficient quantities and it becomes worth it to make a trip, especially if you're already going to visit friends and family in adjacent states. The suckers dumb enough to keep buying in NY will pay the extra tax and the rest of us will be boosting the economies of PA, NJ, VT, CT, etc instead of our home state.
NY needs to cut some of the sacred cows... plain and simple. That's the only way of resolving the crisis.
And what does "promote the general welfare" mean? Well, if we cross reference the Federalist Papers, we'll see:
Federalist 23 (Hamilton):
Defective as the present Confederation has been proved to be, this principle appears to have been fully recognized by the framers of it; though they have not made proper or adequate provision for its exercise. Congress have an unlimited discretion to make requisitions of men and money; to govern the army and navy; to direct their operations. As their requisitions are made constitutionally binding upon the States, who are in fact under the most solemn obligations to furnish the supplies required of them, the intention evidently was that the United States should command whatever resources were by them judged requisite to the ``common defense and general welfare.'' It was presumed that a sense of their true interests, and a regard to the dictates of good faith, would be found sufficient pledges for the punctual performance of the duty of the members to the federal head.
Federalist 41 (Madison):
A system of government, meant for duration, ought to contemplate these revolutions, and be able to accommodate itself to them. Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power ``to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,'' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms ``to raise money for the general welfare. ''But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter. The objection here is the more extraordinary, as it appears that the language used by the convention is a copy from the articles of Confederation. The objects of the Union among the States, as described in article third, are ``their common defense, security of their liberties, and mutual and general welfare. '' The terms of article eighth are still more identical: ``All charges of war and all other expenses th
Slashdot Mirror
While it's nice to imagine scientists always picking pertinent things to work on that will benefit humanity with their unlimited budget, you're also going to run into the Duke Nukem Forever scientists that assume that they have an infinite budget so they can continually scrap research, start over fresh and never get anywhere. You'll get the John Romero scientists who "have a new way guaranteed to pay off" that ultimately just suck funding away from other better ventures. You'll get the pet project scientists that want to do things like study belly button lint. You'll get engineers overdesigning things and never reaching completion because there's always one more thing to perfect or add.
At some point, you have to have a manager direct the spending. That's precisely what DARPA does. Just throwing money out there in the hopes that someone will do something positive with it isn't going to be anywhere near efficient since you'll have everyone coming out of the woodwork, especially the above types, to eat up the funding while real, viable research still gets ignored because the funding was wasted. That's not to say the NSF couldn't act as a director, just that there has to be limits... and they're harder to define outside the scope of the military, which has some pretty clear purposes for its existence, so it focuses primarily on them. The NSF has no such purpose in mind, just general science research, so it would be harder to direct. Does the NSF fund genetic research or renewable energy with this $10 million? $5 million to each won't be enough to get either project started, so they need to fund one or the other. They can't just allocate money infinitely.
Translated: The Republicans need to be like Democrats. They tried that last year, running the primary candidate who most closely resembles the Democrats. And he got fewer votes than GWB did in 2004.
The Republicans need to move farther to the right (the neo-cons aren't the far right, they're the authoritarian middle that will do anything domestically to promote their own power globally). Actually be the party of smaller government and with smaller government, promote more freedom.
I live in NY. I'm pretty hard pressed to find a Republican here that is actually like the conservative base of the national party. After Pataki's gubernatorial terms, I couldn't tell whether he was actually a Democrat or Republican. He raised taxes, raised spending, clamped down on gun rights, etc. Spitzer and now Paterson are raising taxes, raising spending and clamping down on gun rights. Cuomo before Pataki was all about raising taxes and raising spending. Yet, you think the solution is more Patakis and Spendinators for the GOP. All you will do is chase the base further out of the party. If the GOP goes that route, you might as well call them the Whigs and we'll see you with a new party in 2016 or 2020.
Wednesday, there were 250k or more working class people out there on a work day protesting high taxes AND high spending. I spoke here in Rochester and we did our best to focus the rally on the economic issues. Yeah, there were a few fringe people holding religious signs and whatnot, but at least 99% of the people there were there to voice their concerns over the way our government is going economically. There were people of every race, every income bracket, every age group and every party there. There is a huge groundswell brewing demanding fiscal responsibility. THAT is where the GOP needs to go and it stands in stark contrast to the moderate wing of the party (the wing that is glad to give you Medicare D, NCLB and TARP). It also happens to be where the "talk show crowd" happens to stand.
Me? I'm an atheist, I oppose abortion and amnesty for illegal aliens. I'm a Constitutionalist and think federal spending needs to be in line with the Constitution (services need to be provided at the state level, not the federal level). I oppose federal welfare, be it corporate or personal. I oppose free trade. I see economic freedom to be as important as any other freedom because you can't be free if you aren't free to control your wallet. I don't vote on any single issue, but rather a combination of issues... however, I can count the number of Democrats I've voted for in the last 14 years on one hand because most of them are on the wrong side of issues I care about.
I voted for Bush twice (lesser of two evils the second time but I actually believed in what he campaigned on the first time) but refused to vote for McCain last year because he's on the wrong side of too many issues (and I'm sick of voting for the lesser evil since it still promotes evil). If the GOP wants my vote back, they need to differentiate themselves from the Democrats, not solidify their position as Democrat-lite as you think they should. I want a party of a different coin, not simply the opposite side of the same coin. Based on my experience this week, there's a lot of people out there like me, some of whom have R, some D, some L, or some other and/or no party affiliation. The GOP will never find itself in power again so long as they don't re-establish an identity of their own.
If you want to every see how stupid partisan politics is, look at how the republicans viewed McCain before he won the primary. He was hated by a decent amount of the party. He wins the primary and suddenly becomes the new "Maverick Conservative!"
I'm one of those Republicans that hated McCain before he won the primary... I'm also one of those Republicans that voted third party because I refused to support McCain since I believed he was just as bad as Obama. I took a lot of heat from people on the right and independents that hated Obama for "voting Obama by voting third party." After the neo-cons destroyed any semblance of actual conservatism in the GOP, the last thing I wanted was another asshole waving my party's flag while taking us down the wrong path, destroying what little was left. We've taken enough blame for the last years, especially since most people seem to forget that the Democrats controlled Congress outright for the last two of those years and the Senate off and on for the majority of it.
I want a clean break and a return to the Constitutional principles that conservatives and libertarians believe in, not the moderate neocon agenda (and yes, the neo-cons are the moderates, born of an internationalist Democratic faction that broke away in the 50s... they'll gladly accept positions of the left (see Bush and McCain considering amnesty, Medicare D and McCain's work with Joe Lieberman and Ted Kennedy) or right (see free trade, tax cuts, gun ownership, etc) if they think it'll further their globalist agenda. It is those of us that want a smaller federal government that respects our freedom which are in the extreme position of the party).
You know you're out of tune with the country when your bastard member wins enough primaries to become your party's candidate.
McCain became the candidate due to the frontloading of open primaries in large states that let a lot of non-Republicans pick the Republican party candidate in combination with the actual Republicans being split between 5 different candidates (Rudy was fiscally conservative and a good choice on national security but was socially liberal, Fred Thompson was good overall but was largely apathetic, Mitt Romney was great economically but wavered on abortion, seemed too perfect and is Mormon, Mike Huckabee was good socially but was a tax and spend Republican, and Ron Paul was great domestically but horrible in foreign affairs, and John McCain was near universally hated by the base (to the point where he had to almost abandon his campaign before getting non-Republicans to vote for him in the early primaries)). Each of them were splitting the party vote, while McCain was picking up the outsiders to take the winner takes all primaries (creating a landslide victory by getting as little as 25-30% of the vote in some states).
Truth is, the Republicans got stuck with a candidate they didn't want and the GOP needs to fix their primary system if they don't want that to happen again in the future. Michael Steele is the wrong guy (hey look, we need a black guy too!) to lead the GOP and is only going to screw up the national party more over the next couple years. The guy can't even be consistent, constantly saying something stupid than apologizing, meanwhile all of the party's principles are for sale if getting rid of them will just bring in a few more independents while alienating the existing base in larger numbers on the assumption they won't go somewhere else (which is how the Republican Party was born... The Whigs ended up with a leader that compromised their party's ideals and within a couple election cycles, they were gone.
Rallying for constitutional rights is great, but your post is instead a rant against welfare state in general, and socialized healthcare in particular. Which, by the way, is perfectly fine in the framework of the original U.S. Constitution - provided that it implemented by the States, and not the federal government. By the tone of your post, however, you seem to have issues with the very idea of those things, and not with specific implementations as they exist today in the U.S.
If states or counties want to implement them, that's fine with me... but as things stand, they are implemented at the federal level completely in spite of the Constitution. The point of the federal government, at least the one of the United States, is to handle foreign and interstate affairs and to ensure a basic set of rights is protected. The federal government is too broad to provide anything more detailed than that because everything it does infringes on one group for the benefit of another. If NY wants to be a welfare state, good for NY... but I should be free to move to another state that doesn't want to be a welfare state while ensuring that I still have the basic protections provided for in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
And as someone that lives in NY, I can tell you that the state is run for the purposes of NYC and it's surrounding region at the expense of the rest of the state. Yes, NYC pays the state more money than it receives, but it controls all of the statewide offices and issues mandates to the rest of the state, which is largely rural and agricultural, against the wishes of those residents residents. NYC has largely been fine with that arrangement since, as the financial capital of the US and, arguably, the world, it remained immune to its own heavy hand. Now they're experiencing just a touch of what they've put Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and other communities around the state through, and only now do they want to do something (sadly, their something is to magnify the very things they've been doing to economically destroy the rest of the state).
So yes, I'm very much opposed to a distant government interfering in my life, especially the federal government. Since you don't live in the US, I'm assuming you're probably in Europe... how would you like some of the UK's insane big brother laws imposed across the entire EU? If the British approve of it, that's fine, but that doesn't mean it should be imposed on the French and Dutch.
Starting with Lincoln, the concept of States Rights began to erode and that was furthered by most of the Presidents since, most notably by FDR and the way he ran roughshod over the Constitution. The name of our country says it all, the United States of America. We are a bunch of states united into a country for a common purpose, not a country divided into regions called states for administrative ease.
THAT is my biggest problem. Today, the federal government overtaxes the people and then tells states what they have to do if they're going to get the money the federal government took from that state's citizens. You want federal highway dollars? You have to set your drinking age to 21 and require everyone to wear seatbelts. You want school lunch money? You have to implement NCLB regardless of what the kids' parents think. Instead of communities running themselves based on their local interests, the federal government tells them how they will be run... and if you complain, well, you're one voice out of about 685,000, so they'll listen to you real soon.
And that is why I refuse to support a federal welfare state... because you don't matter at all. You're a number to a bureaucrat that doesn't care whether you exist or not unless you are wealthy, powerful or well connected. The people that founded the United States knew that as well, which is precisely why the Constitution is an explicitly limited grant of power, specifically stating that any power not granting to it belongs to the people and states. Sadly, few people seem to know much about the Ninth and Tenth Amendments these days and even fewer have read the Federalist Papers.
See the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937. FDR kept trying to ram his legislation through and the SCOTUS kept ruling it Unconstitutional. FDR, along with his Democratic majority in Congress, threatened to keep adding justices to the Supreme Court until they would rule the way he wanted them to.
The threat was enough and the SCOTUS rolled over shortly thereafter, allowing a single party Congress/Executive to force Unconstitutional legislation through, unabated by the checks of the SCOTUS. Not long after, sitting Justices began to die and/or retire, Roosevelt added his toadies and, well, we've been stuck with the damage done to our country ever since (The Ponzi Social Security system and its impending collapse, Japanese internment, fiat currency, inflation and government debt, the Wagner Act, etc). Many of the abuses in government we see today stem from the decisions made back in the late 30s and early 40s...
Now we're seeing the threat of socialized medicine being forced onto us through subersive means, deliberately to avoid the process of debate set up in the Constitution, and I have no confidence that the SCOTUS will overturn it, especially not if one of the more constructionalist members should vacate the court for some reason and be replaced by someone more amenable to those types of policies. Lately, we've seen a rise in the court ignoring the Constitution and favoring international standards instead of our own. After 220ish years, the checks and balances are almost gone and the traitors in power on both sides have found out how to subvert the supreme law of the land...
Actually, if you listened to Limbaugh at all, you'll know that he can't stand McCain (and, in fact, has been publicly feuding with him for years)... and right up through the election, failed to fully endorse McCain, more or less endorsing voting "against Obama" instead. The whole reason why he created Operation Chaos to mess with the Democrats was because he was dissatisfied with the outcome of the Republican primary.
I'll grant you Hannity though... he was more than happy to carry McCain's water.
Very few people in the media, be it radio, television, print, or internet, gave a fair and honest assessment of the candidates. Simple fact is, the media is made up of people, people that have their own biases. At least Hannity and Limbaugh (and Olbermann, Maddow, etc) are honest about where they're coming from and don't try to pretend they're impartial, which is more than you can say for most of the stooges trying to tell us what to think.
slowed debt growth is still debt growth... and the explosion against GDP would have happened regardless of who was in the White House in 2001. There was no way to mediate the effects of the dotcom crash and 9/11 on the economy other than to let time take its course.
But Clinton's claim that the debt would have been eliminated within 10 years was a lie, even with the best of projections and if 9/11 never happened. It was political grandstanding, that's all. Every administration does it, just as Obama is fighting with the Congressional Budget Office over whether his budget will add $5 trillion or $9 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years... and yet, somehow, he's promising to cut the deficit in half of Bush's last one within 4 years despite what the projections actually look like based on his numbers as well as the CBO's (not to mention the $2 trillion deficit he's giving us for this year in addition to new/expanded entitlements that we'll be forced to pay for in perpetuity). It's just another lie that is blatantly obvious to anyone that is willing to dig deeper than a press release.
And just some food for thought, just the interest from Obama's stimulus plan(s) will cost as much to repay as the entirety of Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns under Bush cost...
Now is a good time to work toward a third party, while the Republican machine is down for repairs. There are a lot of moderate Republicans who are worried that Rush might really be the current head of the Party, and that the Dittoheads, Religious Reich, and the Neocon Fascists have damaged the Republican Party to the point where it would be better to start over than to try to surgically excise the corrupted parts and repair the damages. A new party more moderate than the Libertarian hard core but based on the same principles of reason would attract a lot of interest from disenfranchised Republicans, who are legion. Do it right, and it would attract a fair number of Democrats, too.
Not for nothing, but the neo-con faction IS the moderate faction within the Republican Party... conservatives are for a reduced, near powerless federal government (though not to the point that libertarians advocate)... we are the extreme. It is the neo-con wing which is for bigger government (more international intervention, welfare (of a corporate nature), welfare (of a personal nature, see Medicare D), the War on Whatever, etc) Seriously, look up the history of the neo-con movement. They were pissed off Democrats that were upset that we weren't wielding our influence internationally and are completely amenable to selling out conservatism to achieve those goals.
I'm somewhat of a mix of conservative/libertarian/Constitutionalist who is completely dissatisfied with the Republican Party, who voted for a third party in this last election rather than vote for McCain (who is the epitome of a neo-con, willing to sell out any principle he claims to have to empower himself), led a tea party in New York to protest the ridiculus fiscal policies of our state and federal governments (and have another one planned for April 15th), etc. If the Republican Party doesn't want to honor its conservative base, that's fine... this Republican is ready for a third party and the GOP, with its neo-con masters, can go the way of the Whigs before it.
But make no mistake... the neo-cons aren't the extreme, the neo-cons are the result of straddling the middle trying to be everything to everyone in order to expand their own power. As a conservative, I want to eliminate about 75% of the federal government... THAT is the extreme. Neo-cons are perfectly willing to grow it, just at a slower pace than the left, they're basically just Democrat-lite. And before you say Democrats aren't international military interventionists, all I've got to say is Vietnam, Kosovo, Bosnia, etc were all policies of the left. They only make a stink when the "other" party does it.
A statement issued by the administration on December 28, 2000, ignoring that we were in a recession at the time, the dotcom bubble was collapsing, Enron was about to go down, 9/11 would happen 9 months later, etc.
The economy, and with it, the budget since it was based on projections that never happened in reality, would have been screwed up whether Clinton had served 4 terms instead of two. And the truth of the matter is, despite accounting tricks showing a surplus for the final years of the Clinton Administration with a Republican Congress, the national debt continued to increase the entire time he was in office.
The Census Bureau has been part of the (executive) Department of the Interior since 1902. Obama just made the head a larger post. I don't think the census has much affect upon the presidential race, since who lives where in states or even the number of people has little to do with electoral college votes right now. Rather, it has a lot to do with Congressional elections, so if you're arguing a conflict of interest I think you have it backwards.
The number of electors a state gets is based directly upon it's population (with the exception that no state can have fewer than 3). So, you give the states that heavily favor your party more electors by subtracting them away from states that don't favor you explicitly. If you're a Democrat, Texas, Florida, Arizona, etc all lose a couple votes while California, New York, Massachusetts, etc all gain a couple. If you're a Republican, Texas, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Georgia, etc gain a couple while New York, California, Massachussets, etc lose a couple.
Not only that, but the 2010 census, conducted by the Obama administration, will be what determines who gets the electors in his 2012 re-election campaign.
So yes, while it will affect Congress, it does have an effect on the Presidency too... and that is why it is important to keep it as independent as possible rather than allow it to be politicized in any way, either through manipulation from the White House or special interest groups (on either side) out on the street.
That being said, Obama is going to regret this next time he needs to get out the vote.
Or what, you're going to vote to be ass raped by the evil guy on the right? Why do you think people on the right didn't vote for Gore or Kerry? In 2000, we voted for Bush hoping he wouldn't give us the anal raping that we knew Gore would and in 2004, we voted to take what we were already getting rather than the likelihood of getting it worse from Kerry.
This last election, I voted third party... until we start voting for what we believe in rather than voting to keep the other guy out of office, we're going to continue to get raped.
What none of you realize is that we're currently in an incredibly massive DEflationary period. The money supply is shrinking by FORTY TRILLION DOLLARS. That's the derivatives market dying. It was all imaginary money from the beginning, but the economy treats fake dollars just like real dollars.
What is shrinking is virtual dollars... dollars that exist because demand increased value and stocks, commodities, etc became worth more tha the monetary base allows. The amount of those dollars fluctuates up and down since they don't actually exist. Instead of basing deflation on imaginary dollars, let's look at the actual price of goods...
Food is up, energy is up, housing is down (but property taxes are up and rent is unchanged). To compound that, interest is up as well, which is especially important since unemployment is up and people will need to borrow money to meet their day to day needs. The Federal Reserve has doubled the actual money supply (M0) in the last 6 months, which means real inflation is occuring whether you realize it or not. Further, the US is also growing its debt at an astronomical rate and the dollar is losing value on the international market as more foreign interests decide not to buy them since they believe they will weaken.
What we're looking at is a situation not unlike 1920s Germany... The government owes massive debts to foreign interests and we're going to trigger hyperinflation in an attempt to solve our internal stagnation while simultaneously making our debts worthless. If you think it can't happen here, study the Weimar Republic a bit more first...
You do realize that in certain (urban) areas, the vast majority of people can't afford houses with yards? Are you seriously proposing a society where the only places children have to play are (sneaking into) McDonald's play areas?
The premise of your original post was that only the government can provide "free" parks. I pointed out that there are privately owned parks which are also free, and that you're forced to pay for those "free" government parks whether or not you want them and regardless if you intend to use them.
The key difference is, we're all forced to pay for your park. Nobody is forced to pay for the park run by the generosity of another individiual. That's something the big government types like you don't grasp unless you're complaining about the government spending money on something YOU don't like, and only in that case, is the government being abusive. Any time you force people to pay for something they don't want against their will, you're being tyrannical. Government is a tool to protect our rights, not to force your beliefs and priorities onto someone else.
The essence of capitalism is that the owners of capital (that is, the rich) get paid just for owning the capital (being rich).
The rich don't make money for simply owning something, they make money for investing their asset. Land left undeveloped doens't make the owner money. In fact, if there are property taxes, undeveloped land COSTS them money, possibly even faster than the land appreciates.
Currently the US government is around 10 trillion in debt. But what if the US government could save up 30 trillion and what if the government could get a 10% real return on investment? That would be 3 trillion per year which would be enough to fund the entire federal government - no more federal income taxes.
The government's debt problem isn't in how much they tax, it's in how much they spend. We've been living beyond our means for decades, spending like drunken sailors in the best of times and doubling down with borrowed money like a gambler chasing lost money in the worst of times. Proposing even more spending and the government taking on more functions will only further drive us into the hole.
Sure... there's no such thing as free health care and IT isn't going to provide it either. You can bemoan the rich capitalists in the health care industry for making a profit by owning something, but that doesn't mean government would do any better nor that government is the only means which can provide the service.
Under the current state of things, I have the freedom to decide what type of coverage I want, who my doctor will be, etc. Under a government run system, there is a monopoly and that freedom is taken away for everyone but the most wealthy who can afford to buy a better system outside of the one mandated upon the little people. If government wants to take more than I'm willing to pay, I have no choice in the matter. It's nothing short of an abrogation of your freedoms.
Now, where does healthcare IT come into play? Government controlled ownership of the healthcare database infrastructure is a step toward government acquisition of the sector, and is a violation of my Fourth Amendment rights to be secure in my person and papers from an unreasonable search by the government. Government wants to set a standard for intercommunication between health care providers? I'm fine with that, though I think a better measure would be an independent standards body... Government wants to be the standard? That I have a problem with.
There's no such thing as a free park... somewhere, someone is paying for it even if they don't realize it. There's also no such thing as a free health care database, even if the government is running it, and there are huge implications that come along with that. Corporations may be uncaring, but the government, especially the federal government, is no different... and they have a long history of using the information they do control against people they don't like. At least with a private system, I can opt out or create my own insurance (through a HSA) of I'm not satisfied with the other options available to me... not so easy with Uncle Sam or I wouldn't be paying into Social Security right now even though I know it'll be bankrupt before I see a dime from it. Ditto for this "stimulus" package that our grandkids will be paying for because we're too greedy to take responsibility for our own actions. The idea that government spending money creates more jobs and more GDP is just the economic version of perpetual motion.
My understanding was that the play areas at fast food restaurants were only for paying customers: if you didn't buy food, technically you were trespassing on private property. But maybe I'm misinformed; do you have a link to the McDonalds website where they indicate that their play areas are available to the general public (who don't buy food)?
We had breakfast, so I did pay... but there wasn't anyone there demanding to see proof of payment to use them. In fact, in the hour that she spent playing on there, no staff came in to check to see if anyone had bought anything. In fact, there were people in there that didn't buy anything.
In McDonald's case, at least this one, the policy is to generate good will and hope that good will translates into increased sales... kinda like advertising, though without going out of their way to annoy you. Other big companies do similar things, like when you're walking through a Sam's Club, BJs, your supermarket, or whatever and they give you a free sample. It's a form of advertising to get you to buy their product. I've gotten the free samples without buying a thing. Yes, when I do buy something, a portion of that goes into providing those freebies, be it a piece of pizza or an hour of play time... but it happens because I choose to buy that item, not because the money was forcibly extracted from my wallet regardless of my willingness to pay.
You're kind of missing the point - which was that "capital" (in this case, the land itself) produces value.
Only so long as that capital is in demand. Raise property taxes too high and the value of the land is diminished. Further, property taxes actually mean that you no longer own the property, you are renting it from the state/county/town. Fail to pay your taxes and they will confiscate your property.
But let's look at your point that the actual play structures cost money. OK, fair enough, in a public park these play structures are paid for by tax payers.
But who pays for these structures at McDonalds? The play structures didn't just spring into existence out of thin air. The CEO of McDonalds didn't even build them as a hobby in his spare time. Oh, that's right, they are paid for as increased cost of the food at McDonalds.
People who bought food at McDonalds paid for the play area that your niece was playing in "for free". Did the people who bought food have a choice? Did McDonalds say "How would you like to pay extra for your burger so we can build a play area for some random guy's niece?" Hardly.
You do have the choice... you can opt to buy food at McDonalds, go across the street to Burger King, stop at the local family owned diner or cook your meal at home. Government removes that choice and forces you to pay against your will for things you absolutely would not support. Your only choices are to move to another government or to accept the repercussions (confiscation of property, jail time for tax evasion, etc).
The town citizenship voted against buying the land, developing it and building a park. The town board did it anyway at an even higher cost than what the taxpayers turned down. Our option to go somewhere else if we didn't want to pay for it (by voting it down and using the existing facillities or our own yards) was outright ignored.
When it comes to the Iraq war, I'd agree with you. If Bush's friends in the oil industry wanted the USA to invade Iraq they should have paid for it themselves. In fact, I'd like to see a law that, in the future, the US military will be funded exclusively with private donations.
So when the government does something YOU don't like, we should have the option. When the government does something I don't like, I have to accept it and say good job?
That's part of why we're supposed to have a weak federal government... because it is too broad of a brush and it is too easy to punish people via government
I took my kid to a public park the other day. We showed up, played on the play structures for while and left.
Would that have been possible if the land had been owned by a private corporation? Sort of. It's possible the corporation would have set up some kind of pay-to-play situation. Some of the cost would probably go to maintaining the play structures but some of the cost would also go the owners (or management) of the corporation as "profits".
The essence of capitalism is that some people get paid for doing work and other people get paid for owning "capital" - that's right, some people get paid for doing nothing other than being rich. So, who gets paid for owning the land the park is on? If the land is owned privately, then whoever owns the land gets paid for doing nothing other than owning the land. If the land is owned publicly then no one really gets paid, per se, but people who use the park don't have to pay some rich person for doing nothing other than owing the land.
I stopped at McDonalds with my niece a couple weeks ago... if you haven't heard of them, they're a huge multi-national corporation (and I happen to own no stock in them, so I have no ownership claim). Get this, they had a play area complete with slides, video games, etc and I didn't have to pay a thing for my neice to use it. There wasn't even an evil overlord there demanding that I buy some food to use it.
Private ownership doesn't mean you have to pay some evil capitalist to use their property. Some of those evil bastards may allow free usage to garner some good will or simply out of charity. The key is, they do it of their own free will without forcing anyone else to pay for it.
Contrast that to the government... Back about a decade ago, my town wanted to buy "the last undeveloped piece of land" on our lake. It went up for a referendum and the people of the town voted it down. The town board turned around and bought it anyway, at an even higher price, against the will of the people, and then promptly developed it, killing that whole notion of it being the only undeveloped piece of property on the lake and also contradicting the will of the people. Thousands of people that said no were forced to pay for something they didn't want and yet it only benefits a handful of people (they turned it into a half assed flower garden right next to another park four times its size and virtually nobody goes over there unless they're using it for a wedding). Oh, and the town board put in memorials dedicated to their friends and family (might not be a private residence, but I'd say the memorials are an exclusive benefit of the politicians).
You most certainly do have to pay for that park even if they don't charge an entrance fee. One way or another, depending on where you live, you pay a tax to finance that park. In my case, I paid $422 for my portion of that park that nobody wanted just to buy it... and then another $100 or so to develop it. And then there's another amount I pay every year to maintain it (I don't know the budget line on that off the top of my head, but we'll call it another $20 a year). How exactly is that free?
So which is the more equitable system for the little guy, being forced to pay for something they clearly didn't want (in conjunction with a majority of their neighbors) through government monopolization or being allowed to use something for free because of the generosity of a capitalist? Not all capitalists are so generous, but just because the government owns something doesn't mean you aren't paying for it... and you have virtually no choice in the matter, so I'd say the government isn't all that generous either. But at least with the capitalist, I have an actual choice in the matter.
That's just it... McCain IS consistent. He consistently does what he thinks will give him praise from the people he's currently seeking it from. He'll pander to the biases of people in the media when he wants their attention (like with campaign finance reform), to illegal immigrants if he's trying to get their votes (partnered with Ted Kennedy on a bill proposing amnesty and Social Security benefits), to panicked Americans when he wants their votes (rushing back to DC to push for the TARP bailout last September that people in his own party didn't want), to financial conservatives (doesn't request earmarks despite pushing for TARP), etc.
McCain holds no firm view on any issue, only on what he thinks will benefit him personally at the time. The guy loves being adored more than anything else. As a conservative/libertarian type, he was the one candidate going into the election cycle that I was absolutely firmly against voting for in a general election. He got 3 million fewer votes than GWB did in 2004 and a large amount of that loss wasn't necessarily disillusioned people thinking Obama was any better (because he doesn't even pretend to share any views with people like me), but because we already knew McCain was full of crap and, if elected, would turn his back on us like he's done so many times before. Bill Clinton could stick his finger in the wind and be everything to everybody. McCain tries to do the same and just pisses everyone off instead.
Are you an Israeli apologist or something?
Why do you assume I even care about Israel, are you that much of an Israeli hater? Israel has virtually no affect on my life and whether or not we support them, there will be fighting in the Middle East as there has been for thousands of years. If it isn't the Muslims fighting the Jews, it's the Arabs fighting each other.
s far as major news goes, the possible ethnic clensing (because honestly, does it really look like anything else?) of the gaza strip seems like the most likely path to WW3, especially in the throes of a global economic collapse.
I've heard "that's going to start WW3" so many times that it's pretty safe to say nothing is going to start WW3 until someone actually wants to start WW3. WW3 was going to start under Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Reagan and GWB according to the people that think they're smarter than everyone else. It's almost as ridiculous as "this is the year of Linux on the desktop"
We were arguing about congress not being productive, right?
We were talking about Congress being in session and the news not covering the news in favor of the latest poptart scandal, but apparently, you think I'm busy bashing Gaza or Israel instead even though I deliberately avoided mentioning them precisely because you had already mentioned that it should be news.
But yes, it is a slow news season for the US media, which was my original point.
It's not a slow news season, the media simply refuses to cover the news in favor of tabloid crap because the media isn't in the business of disseminating news, they're in the business of drawing as many eyeballs as they can to sell ads to. The real news isn't as profitable as the celebtard crap, but that doesn't mean there isn't any real news.
Why yes, I can be sharp tounged to such an inflammatory post as yours.
Maybe rather than kneejerk and lash out, you should stop and think first... and there wasn't anything all that inflammatory in my post unless you consider being told that you're wrong (with examples) being inflammatory.
The legislature is out until the inauguration
Uh, Congress already met to swear in the new members, count the Electoral College votes to declare who the next President will be, work on legislation (including a Sunday session on the 11th with a successful motion to bring an earmark laden omnibus bill to a vote) and is holding hearings on confirming Obama's top staff this week. I'd hardly call that out of session.
This is just "slow news season" filler crap to fill the airwaves while CNN, etc idle about.
There's also plenty of important news going on, including possible pay for play accusations against Hillary, Obama's Treasury Secretary nominee, Timothy Geithner, evading paying his own taxes and possibly hiring an illegal alien, the current economic news, the SCOTUS hearing a case about whether or not police have to stop interrogations after someone requests their lawyer, the Russians cutting off gas supplies to Europe, etc. Just because the news prefers to air Golden Globe speeches, discussing Ben Afflick's baby's name or blabbing on about American Idol doesn't mean that there isn't stuff to cover, it simply means people in the newsrooms are out to gossip since it draws readers/viewers/listeners better than the serious news does. I mean... Congress is out until the inauguration, right?
and let us not forget back in 1998 or so, when the state was set to pass its first on-time budget in almost 20 years... then Sheldon Silver and his cadre of NYC assemblymen blocked it, holding the state hostage until we would re-authorize rent control for NYC, costing the state tens of millions of dollars, throwing school budgets out of whack, etc in the process.
I'm sick of living in a state where one city controls millions of people that live outside it that the city residents could care less about. For years, NYC has decimated the economy of the rest of the state, not caring because it still had Wall Street to support NYC and Albany. Now that the financial sector has tanked, here they are again trying to suck out what little life is left upstate with 137 new taxes and tax increases while refusing to cut the budget (it's still a larger budget than last year).
Some of us are organizing to free upstate, seceding it from New York and creating a new state separate from the Albany-Hudson-NYC-Long Island corridor. Politically, demographically, and economically, the two halves of the state have nothing in common with each other. It's time that western NY establish representation for itself since no state-wide government officers have come from our region in decades. NY is controlled by three men, the Governor (gotta go back at least 80 years to find a Governor from outside the seat of power), the lifetime Leader of the Assembly (Sheldon Silver of NYC), and the Leader of the Senate (while it has changed, it hasn't been someone from outside the Albany-NYC region in decades).
Except, of course, we're going through another period where the governor has decided that the indian reservations are no longer sovereign and he wants them to charge taxes on non-indians buying from them. I believe he signed that into law again this past monday.
I look forward to the indians once again blocking the Thruway and have a half dozen tires they can have to burn. I hope they surround NYC and prevent any traffic in and out from the rest of the state to force them to think about it (NYC, of course, because all of the statewide office holders hail from there with the rest of the state excluded from input, so they need to be hit at home)
With the amount of money it takes to run for office, already only the rich or corrupt can afford to be politicians.
NY is near the top in state spending on education and near the middle of the pack on graduation rates, test scores, etc. I'd hardly call that "about the second best school system in the country."
Do we have some good state colleges in the SUNY system? You bet... but having good state colleges mean nothing when you have cities like Rochester with a 39% graduation rate.
Here's a comparison of graduation rates by state where NY comes in with a mediocre 87% and another study places NY at 16th in the country. Care to back up your assertion that we have one of the best school systems in the country?
I do. It reduces medical insurance costs for everyone in the long run
Except the governor is also proposing a tax increase on health insurance too (plus auto insurance, homeowners insurance, etc). Let's drive more people off of private insurance! That'll solve all of our problems.
NY is second in per capita expenditures in the country and nearly double that of California. I've watched the state rot around me for the past 30 years. NYC was relatively immune to it since it is the financial capital of the US, but the other 95% of the state has long suffered under these types of policies. Upstate and Western NY have had a fleeing population, increasing welfare rolls and businesses looking to relocate for decades because of our wasteful spending and burdensome taxation and regulation.
Squeezing even further will just force more activity out of the state, even if people choose to still live here. Fireworks are illegal in NY, but as soon as you cross the border to PA on 15, you'll see the fireworks store. Every summer, you see hundreds of people in my tiny town setting off fireworks. Just how do you think they got them? Almost all of the population of NY is within a 2 hour drive to another state. Buy stuff in sufficient quantities and it becomes worth it to make a trip, especially if you're already going to visit friends and family in adjacent states. The suckers dumb enough to keep buying in NY will pay the extra tax and the rest of us will be boosting the economies of PA, NJ, VT, CT, etc instead of our home state.
NY needs to cut some of the sacred cows... plain and simple. That's the only way of resolving the crisis.
Federalist 23 (Hamilton):
Defective as the present Confederation has been proved to be, this principle appears to have been fully recognized by the framers of it; though they have not made proper or adequate provision for its exercise. Congress have an unlimited discretion to make requisitions of men and money; to govern the army and navy; to direct their operations. As their requisitions are made constitutionally binding upon the States, who are in fact under the most solemn obligations to furnish the supplies required of them, the intention evidently was that the United States should command whatever resources were by them judged requisite to the ``common defense and general welfare.'' It was presumed that a sense of their true interests, and a regard to the dictates of good faith, would be found sufficient pledges for the punctual performance of the duty of the members to the federal head.
Federalist 41 (Madison):
A system of government, meant for duration, ought to contemplate these revolutions, and be able to accommodate itself to them. Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power ``to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,'' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms ``to raise money for the general welfare. ''But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter. The objection here is the more extraordinary, as it appears that the language used by the convention is a copy from the articles of Confederation. The objects of the Union among the States, as described in article third, are ``their common defense, security of their liberties, and mutual and general welfare. '' The terms of article eighth are still more identical: ``All charges of war and all other expenses th