Yeah, the wall is a stupid waste of money, but in the grand scheme of things five billion is peanuts for a country that's proposing to spend 680 billion. By the time we finish paying for the Littoral Combat Ships, we'll be replacing them before we ever got them to work, and we'll have spent a lot more of them than we'll ever spend on a wall.
So make us an offer, Mr. President. Let's say you cut twenty billion bucks from the Defense budget request, you get ten billion for your wall and we get ten billion for Medicaid expansion. That's how democracy is supposed to work, you cut deals, you don't take hostages.
They actually go so dysfunctional in the 2nd Bush term that they had to pass a law saying that Congress couldn't get paid if it didn't pass a budget. What they did in response was to start passing budgets which they subsequently ignored.
That's why we're here now. They didn't put wall money into the budget, and now that Congress is turning over the President doesn't think he can get wall funding into next year's budget.
Fentanyl doses are measured in micrograms. The street price of fentanyl amounts to about $1600 per gram. If you wanted to smuggle a million dollars of fentanyl past the wall you could just hand it through one of the fence slats or toss it over the wall. Or hide it in one of the millions of tons of cargo that are shipped into the US.
(1) There pot of already appropriated money is finite. The Coast Guard thing is a one off. This is especially true because in our system many normal treasury functions are still controlled by Congress.
(2) Last I heard HR 7368 was referred to committee and died there. It'll have to be reintroduced next year, I think, although it *should* pass. Then of course Trump has to sign it.
All actually essential functions would receive emergency funding if truly needed,
I'm wondering where you think that emergency funding will come from. The Constitutional mechanism we're dealing with here is that the Executive Branch can't spend money without legislative approval. Now you may be able to pull some treasury sleight of hand to move approved spending to specific purposes, but in the US treasury functions are also tightly controlled by Congress (e.g. securitizing debts).
That's what DHS has done with the Coast Guard; it's searched under the sofa cushions and found already appropriated money to pay the last paycheck of the year. Trump can't simply order DHS to continue paying the Coasties indefinitely; he doesn't have the authority.
Finally, there is no guarantee that furloughed federal workers will receive anything, although in the past it has been customary to award them back pay, that's a norm not a rule. In fact Trump has floated the idea of using money "saved" by the shutdown to pay for the wall.
Even if Mexico *were* to pay for it, the Trump Administration would need authorization from Congress because that's how the Constitution works. If Trump finds 5 billion bucks in the White House sofa cushions he couldn't just spend it; it'd have to go into the treasury and await appropriation, just like taxpayer money.
In every democracy I know of the legislature passes an annual budget which sets spending limits and priorities. It then creates authorizing legislation that creates or continues programs which spend the money. Finally it passes some kind of appropriation legislation which allows the money to actually be spent. Appropriation is the final step that allows the legislature to tweak exactly where the budgeted money goes.
In most countries failure to pass an appropriation bill requires the government to resign and call general elections, so it seldom happens. In the US this is not the case, but until around 1980, appropriations bills never failed. After 1980 frequency of appropriations bill failures have gradually increased, but the issues have always been things like tax increases or disagreements over whether budgeted and authorized spending should actually go forth.
This is the first government shutdown in US history where the objective was to spend money that was never budgeted.
That's because they've prioritized things with *immediate* effect. But over time you can't expect federal workers in "essential" positions to continue working without pay.
For example DHS scrounged money to pay Coast Guardsmen today, but it is probable that they wont' receive paychecks in January. It is also likely that the Coast Guard will have difficulty paying to run its ships. ICE and Border Control agents are also working without pay. Coast Guardsmen can't leave, but eventually people working on border security are going to get other jobs.
The 'scary' government shutdown can go on for months for all I care.
Well, the silver lining here is that one way or other we'll find out whether there really are any intolerable side effects, because it looks like this is going to drag on indefinitely.
Every past time this has been done it's been Congress who started it, and at the first twinge of pain they've chickened out. But in this case nobody has much political incentive to do anything. Trump and his aides have recklessly taken credit for the shutdown before it even happened, which means he'll look weak if he compromises. But by the same token, Congress escapes the lion's share of the blame for any pain that (hypothetically) results.
To my knowledge, no mainstream model has ever predicted that the South Pole would be ice free in our lifetimes. Even in scenarios where the Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses, there's still going to be snow and ice at the South Pole, where summer highs are around -26C.
As for the Arctic, climate change there a bit like changing the odds on a lottery from one in million to one in ten. It will still take you a few years to hit the jackpot, but sooner or later you will. The first time sea ice drops below the million square km benchmark we'll be looking at an extreme weather event (hitting the lottery) on top of a long term climate trend (raising the lottery payoff odds). Nobody can say when that will happen, but the odds are unquestionably shifting. IPCC "middle of the road" models predict the first such event will likely come in the 2040s, but that's a statistical estimate. Even after we have our first "ice free" (< 10^6 km^2) year, that doesn't mean every year or even most years will be ice free, because that first year is going to be an outlier.
Don't be fooled by people who cherry pick a prior outlier like 2007 and say "Sea ice hasn't declined in 10 years!", or who conflate antarctic winter sea ice trends with arctic summer sea ice. The polar regions are changing.
The biggest problems with nuclear power come decades down the road. Any "lead" endorsed by the political establishment won't focus much further than two presidential election cycles.
What we should do is do a crash program in nuclear waste management and plant decommissioning; once we lick that problem there's not much serious objection to proceeding with even third gen reactors, to say nothing of fourth gen designs with better inherent safety.
1) is there surfing in Vermont? 2) will I have to wear socks when I go outside in December? 3) is pot legal?
If you can't answer "yes" to all three of these questions, it's going to take more than $10k to get me to go there.
1) Yes, but they do it on frozen water and call it "snowboarding". 2) No. It's a good idea, but nobody is forcing you to. 3) Yes, it's legal to light up in the privacy of your own home, but you'll have to go across the border to Massachusetts to buy.
Since that's 2 out of the required 3 "yes" answers, I guess Vermont isn't for you, although I have no idea why you'd want to be compelled to wear socks. Maybe that's for a family member?
What they should do is make the browser skinnable. Not enough people would actually bother to install a different theme to make any difference in Google marketing's nefarious plans for world domination through Material Design, but it would shut people up.
<oldFartAnecdote>If like me went to college back in the 70s, college dining halls were pretty much like larger versions of high school cafeterias: dingy dungeons that dished out slop. If you go to one now, the dining hall looks more like a shopping mall food court, with familiar brands like Pizza Hut or Burger King. It turns out that was my brother's idea. He'd worked his way up from dish washer to campus dining director and then regional manager for the company that ran the dining service. No matter what he did to upgrade the food or the dining ambiance, student satisfaction scores refused to budge. Then one day he had an epiphany: as long as the students felt they had no choice of where to eat, improving the quality of the food they were forced to eat wouldn't improve their opinions of it. </oldFartAnecdote>
The problem is that this would prevent the EPA from using public health studies in drafting regulations unless the study authors release data that would identify individuals' health issues.
After reconstruction ended free black farmers turned to small scale crops that could be sold locally for small amounts of cash -- like watermelons. Recognizing this for what it was -- genuine enterprise -- would contradict the slavery narrative that blacks were too lazy to be allowed freedom. So instead the association of blacks with watermelons was used in popular (white) media to paint them as animal-like gluttons.
The danger is putting too much faith in the concept of sides. We're all against the commies, big business CEOs are also against the commies, so big business CEOs are on our side, right? We're fighting against ISIS in Syria. The Kurds and Turks are also fighting ISIS in Syria, so the Kurds and the Turks are friends, right? And the Saudis are our allies too, for that matter.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd say, why the hell not? Apparently nothing I do skeeves people out, so why not get direct access to their brains?
Even better. Now figure out a way to get everyone else to do it.
It boils down to this: it's democracy that sucks. Now figure out a better system.
As a Democrat, I'm open to a deal.
Yeah, the wall is a stupid waste of money, but in the grand scheme of things five billion is peanuts for a country that's proposing to spend 680 billion. By the time we finish paying for the Littoral Combat Ships, we'll be replacing them before we ever got them to work, and we'll have spent a lot more of them than we'll ever spend on a wall.
So make us an offer, Mr. President. Let's say you cut twenty billion bucks from the Defense budget request, you get ten billion for your wall and we get ten billion for Medicaid expansion. That's how democracy is supposed to work, you cut deals, you don't take hostages.
You know, such a thing as a "deep state" actually does exist. More in places like Egypt and Pakistan than the US, but it's a matter of degree.
However, the deep state has nothing to fuck to do with this situation, which is an impasse between elected officials.
They actually go so dysfunctional in the 2nd Bush term that they had to pass a law saying that Congress couldn't get paid if it didn't pass a budget. What they did in response was to start passing budgets which they subsequently ignored.
That's why we're here now. They didn't put wall money into the budget, and now that Congress is turning over the President doesn't think he can get wall funding into next year's budget.
Fentanyl doses are measured in micrograms. The street price of fentanyl amounts to about $1600 per gram. If you wanted to smuggle a million dollars of fentanyl past the wall you could just hand it through one of the fence slats or toss it over the wall. Or hide it in one of the millions of tons of cargo that are shipped into the US.
(1) There pot of already appropriated money is finite. The Coast Guard thing is a one off. This is especially true because in our system many normal treasury functions are still controlled by Congress.
(2) Last I heard HR 7368 was referred to committee and died there. It'll have to be reintroduced next year, I think, although it *should* pass. Then of course Trump has to sign it.
All actually essential functions would receive emergency funding if truly needed,
I'm wondering where you think that emergency funding will come from. The Constitutional mechanism we're dealing with here is that the Executive Branch can't spend money without legislative approval. Now you may be able to pull some treasury sleight of hand to move approved spending to specific purposes, but in the US treasury functions are also tightly controlled by Congress (e.g. securitizing debts).
That's what DHS has done with the Coast Guard; it's searched under the sofa cushions and found already appropriated money to pay the last paycheck of the year. Trump can't simply order DHS to continue paying the Coasties indefinitely; he doesn't have the authority.
Finally, there is no guarantee that furloughed federal workers will receive anything, although in the past it has been customary to award them back pay, that's a norm not a rule. In fact Trump has floated the idea of using money "saved" by the shutdown to pay for the wall.
Even if Mexico *were* to pay for it, the Trump Administration would need authorization from Congress because that's how the Constitution works. If Trump finds 5 billion bucks in the White House sofa cushions he couldn't just spend it; it'd have to go into the treasury and await appropriation, just like taxpayer money.
In every democracy I know of the legislature passes an annual budget which sets spending limits and priorities. It then creates authorizing legislation that creates or continues programs which spend the money. Finally it passes some kind of appropriation legislation which allows the money to actually be spent. Appropriation is the final step that allows the legislature to tweak exactly where the budgeted money goes.
In most countries failure to pass an appropriation bill requires the government to resign and call general elections, so it seldom happens. In the US this is not the case, but until around 1980, appropriations bills never failed. After 1980 frequency of appropriations bill failures have gradually increased, but the issues have always been things like tax increases or disagreements over whether budgeted and authorized spending should actually go forth.
This is the first government shutdown in US history where the objective was to spend money that was never budgeted.
That's because they've prioritized things with *immediate* effect. But over time you can't expect federal workers in "essential" positions to continue working without pay.
For example DHS scrounged money to pay Coast Guardsmen today, but it is probable that they wont' receive paychecks in January. It is also likely that the Coast Guard will have difficulty paying to run its ships. ICE and Border Control agents are also working without pay. Coast Guardsmen can't leave, but eventually people working on border security are going to get other jobs.
The 'scary' government shutdown can go on for months for all I care.
Well, the silver lining here is that one way or other we'll find out whether there really are any intolerable side effects, because it looks like this is going to drag on indefinitely.
Every past time this has been done it's been Congress who started it, and at the first twinge of pain they've chickened out. But in this case nobody has much political incentive to do anything. Trump and his aides have recklessly taken credit for the shutdown before it even happened, which means he'll look weak if he compromises. But by the same token, Congress escapes the lion's share of the blame for any pain that (hypothetically) results.
Haven't you heard? Mexico is already paying for the wall. They're just doing it with money taken out of US taxpayers' pockets.
Just fund the wall that Americans want and need. Stop serving the interests of Mexico, Russia, and China.
Those countries don't care whether we have a wall or not. Mexico is fine with the wall, as long as we don't expect them to pay for it.
Dude, you would kill at parties, if you got invited to any.
To my knowledge, no mainstream model has ever predicted that the South Pole would be ice free in our lifetimes. Even in scenarios where the Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses, there's still going to be snow and ice at the South Pole, where summer highs are around -26C.
As for the Arctic, climate change there a bit like changing the odds on a lottery from one in million to one in ten. It will still take you a few years to hit the jackpot, but sooner or later you will. The first time sea ice drops below the million square km benchmark we'll be looking at an extreme weather event (hitting the lottery) on top of a long term climate trend (raising the lottery payoff odds). Nobody can say when that will happen, but the odds are unquestionably shifting. IPCC "middle of the road" models predict the first such event will likely come in the 2040s, but that's a statistical estimate. Even after we have our first "ice free" (< 10^6 km^2) year, that doesn't mean every year or even most years will be ice free, because that first year is going to be an outlier.
Don't be fooled by people who cherry pick a prior outlier like 2007 and say "Sea ice hasn't declined in 10 years!", or who conflate antarctic winter sea ice trends with arctic summer sea ice. The polar regions are changing.
Oh, like "1.0688 kilometers" is any rounder than "3500 feet".
The biggest problems with nuclear power come decades down the road. Any "lead" endorsed by the political establishment won't focus much further than two presidential election cycles.
What we should do is do a crash program in nuclear waste management and plant decommissioning; once we lick that problem there's not much serious objection to proceeding with even third gen reactors, to say nothing of fourth gen designs with better inherent safety.
Thank you.
People like this should be sentenced to military conscription,
Because what could possibly go wrong?
1) is there surfing in Vermont?
2) will I have to wear socks when I go outside in December?
3) is pot legal?
If you can't answer "yes" to all three of these questions, it's going to take more than $10k to get me to go there.
1) Yes, but they do it on frozen water and call it "snowboarding".
2) No. It's a good idea, but nobody is forcing you to.
3) Yes, it's legal to light up in the privacy of your own home, but you'll have to go across the border to Massachusetts to buy.
Since that's 2 out of the required 3 "yes" answers, I guess Vermont isn't for you, although I have no idea why you'd want to be compelled to wear socks. Maybe that's for a family member?
What they should do is make the browser skinnable. Not enough people would actually bother to install a different theme to make any difference in Google marketing's nefarious plans for world domination through Material Design, but it would shut people up.
<oldFartAnecdote>If like me went to college back in the 70s, college dining halls were pretty much like larger versions of high school cafeterias: dingy dungeons that dished out slop. If you go to one now, the dining hall looks more like a shopping mall food court, with familiar brands like Pizza Hut or Burger King. It turns out that was my brother's idea. He'd worked his way up from dish washer to campus dining director and then regional manager for the company that ran the dining service. No matter what he did to upgrade the food or the dining ambiance, student satisfaction scores refused to budge. Then one day he had an epiphany: as long as the students felt they had no choice of where to eat, improving the quality of the food they were forced to eat wouldn't improve their opinions of it. </oldFartAnecdote>
The problem is that this would prevent the EPA from using public health studies in drafting regulations unless the study authors release data that would identify individuals' health issues.
After reconstruction ended free black farmers turned to small scale crops that could be sold locally for small amounts of cash -- like watermelons. Recognizing this for what it was -- genuine enterprise -- would contradict the slavery narrative that blacks were too lazy to be allowed freedom. So instead the association of blacks with watermelons was used in popular (white) media to paint them as animal-like gluttons.
"Bullshit" is a statement that you're NOT expected to believe to be true, but which you'll go along with if it were true.
Note correction.
The danger is putting too much faith in the concept of sides. We're all against the commies, big business CEOs are also against the commies, so big business CEOs are on our side, right? We're fighting against ISIS in Syria. The Kurds and Turks are also fighting ISIS in Syria, so the Kurds and the Turks are friends, right? And the Saudis are our allies too, for that matter.